Back in the early 90's I was knocking on the door of 2000, but never quite reached it. I haven't played tournament chess since then, but in playing 7 minutes games against CM8 I might be stronger today, although definitely weaker in the openings. I would like to believe I play at well above 2000 level, but I seriously doubt that is the case.

"<Chessgames.com>: It should be noted regarding Little ChessPartner: Some chess engines, like Crafty, report negative values to show that Black is winning, and positive values to show that White is winning but LCP doesn't work that way. When it has an evaluation like "246" that means it believes that it is winning by 246, where 100=one pawn. If it shows a negative evaluation, it thinks that it is losing.

Our statement that it plays at a 2000 level on the fastest of PC's is a very rough estimate. We've seen it lose to a 1400 player, and we've seen it beat a master. Tactical situations are where it performs best, but even there it is no match for a Crafty, Fritz, or the "real" Chess Partner software by Lokasoft.

The strongest Java chess program, to our knowledge, is Jester Chess found here: http://www.ludochess.com/jester_eng... "

Thank you all very much for your input on my question.

When I tried to analyze an obviously drawn rook endgame with crafty, crafty kept saying that it was won for the side up a pawn. It was like a +1.55 advantage or something, but it was theoretically drawn. But then again, not all engines are supposed to know this.

And I tried analyzing the Ruy Lopez exchange variation:

1. e4 e5 2. f3 c6 3. b5 a6 4. xc6 dxc6 5. 0-0 g4 6. h3 h5 7. d3

If black plays properly then it will take a few more moves for white to get rid of the g4 bishop, but if black suddenly blunders, such as playing a normal developing move when white has built a good enough defense to take the bishop without getting checkmated, crafty never seems to notice that the bishop can be taken without me pointing it out. An example game continued:

7. ... f6 8. e1 e7 9. bd2 0-0-0?

Crafty doesn't seem to notice that 10. hxg4! is now a good and safe move that simply wins a piece. After 10. ... hxg4 11. h2 the move h6 will not win because white has df1.

Today, there is one player (in the database, that we know of) celebrates his birthday today.

Seeing that player's record in the database, the percentage is rather 'low', but it is mainly because the database isn't complete.

I think choosing <Crafty> is cute, especially looking at the picture of <Crafty> and the green letters on a black monitor background!!

She's crafty...and she's just my type!

<pawnofdoom: 1. e4 e5 2. f3 c6 3. b5 a6 4. xc6 dxc6 5. 0-0 g4 6. h3 h5 7. d3

If black plays properly then it will take a few more moves for white to get rid of the g4 bishop, but if black suddenly blunders, such as playing a normal developing move when white has built a good enough defense to take the bishop without getting checkmated, crafty never seems to notice that the bishop can be taken without me pointing it out. An example game continued:

7. ... f6 8. e1 e7 9. bd2 0-0-0?

click for larger view

Crafty doesn't seem to notice that 10. hxg4! is now a good and safe move that simply wins a piece. After 10. ... hxg4 11. h2 the move h6 will not win because white has df1.>

Curious. I think there are various factors that can alter the strength of the engine. My Crafty 20.14 seems to find 10...hxg4 rather quickly. This is running on a 1.7GHZ P4. Nothing special about this. This could be a good test. This is what it gives after a few minutes think on the above position:

Crafty-20.14 [001]:

16 02:47 95.424.899 782.171 +1.16 10. hxg4 hxg4 11. Nh2 Kb8 12. Qxg4 Ng6 13. Qg3 Qe7 14. Nhf3 c5 15. Nc4 Re8 16. Bg5 Qe6 17. Ncxe5 Nxe5 18. Nxe5 Qxe5 19. Qxe5 Rxe5

It would be interesting to see what other engines think about this position after a few minutes.

The above link comes with Crafty and a new Crafty gui thats difficulty is adjustable. You will still have to go to

ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/book/