Shredding Junior

Hello again. No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Not yet anyway! Still struggling through life with a stiff back. I hear it may last for weeks. At least it seems to be getting a little better every day. Today was busy for me, lots of moving around, so I hope that I don't take a step back with it tomorrow.

I've been having some good luck playing poker the last few days. No-Limit Hold 'em if you were curious. Sunday I came in 2nd in one tournament, 1st in another, and nothing to talk about in a third. On Monday I came in 2nd and today I came in 3rd. 1st through 3rd pays, so it's been pretty good.

I've also started wondering about Junior. Junior 8 to be exact. What is Junior? It is one of the strongest chess programs on the market. If you were to pick the top 3, you'd probably go with Shredder 8, Junior 8, and Fritz 8. Let's ignore the fact that Shredder 8 just got its butt kicked by Hydra, because Hydra is running on specialized hardware. Shredder, Junior, and Fritz all share the same interface. It's just the underlying engine that's different. I recently picked up both Shredder and Junior. Shredder is a lot of what you'd expect from one of the best programs, Junior is supposed to play more "human"/tactical type games. I thought they'd be a great mix.

To do some basic comparisons I decided to have them play some tournaments against each other. I wanted some immediate feedback, so I decided to have them play bullet (game in 1 minute) chess. I thought that in really fast play Junior might have the advantage because of it's tactical nature. Boy was I wrong! After about 20 games, Shredder has one every single one - easily. It doesn't seem right. Two of the top chess programs in the world, and one of them getting constantly outplayed. I don't care what the time control, that just doesn't make sense. Anyway, I need to play some slower games and do some more research because there must be some kind of an explanation for it.

Until next time!