From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 16 may 1997 Subject: Re: Shogi computing SChazworth AOL COM writes: > A major advance in chess computing came when Grandmasters started to help > with the project, adding less concrete, more subjective strategies into the > tactical machine. > How many of shogi top 100 work in this capacity? Would the shogi community > gasp in horror if one of the top players did this? > Clearly, shogi needs more of a "human" touch then chess does, as shogi is > more dependant on difficult to measure items such as attack, initiative, > piece positioning, etc. Yamashita-san seems to indicate in the interview in Shukan Shogi that there are some professionals who help him with his program. It seems thus far four professionals have played against the program and commented on it. Of course, this is still far from the participation of Murray Campbell and Joel Benjamin of the Deep Blue team. I agree that the participation of professionals would help the development of the programs, but I think that Shogi professionals (except for their mating ability) do not take the programs too seriously. I expect that the programs have to become a little more stronger to get the attention of the professional players. This being said, there is of course a (ex-)professional working on computer Shogi. Iida Hiroyuki (5-dan) has an indefinite leave of absence from professional shogi and is currently working at the university of Shizuoka. Reijer -- Reijer Grimbergen Electrotechnical Laboratory Palcious Tsukuba 302 1-1-4 Umezono 1-24-8 Ninomiya Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken 305 JAPAN 305 JAPAN E-mail: grimberg etl go jp Tel: 0298-59-1606 WWW: http://www.etl.go.jp:8080/etl/suiron/~grimberg Tel: +81-(0)298-54-5080 extension: 67431 Fax: +81-(0)298-58-5918