Sam Trenholme (Vktj)
New member
Username: Vktj
Post Number: 7
Registered: 7-2013
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 07, 2013 - 1:39 am: | |
I like playing FIDE Chess against Zillions more than any variant. While anyone can come up with a Chess variant in five minutes, no one can come up with a variant with hundreds of years of history that only very few variants have (Shantraj, FIDE/Mad Queen Chess, Chinese Chess, Korean Chess, Shogi, some other minor national variants).
For example, I can defeat Zillions, even when giving it three minutes per move in my Core i5 laptop when I have Zillions play the Evans Gambit, by playing the following line from the 1891 German Handbuch des Schachspiels:
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 exd4 7. O-O dxc3 8. Qb3 Qe7 9. Nxc3 Bxc3 10. Qxc3 Nf6 11. Ba3 d6 12. e5 Ne4 13. Qb2 Nxe5 14. Nxe5 Qxe5 15. Rfe1! Qxb2 (15. ... f5 or Bf5 is refuted by 16. f3) 16. Bxb2 O-O 17. Rxe4 and now Black doesn't have compensation for White's piece.
I like Zillions because it has an adjustable difficulty slider and can be set up to play some really fun club-level chess games full of cheesy mistakes. Grandmaster-strength chess programs are like the master at the local chess club you never enjoy playing but who gives you great analysis to improve your chess. Zillions, on the other hand, is your fun-loving buddy at the local chess club who you love to play with because he will play whatever line (or even variant) you feel like playing, and because you can defeat him about half the time.
Here is a PDF showing Zillions being defeated at five different difficulty levels when playing the Evans Gambit:
http://microblog.samiam.org/ZoG/Example-Zillions-games.pdf
And the rules file to play the Evans (based on Mats' improvements to Zillions play):
http://microblog.samiam.org/ZoG/other/Evans-Accepted.zip |