Engine Insights

In the first post of this series, Houdini, Komodo, Stockfish, I mentioned 'Tartajubow On Chess' as a source for ideas on correspondence play and engines. Starting almost three years ago, here are a selection of relevant posts that have proved useful for further insights.

• 2012-04: The Best Chess Engine for Correspondence Play is... • 'Different engines have different weaknesses but we won't know when one is spitting out a better move than another. Of course, no engine will give the correct answer every time.'
  
  
• 2013-05: Engine Strengths & Weaknesses • 'While surfing some engine forums recently I compiled a list of attributes for various engines. Here is a brief summary of other people's opinions of the strengths and weaknesses of some of the more popular engines.'
  
  
• 2013-09: Chess Engine "Styles" • 'After prowling forums dealing with chess engines, I have come up with a general consensus of the strengths and weaknesses of various engines which are summarized below.'
  
  
• 2014-04: Which Analysis Engine? • 'I found this question asked on a forum and the one of the "engine experts" gave his opinion which was based on the number of engines being used (I assume when using Aquarium's IDeA). What I found interesting was his evaluation of the strengths of the engines.'
  
  
• 2014-07: Thoughts on Study and CC Play and Engines • 'Whose Games to Study? Alekhine's, Capablanca's or those of Carlsen and Aronian? In the recent edition of Chess Life magazine, GM Andy Soltis in his column Chess To Enjoy, made the following observation: "Chess combinations have a way of being repeated... This is why studying great tactical battles of the past is so useful."' • On my chess960 blog I also found GM Soltis's July column useful: It's Not Unusual and Clinging to the Past.
  
  
• 2014-09: More Thoughts on Correspondence Chess • 'I ran into a friend the other day who asked me if I was still playing chess and I told him just correspondence and the discussion, of course, got around to CC these days and engine use. Like many, he didn't see the point of letting my engine play against the other guy's engine.'
  
  
• 2014-09: Advanced Chess aka Server Play As It Is Played These Days • 'I was recently reading a post on a chess engine blog which sent me to a page that gave hints on using a chess engine in server play.'
  
  
• 2014-12: Some Interesting Chess Articles • 'The CCLA Server site has some articles that make interesting reading.'
  
  
• 2015-01: Even Engines Need Time to Think • '33 running games. That's how many my opponent had going and quite often he replied to my move within a few minutes so he was effectively playing at a blitz pace in most of his games.'

That last link brings us full circle to my initial post 'Houdini, Komodo, Stockfish', where I used the same quote. Thanks, Tartajubow!

tartajubow.blogspot.com