PART 1 • Some highlights of home computer chess through 1998
between games in techniques to use against her power-mad husband, in the hope that you would beat him. Power Chess also contained the first“ adaptive opponent” in a home chess application: the King was programmed to change his strength depending on how well you did against him – the idea was to allow the user to win about 25 % of his or her games against the King. Power Chess also offered Internet play against other people; I was a happy member of a cool little online“ Power Chess club” for a while, playing with the nicest bunch of people I ' ve ever encountered on an online chess server. Power Chess was crippled by the fact that it never ran well on any Windows version after Windows 95( a common failing with most Sierra software titles of the period); the company was sold, the programming team was disbanded, and Power Chess sadly faded into obscurity, fondly remembered by a few as one of the coolest chess programs of all time.
1996: A bizarre controversy surrounded the Chess Wars program. Similar in concept to Battle Chess, a capture in Chess Wars would be accompanied by a( bloodless) video of human medieval re-enactors fighting man to man. Despite the fact that I ' ve seen worse fights over the last turkey leg at a Renaissance festival, some users overreacted at the“ violence” of the program. Oddly, these same users never complained about the fact that a significant number of Chess Wars ' features didn ' t work at all, and a promised upgrade to fix the problems never materialized. It ' s worth tracking this one down at thrift shops or yard sales if you have an old computer to run it on, just so you can laugh at what all the“ uproar” was about.
1997: Another controversial chess program hit the market when U. S. Chess Federation Chess made it to store shelves. The program allowed the user to play rated games and, if not yet a USCF member, print out a rating certificate based on his in-game results which could be used as the player ' s official rating in his first USCF tournament. Established USCF rated players raised a ruckus over it and the( admittedly bad) idea faded away, due more to the fact that the program was riddled with bugs and was thus a commercial dud than to the objections of USCF rated players.
1997: The Fritz 5 program introduced“ Sparring mode”; as the chess engine analyzed, if it saw a tactical shot for the human player in a future position, the program would steer toward that position instead of trying to avoid it, and would even notify the user by flashing a light on the screen. The feature was five years in development and was( in my opinion) a really significant advance in chess software. The actual workings of“ Sparring mode” are a trade secret, and though the feature has been in every version of Fritz released since v5, it has never been duplicated by another software manufacturer.
33 chessking. com