Its clear Dave is not a fan of chess, and he has reviewed very few chess, checkers, and backgammon games. To play a computer at chess was pretty impressive for the 2600, and is kinda a gaming milestone. How much better is the Intellivision?
Anyone have interest in Dave reviewing a few more board games, say on the Intellivision and NES and Gameboy, or just too boring to read, and too tedious for Dave to review?
Computers Playing Chess
-
Wallyworld1
- Posts: 488
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Computers Playing Chess
Read his review on Space Chess for the Arcadia 2001. In the review he pretty much let's his feelings on chess know.
He wrote, "Finally someone has figured out a way to make normal Chess even more tedious!".
I can understand where he is coming from because I hate playing Chess against someone much better at it then myself. Makes me feel pretty dumb TBH!
He wrote, "Finally someone has figured out a way to make normal Chess even more tedious!".
I can understand where he is coming from because I hate playing Chess against someone much better at it then myself. Makes me feel pretty dumb TBH!
-
Sut1
- Posts: 789
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Computers Playing Chess
I would find the reviews pretty dull myself, However ! Chronogamer had a great idea when he got to these type of games, he would do a versus event.
He basically had the 2600 chess and Channel F chess games both set up on separate TV's and played them against each other to see who won, if memory serves the 2600 won that particular battle. It made for an entertaining read on what can be a dry gaming genre.
He basically had the 2600 chess and Channel F chess games both set up on separate TV's and played them against each other to see who won, if memory serves the 2600 won that particular battle. It made for an entertaining read on what can be a dry gaming genre.
-
darkrage61
- Posts: 1678
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Computers Playing Chess
I don't blame him, I find those games boring in real life and playing them on a screen wouldn't be much of a improvement. My grandmother used to have a computer with a chess game on it, and I lost every single time I played it, seriously, you had to be Stephen Hawking levels of smart to beat the computer.
-
Teddybear1
- Posts: 130
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Computers Playing Chess
I always thought Atari 2600 Video Chess was very impressive (especially considering how early on it was released). Impressive...... to this novice player that only plays level 2. The computer AI is very good and the flickering screen between moves is long enough to allow for a gulp or two of a beer.
I do think the D- grade is harsh but given that it is just chess it is hard to protest. And I have yet to read from someone complaining about the VCG's missing review for USCF Chess for the Intellivision.
I do think the D- grade is harsh but given that it is just chess it is hard to protest. And I have yet to read from someone complaining about the VCG's missing review for USCF Chess for the Intellivision.
-
scotland171
- Posts: 816
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Computers Playing Chess
Just chess? A 4k program that handles the rules of chess and some AI with a loss fuction to decide on a move, different skill levels, and a way to handle 32 chess pieces of up to 8 per row. Most Impressive.
I agree with Darkrage that chess games are soul crushing opponents to casual chess players. These things deserve the Arthur award for extreme difficulty. Your team will suffer deaths, over and over again. There will be sacrifice. The boss wears a crown. Swift reflex has no value here. There is only power, influence, position, foresight, ignorance, false confidence, traps, gambits, pins, forks, and cold blooded calculation. When you lose, your opponent will offer no kind word, no consolation. There will be no high score for losers. Yet the rare victory will be as water in the desert, sweet and invigorating.
Cry havoc, and let slip the pawns of war!
I agree with Darkrage that chess games are soul crushing opponents to casual chess players. These things deserve the Arthur award for extreme difficulty. Your team will suffer deaths, over and over again. There will be sacrifice. The boss wears a crown. Swift reflex has no value here. There is only power, influence, position, foresight, ignorance, false confidence, traps, gambits, pins, forks, and cold blooded calculation. When you lose, your opponent will offer no kind word, no consolation. There will be no high score for losers. Yet the rare victory will be as water in the desert, sweet and invigorating.
Cry havoc, and let slip the pawns of war!
-
goldenband1
- Posts: 139
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Computers Playing Chess
I'm a fairly proficient chessplayer (not master strength, but fairly close), and I've had fun putting the smackdown on various older chess programs, including the ones for Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Here's my winning game against the Atari 2600 on its highest level, and here are my victories with the White and Black pieces over the Intellivision at its strongest setting. The Intellivision is clearly the stronger of the two, but not by as much as I was expecting.
The Atari 2600 program allegedly suffers from a bug where it will abruptly cheat or make an illegal move, but I didn't encounter that. OTOH the Intellivision program had a clear bug of some kind on the highest level -- in certain positions, after several hours of thinking, it would suddenly throw up an error and refuse to continue.
And speaking of hours, the main problem with both games is their absolutely insane time consumption; I used a sped-up emulator to battle both games on the highest level, as otherwise you'd need to leave the Atari on for 100+ hours, and the Intellivision would take nearly as long. To be clear, this isn't normal, and usually chess is played under a strict time limit anyway.
I love old chess games and would welcome the VGC's review of anything he hasn't covered already. Since he's close-ish to completing the Intellivision library anyway, I think a review of USCF Chess would be worthwhile.
BTW the strongest retrogaming chess title I've played so far is probably Chessmaster for NES (I'd imagine the SNES version is comparable or better). That game puts up a real fight, but some of the novelty chess games, like Battle Chess for 3DO (winning game here) and Star Wars Chess for Sega CD, have been surprisingly weak considering their release era. I'd really like to try the Odyssey^2 release, but unfortunately it's not compatible with NTSC systems.
The Atari 2600 program allegedly suffers from a bug where it will abruptly cheat or make an illegal move, but I didn't encounter that. OTOH the Intellivision program had a clear bug of some kind on the highest level -- in certain positions, after several hours of thinking, it would suddenly throw up an error and refuse to continue.
And speaking of hours, the main problem with both games is their absolutely insane time consumption; I used a sped-up emulator to battle both games on the highest level, as otherwise you'd need to leave the Atari on for 100+ hours, and the Intellivision would take nearly as long. To be clear, this isn't normal, and usually chess is played under a strict time limit anyway.
I love old chess games and would welcome the VGC's review of anything he hasn't covered already. Since he's close-ish to completing the Intellivision library anyway, I think a review of USCF Chess would be worthwhile.
BTW the strongest retrogaming chess title I've played so far is probably Chessmaster for NES (I'd imagine the SNES version is comparable or better). That game puts up a real fight, but some of the novelty chess games, like Battle Chess for 3DO (winning game here) and Star Wars Chess for Sega CD, have been surprisingly weak considering their release era. I'd really like to try the Odyssey^2 release, but unfortunately it's not compatible with NTSC systems.
-
scotland171
- Posts: 816
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Computers Playing Chess
Watched the animated GIF of some of your games. The one with the Queen sacrifice had me gulp. You also have patience, even on an emulator you wrote about how long some moves took. On a real machine with RF plates, the poor thing might overheat. As a poster there said, that series of battles against Stella are epic. Kudos on your skill.
Is there anything random? If you replay a game, does Video Chess always play the same responses to your moves?
Considering its only 4k, I would guess there is neither an opening database nor a database for common piece endings. Is that correct?
I found this http://www.becomeawordgameexpert.com/computers.htm, on how computers choose between moves. Would you think this is how Video Chess also works?
Is there anything random? If you replay a game, does Video Chess always play the same responses to your moves?
Considering its only 4k, I would guess there is neither an opening database nor a database for common piece endings. Is that correct?
I found this http://www.becomeawordgameexpert.com/computers.htm, on how computers choose between moves. Would you think this is how Video Chess also works?
-
goldenband1
- Posts: 139
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Computers Playing Chess
Thanks for the kind words! I actually played several of the games on a train that was massively delayed (over 7 hours), which gave me some time to kill to say the least. It was the perfect time to do it.
Good question on whether the Atari game is deterministic (always plays the same moves if the difficulty level is the same); I don't remember for sure. I originally tried to play the Intellivision on real hardware, but ran into the bug I mentioned earlier at least twice -- and, now that I think about it, in emulation I was also able to reproduce the bug in the exact same position! So I think the Intellivision is at least partly deterministic.
I don't think the Atari has an opening book, but the Intellivision might have a small one. They definitely don't have any kind of ending tablebase/database.
NES Chessmaster had quite a decent opening book, IIRC -- some openings tapped out early, but in others like the Ruy Lopez it knew as many as 10-12 moves. It was easy to take it "out of book", but it still had a good handle on the initial phase of a bunch of mainstream openings, which is impressive for a cartridge game.
And as you mention, I was worried about cooking my console by leaving it on too long. I didn't really try battling Atari Video Chess on real hardware, and I ultimately gave up on doing so with the Intellivision, but the 3DO game did take a couple days worth of hardware time (though at least I could save the game in that).
Good question on whether the Atari game is deterministic (always plays the same moves if the difficulty level is the same); I don't remember for sure. I originally tried to play the Intellivision on real hardware, but ran into the bug I mentioned earlier at least twice -- and, now that I think about it, in emulation I was also able to reproduce the bug in the exact same position! So I think the Intellivision is at least partly deterministic.
I don't think the Atari has an opening book, but the Intellivision might have a small one. They definitely don't have any kind of ending tablebase/database.
NES Chessmaster had quite a decent opening book, IIRC -- some openings tapped out early, but in others like the Ruy Lopez it knew as many as 10-12 moves. It was easy to take it "out of book", but it still had a good handle on the initial phase of a bunch of mainstream openings, which is impressive for a cartridge game.
And as you mention, I was worried about cooking my console by leaving it on too long. I didn't really try battling Atari Video Chess on real hardware, and I ultimately gave up on doing so with the Intellivision, but the 3DO game did take a couple days worth of hardware time (though at least I could save the game in that).
-
Mr_SQL1
- Posts: 5
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Computers Playing Chess
[QUOTE=goldenband]I'm a fairly proficient chessplayer (not master strength, but fairly close), and I've had fun putting the smackdown on various older chess programs, including the ones for Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Here's my winning game against the Atari 2600 on its highest level, and here are my victories with the White and Black pieces over the Intellivision at its strongest setting. The Intellivision is clearly the stronger of the two, but not by as much as I was expecting.
The Atari 2600 program allegedly suffers from a bug where it will abruptly cheat or make an illegal move, but I didn't encounter that. OTOH the Intellivision program had a clear bug of some kind on the highest level -- in certain positions, after several hours of thinking, it would suddenly throw up an error and refuse to continue.
And speaking of hours, the main problem with both games is their absolutely insane time consumption; I used a sped-up emulator to battle both games on the highest level, as otherwise you'd need to leave the Atari on for 100+ hours, and the Intellivision would take nearly as long. To be clear, this isn't normal, and usually chess is played under a strict time limit anyway.
I love old chess games and would welcome the VGC's review of anything he hasn't covered already. Since he's close-ish to completing the Intellivision library anyway, I think a review of USCF Chess would be worthwhile.
BTW the strongest retrogaming chess title I've played so far is probably Chessmaster for NES (I'd imagine the SNES version is comparable or better). That game puts up a real fight, but some of the novelty chess games, like Battle Chess for 3DO (winning game here) and Star Wars Chess for Sega CD, have been surprisingly weak considering their release era. I'd really like to try the Odyssey^2 release, but unfortunately it's not compatible with NTSC systems.
[/QUOTE]
Great post goldenband, clear you are a strong player!![[smile]](/images/boards/smilies/smile.gif)
Atari Video Chess is one of my favourites too - is it noticeably better on the highest level? Level 6 is what I usually play on and the 5 or 10 minutes of pleasant mood colours cycling before you see the board again is pretty awesome
I like the Chess Challenger 7's game too, another strong 4k player from 1979.
I would really like to try Fairchild Channel F Chess, have you played that one?
Your assessment of the strengths of those other programs is right on and I agree the Chessmasters strength is among the best.
The Atari 2600 program allegedly suffers from a bug where it will abruptly cheat or make an illegal move, but I didn't encounter that. OTOH the Intellivision program had a clear bug of some kind on the highest level -- in certain positions, after several hours of thinking, it would suddenly throw up an error and refuse to continue.
And speaking of hours, the main problem with both games is their absolutely insane time consumption; I used a sped-up emulator to battle both games on the highest level, as otherwise you'd need to leave the Atari on for 100+ hours, and the Intellivision would take nearly as long. To be clear, this isn't normal, and usually chess is played under a strict time limit anyway.
I love old chess games and would welcome the VGC's review of anything he hasn't covered already. Since he's close-ish to completing the Intellivision library anyway, I think a review of USCF Chess would be worthwhile.
BTW the strongest retrogaming chess title I've played so far is probably Chessmaster for NES (I'd imagine the SNES version is comparable or better). That game puts up a real fight, but some of the novelty chess games, like Battle Chess for 3DO (winning game here) and Star Wars Chess for Sega CD, have been surprisingly weak considering their release era. I'd really like to try the Odyssey^2 release, but unfortunately it's not compatible with NTSC systems.
[/QUOTE]
Great post goldenband, clear you are a strong player!
Atari Video Chess is one of my favourites too - is it noticeably better on the highest level? Level 6 is what I usually play on and the 5 or 10 minutes of pleasant mood colours cycling before you see the board again is pretty awesome I like the Chess Challenger 7's game too, another strong 4k player from 1979.
I would really like to try Fairchild Channel F Chess, have you played that one?
Your assessment of the strengths of those other programs is right on and I agree the Chessmasters strength is among the best.