Author: Steve Maughan
Date: 17:12:39 02/09/06
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Will, I do think Fruit had an impact but I think you are over emphasizing it. In my view the key events for amateur chess are the following (all dates from memory): 1996 / 1997: Crafty - everyone saw the inner workings of a decent chess program. Null move was there for all to see (yes I know about Chrilly's 1993 paper but this was one of the first working examples) and null move became a standard part of virtually every amateur chess program 1999: TSCP - showed the world that a chess program didn't need to be that complex to play chess. This game amateurs a lot of confidence to start and in some cases a starting point 2000 - 2003: Thanks to Christophe (Gambit Tiger) much more attention is paid to king safety and selective search ideas. 2001: UCI protocol. The old school hated it but essentially it makes writing a chess program easier. 2002: Ed shows some of the inner workings of Rebel. (IMO this has had as much, if not more, of an impact on amateur chess as Fruit). For the first time everyone can see how a veteran of 20 years has tuned a classic piece of software. We see Rebel's innovative square control routine and the reduction that Rebel uses. 2003 - 2005: I'd call this the post Crafty period, where Hyatt is not the main source of new ideas for amateurs. Many amateurs (Tord Rhomstad, Sergei Markov [even Vincent!!] come to mind) start to share some interesting ideas. Notable, history based reduction, Botvinick-Markov extensions and exotic move ordering heuristics. IMO this sparked many new ways to think about the search. 2004 - 2005: Fruit bounds onto the scene. For me the big learning was that clean and simple can still be strong - bugs can dramatically reduce playing strength. It's obvious but Fruit demonstrated it. I'd also say that Fruit marked the end of the 'bitboards are the future' movement. End of 2005: Rybka - (bitboards are still alive!!) I think the main contribution of Rybka so far is to re-awaken an interest in complex / accurate evaluations. Fruit et al had made us think that a simple evaluation, if coupled with a good search can play string chess - Rybka pull us back in the other direction. So I tend to side with Tord and say that it was more than just Fruit that has caused the big increase in amateur strength. You may, or may not, agree. Steve
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