Hard Computer Vs. iTouch Chess App

Jan 3, 2011, 8:34 PM |

I recently bought a chess app on my iPod Touch for just 99c. The app was called Mastersoft Chess (V1.30) and I bought it the moment I had the money. Not to promote anything, but this app is amazing. It has many features, yada yada yada, and I had a spark of interest: I decided to test it out. The software, I mean.

And so it started. I set up my chess app on my iPod Touch. I went on this website's computer chess program (not rated of course) and I begun an astounding experiment. To see, which chess software was stronger. Chess.com's hard computer rated at 2000+ or my chess app with a set amount of time per move. To be honest, the hard computer used much more time during the games, so in all honesty, my chess app had a disadvantage.

I experimented with 3 games, each with different variables:

First game, I set my app to play black, with 5 second think time (depth 6) versing the 1600 medium computer.
Second game, I set my app to play black, with 5 second think time (depth 6) versing the 2000 hard computer.
Third game, I set my app to play black, with 10 second think time (depth 7-8) versing the 2000 hard computer.

In each game, my app played black and with lower thinking time, two disadvantages in all games. Below are the games, and to be honest, they were not at all boring, each with a different style of play. And since they were not my games, I can't annotate any of them, so just look through them and observe.

Game 1

After looking over the game, I saw that my chess app for 99c kicked the AI out of the 1600 computer! And to top it all off, my chess app had less time for computing, which only adds to the glory of my chess app easily beating the 1600 medium computer.

Game 2

This game sort of surprised me. Not because of the game ending in a tie, but because my app still did not lose. The hard computer still could not crush through my app's strategy. And my app still had the same settings, so perhaps my app is equal in strength with a 5 second thinking time. Nevertheless, the score is 0.5-1.5! Next game:

Game 3

And viola! My chess app literally crushed the hard computer. My app had double thinking time, yes, but I saw that chess.com's hard computer had much more time for thinking. And with a depth of 8 moves at max, my app had seen that there was a checkmate for it 8 moves before checkmate. Incredible!

If you have any thoughts on the game's or have any questions, just drop a comment or message me.

Hard Computer Vs. iTouch Chess App

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