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Knightmate. Win by mating the knight. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Aug 16, 2010 10:28 AM UTC:

That is incredibly stupid play by white, letting its Bishop be trapped like that. It seems n error not even a 1600-rated player would make. (Well, perhaps at blitz...) I severely doubt the rating quoted for this machine.

Fact is that ratings are reltive measures, so that a rating doesn't mean a whole lot if you don't know the zero point of the scale it is measured on. This Saitek is not on any computer rating scale I know, so I can't really judge the importance of winning a game from it. I would be more impressed if you showed me a game where Zillions would beat JokerKM at Knightmate. Or SMIRF at Capablanca.

(It won't happen in a Zillion years! :-))) Not even with 100-fold time odds. On your rating scale JokerKM must be rated 5000!)

Perhaps a better idea: have a variant-spanning match between Fairy-Max (or its dedicated derivatives) and Zillions, playing a game (or perhaps two, with black and white) of Chess, Xiangqi, Shatranj, Makruk, Capablanca, Knightmate, Superchess, Great Shatranj, Cylinder and Berolina?

Of course all this is side tracking a bit from the original point, the value of Commoner vs. Knight. For it is not even claimed that Zillions thins Commoners are better than Knights, in opening or end-game...