From: "'Marc Theeuwen'" <Marc_Theeuwen <at> AMSINC <dot> COM>
Date: 21 jan 2000
Subject: Re: Shotest available online

In response to Nick Hart and Reijer Grimbergen's messages on Shotest, I would
like to share my experiences with Shotest. Having the privilege of testing
several beta-releases of Shotest, I must say that I am quite impressed with
Shotest. Already the first version gave me quite some trouble in especially the
middle game and brought me almost to the point of resigning. However, the
endgame of shotest was at that time not as strong as it is now, so I could
manage to win it. Since then, I am no longer playing it so naively and have not
lost from it yet, but fear the day is coming close. The latest beta version I
was playing used a databases of several hundred of amateur games, and used to
follow their opening lines, but ones shotest is out of its opening repertoire,
it plays "strange" moves. However, I have not been able to take advantage from
it. The middle game still is superior to mine (I am only 3-dan), so it is still
valuable for me to train against. Often I have to beat Shotest in the endgame
from a slightly inferior position. Therefore I believe amateurs up till 3-dan
should be able to enjoy their play against this program. The only disadvantage I
have is that games tend to take quite long. On average a game takes my computer
(P120) about 2.5hours, 0.5 hours of which is my time.

If desired (and allowed by the programmer), I could give you some sample games I
played against Shotest in the fall last year.

Marc Theeuwen