Author: A. Cozzie
Date: 06:24:32 09/06/05
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On September 06, 2005 at 02:22:48, Shaley wrote: >On September 06, 2005 at 01:39:14, Sandro Necchi wrote: > >>Hi all, >> >>I like to help the new programmers buying their product to let them get some >>money for their hard work. I have been doing this since many years and >>suggesting other people to do it to. >>I wrote on several chess magazine in Italy articles on chess programs for years >>and still several people do call me still asking suggestions and so on. >> >>I was planning to buy Zappa and to help his young programmer I have given some >>suggestion to help him selling more, but I got offended by GC Pascutto, the >>programmer of D. Sjeng and a heavy post from Vincent. >> >>So, I have decided not to buy Zappa, D. Sjeng and the pocket from Vincent >>anymore under any circontances. >> >>I think the respect obout other people and their opinions, suggestions and >>education are extremely important. >>Respect does not mean to do these things, but it is not acceptable to reply >>offending them or similar things. >> >>If education or respect do not exist, their products do not either to me. >> >>Sandro > >Hello Sandro, > >I think you're going to extremes now. People who post in forums over here or >elsewhere do not always keep calm and rather express very provocative >statements. I've come across the same situation on the Russian offline chess >forums. And I've gradually come to the conclusion that while posting some >non-neutral or even hurting viewpoints we try to look highbrow very often >without any weighty grounds. I also think that after that huge success Zappa had >at WCCC they might just think they can rule the game in computer chess >community. However, I don't think it's the case. Zappa is a very good programme >but it's still not the master of the ring. And the recent match between Hiarcs >and Zappa showed it very clearly. There's been too much fuss about Zappa over >here recently without any good reasons, just because of its nice play at WCCC. >Besides, as a man in a Shredder team you shouldn't support the rivals, should >you? And Shredder is still the SSDF leader and will surely be the leader for >many months to come. I cannot push you anyway, but if you want to support some >outside programmers you should support Mark Uniacke and his Hiarcs 10 to be >released soon. In my opinion, there're only two best programmes to date: >Shredder and Hiarcs. Only time can show if Zappa will become another one. >Best regards, >Alexander All of CCC needs to realize something: the number of people on the planet who are seriously interested in engine-engine play is perhaps 1000. When you sell something, you want to target a large group of people. I'd rather try to sell Zappa to 'people who like to play chess', and have features for them, than 'computer chess afficiandos' who like to run engine matches for days on end, simply because there are *way more* of the former. If I can sell a copy of Zapa to 0.01% of the former I will make more money than selling to 90% of the latter. These people don't know or care what the letters UCI stand for. The want more chess features, better weakened versions of the engines, better analysis, chess courses, and such, not a stronger engine. Zappa's main contributions to Diep3D are publicity and the simple fact that Vincent can write World Champion on the box, which will improve his sales quite a bit IMO, because people like to buy the best just out of habit. This is something of a bitter pill for the CCC crowd, but that is the way the cookie crumbles. To make matters worse, I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that Fritz9 is less than 5 elo stronger than Fritz8 when played against Shredder. This is because Chessbase also wants to target 'people who like to play chess' and not CCC. For better or for worse, smaller groups just don't get what they want as much, whether its tennis doubles players, libertarians, or computer chess fans. I would of course still like all of you to buy a copy of Zappa :) But if you feel that it won't meet your needs because it doesn't support X protocol, or the GUI doesn't look the way you want it to look, then it is your money and you are free to spend it elsewhere. I think in general Vincent is going to try to pack as much into his interface as possible, so perhaps a 'wait and see' strategy might work out best for some of you. And if you want to state that you won't buy the program, that is fine, but can you do it without appending the 'and the programmer is an idiot!' ? I don't expect you to like that decision, but I'd rather that you expressed your dislike with a minimum of vitriol. Secondly, something that is REALLY pissing me off. It is starting to appear to me that people are associating anything on Zappa as coming from me. I only write stuff that comes with the tag 'A. Cozzie'. I'm not the one who is calling Zappa the second coming. As I have stated before, I think Zappa can hang with any engine out there: Fruit, Hiarcs, Shredder, Junior, whatever. I agree it lost vs Hiarcs, but lets not forget: random book and 10 games. I beat Toga in a 10 game match and no one was proclaiming it was dead :) And I should probably mention: Erdo was toying with a whole bunch of different settings during his time on playchess. He was more beta-testing for Zappa than trying to prove its strength. Lastly, my personal opinion is: ultimately only tournaments count. At a tournament you show up with your best. Your special settings. Your best tournament lines. Your best hardware. You work extra hard to improve the engine for a month prior. This is why winning vs Shredder at the World Champs counts more to me than beating it on some random guys computer 1000 times. sincerely, anthony
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