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ChessVA computer program
. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
M Winther wrote on Sun, Oct 1, 2006 07:44 AM UTC:
Awkward play by Zillions in the opening. But Zillions can easily be made to 
make good pawn opening moves by introducing rewards for such moves. 
As soon as Zillions has moved two pawns he continues to move pawns and 
pieces in a natural way. One can also introduce a reward for castling, and 
punish early queen moves. If one makes these additions to the code then 
Zillions plays chess very humanlike and positionally interesting. The effect is 
remarkable. Zillions's style is quite humanlike because it plays such a 
varied game of chess. It also understands to attack with the pawn on the 
flanks. It is sad that Zillions programmers don't use these tricks because 
there are so many implementations where Zillions plays too much with the 
pieces in the opening, which makes the games less interesting, and the 
play much weaker. You can have a look at the code in my zrf's. In most 
cases you can simply copy it, although it can certainly be improved in many 
ways. Note that I have often also added links from the corner squares. This 
simple trick is a good idea because it discourages Zillions from wasting 
king moves to the corner squares, something which is even more important 
in the Gustavian case.