Tom F. wrote:
I know programing a chess engine is very difficult. I took a stab at
it in college and gave up.

I've done it and I don't think it's *so* difficult to write a chess
engine. It's reasonable to be proud of having written one and there's
no shame in having tried and not got there -- it's not easy.

BUT, I know for sure I wouldn't post results like that.

Amen. I've not looked at any of Sanny's engine's games for a long
time but, when I did, they were either of a very low standard or had
taken an unacceptably long time to play.

As it happens, my engine was about as strong as me in the middlegame
but played a very weak endgame. I wouldn't have been ashamed to post
its games here but there wouldn't have been much point because the
individual moves give little information about what's going on. This
whole approach of `here's a game -- tell me what I need to improve' is
fundamentally flawed.

Your engine is not even beta. It's very rudimentary alpha. I guess it
doesn't make any illegal moves. That's a great accomplishment,
actually.

Wellllll, a chess engine works by generating a list of legal moves and
then choosing one of them. Generating the list is by far the easiest
part of that and I'd hope that any competent programmer would be able
to enumerate the legal moves in any position.

If I were you, I'd keep quiet, at least, until your engine can hold
its own against Crafty or some similar engine.

That's a big ask. There aren't many who've written an engine that
strong.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Surprise Incredible Smokes (TM):
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ it's like a pack of cigarettes but
it'll blow your mind and not like
you'd expect!