From: "Jeff Rollason (PocketD)" <100031.3537 COMPUSERVE COM> Date: 17 feb 1998 Subject: Re: The result of the 8th Computer Shogi To: The Shogi Discussion List > INTERNET:SHOGI-L TECHUNIX TECHNION AC IL > The Shotest has been programmed by an English guy who does not know > Shogi so well. Congratulations on his good records! I wonder how he > could manage to establish the winning environment under such conditions > and had beaten the strong AI Shogi (YSS8.0) though AI made several > mistakes at JOBAN stage. Computer's shogi ability came to PRO.level > at TSUMI stage already. I still feel a little safety for other points > Thanks to Nyanko Miyagawa's efforts to submit several Kifus into my > Shogi ML today. > Regards / Dick Iwakura I am that English guy, and indeed am weak at Shogi. I have never won a game! Of course I have only played 3 games against human opponents, so this is early days. I would be interested in any readers of this newsgroup who could volunteer comments on any of my program's games. This could give me valuable insights into my programs' performance. My own weaker playing skill is below my capacity to critically understand games, so I am not entirely helpless. My program came very close to winning the tournament. In the final round only IS-Shogi or my program SHOTEST could win the event, and the outcome depended entirely on the final game between our two programs. Since I had already beaten IS-Shogi in the first round, I was probably favourite to win again. However IS-Shogi won this time and was a deserving winner. The overall standard of this event was much higher than last year. This can be seen by the way that highly ranked programs last year failed to make progress this time. YSS dropped to 5th having won every game last year. Yano dropped from 5th to 16th. My program was certainly much stronger. In one game it annouced a win in 39 moves and a win in 33 moves in another. I don't think I personally will ever be in that league! Jeff Rollason, Author of SHOTEST v2.0