I want today to give
a shoutout to the Comet B68 chess engine. Might not be the best or perhaps not even
among the top 100, but its peculiarities makes it an estimable companion for
endgame training.
Nowadays top
engines, will generally put an obstinate fight on endgame positions (no
tablebases) coming up with strong moves
consistently. That's fine on one level, but that's also unhumanlike. Humans
will try a variety of plausible moves and, if inspired, try to bamboozle or
swindle. The Comet engine , unlike the
stronger engines that share too much DNA, will try approaches that may not be
objectively the best, but that will still pose problems to the opponent, even
more if he is mechanically playing. That is a plus for endgame training as it
keeps the player on his toes. The most dangerous opponents are frequently those
that are devious or who don't know better.
So far I've not been
able to find another engine with similar characteristics, if you know of
one, please let us know.
According to
computerchess.org.uk Comet has an estimated rating of
2396 as of August 2014 and can be downloaded for free at http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/Comet.html
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