From: Steve Evans <trout <at> NETSPACE <dot> NET <dot> AU>
Date: 15 oct 1997
Subject: Shocky 1.8

Pauli Misikangas has just made available a pre-release experimental
version of his DOS freeware shogi playing program, Shocky.

Shocky is a fabulous little program that plays a surprisingly strong
game. Pauli has tested it against ABC Shogi and GNUShogi (DOS & UNIX),
and Shocky has beaten each of them.

I have just run a couple of games with Shocky 1.8 against the commercial
package Shogi Master (apparently rated at 2 kyu). Shocky (using a 3 ply
search) outperformed Shogi Master at its entry level, and with a 5 ply
search played a creditable losing game (that it should really have
won!). The official release (version 2.0) is due very soon and is
apparently 5-10 times as fast as version 1.8!

There are still some bugs in Shocky 1.8, but it is well worth a look.

Pauli's web page is at:

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/~pmturune/Shocky_e.html


Steve Evans