From: Larry Kaufman WIZARD NET> Date: 14 sep 2000 Subject: Re: Computer's rating At 02:59 PM 9/14/00 +0100, you wrote: >[rate of development of computer shogi] > >> It seems that computer shogi is >> following the same path as computer chess, but about fifteen >> years delayed, due to the greater complexity of the game. > >Hmm. More like due to the fact that vastly less in the way of resources were >devoted to the development of strong Shogi programs in those 15 years. > Of course this is part of the reason, but I believe that the main reason is that shogi requires more powerful hardware than chess (for a given level of performance), which was not available 15 years ago. >If the complexity is greater (and I don't for a microsecond dispute that it >is) it seems, on the face of it, slightly odd that the _rate_ of development >(15 years delayed) is mirroring that of Chess. On reflection, this must be >due to the greater experience of complex games programming that obtains >these 15 years later. > >In other words, if the efforts had run in parallel, I would suspect (and all >we can do is suspect) that Chess programs of Master level would have been >developed before Shogi programs of equivalent level. > >This is merely to point out the obvious fact that Shogi programs benefit >from years of Chess programming experience. > >However, it may be that parallel efforts would have fed off each other to >the mutual benefit of all (just as a Chess player can improve by playing >Shogi). > All this may be true, but I believe that if equal effort had been made from the beginning, computer shogi would still be at least a decade behind computer chess. In 1985, the best chess program running on an original IBM pc ("xt" model) (8088 processor) already played well enough to beat the majority of tournament chess players. In shogi terms it was perhaps about 1 Dan or so. So the question is: if one of today's best shogi programs were modified as necessary to run on an old IBM xt machine, how well would it play? My own guess would be 10 kyu or even worse, but I've only worked on chess software, not shogi software so I'm not fully qualified to say. Shogi programmers reading this, please give us your opinions on this question. >Nick > Larry