XXXX

Home * Engines * XXXX



XXXX (pronounced fourex), a chess program written in C by Martin Zentner and Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, and since 1995, when SMK started his career with Shredder, further developed in C++ as XXXX II by Martin Zentner alone. XXXX had its tournament debut at IPCCC 1994, and XXXX II played the WMCCC 1995, WMCCC 1996, WMCCC 1997 and the WCCC 1999, and regularly participated at IPCCCs during the 90s, and further played the Aegon 1997. XXXX was a conventional PVS searcher applying Null Move Pruning with a rather speculative evaluation for a "human-like" style of play.

=Description= given in 1999 from the ICGA site : XXXX II is a conventional chess program that is not too fast and not too slow. Therefore against other computers it's actually stronger in longer games than in blitz games, which is rather uncommon for todays programs. And XXXX II is always good for a surprising move avoiding a tiring draw. It has quite a bit of knowledge, which can lead the program to interesting positions. Many opponents have said, that XXXX II is rather human-like in it's style of play: Sometimes it plays mistakes, sometimes it plays real beauties. The developer would like to see more beauties of course. :-)

=Photos & Games= David Bronstein vs. XXXX by Martin Zentner, Bruce Moreland watching, Aegon 1997 [Event "AEGON"] [Site "Den Haag"] [Date "1997.04.21"] [Round "4"] [White "David Bronstein"] [Black "XXXX (Computer)"] [Result "1-0"]

1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 Ne7 3.Nf3 d5 4.d3 c5 5.g3 Nbc6 6.Bg2 g6 7.0-0 Bg7 8.e5 h6 9.h4 Qc7 10.Re1 Nd4 11.Nxd4 cxd4 12.c3 Nc6 13.f4 0-0 14.Nd2 dxc3 15.bxc3 Qa5 16.Nf3 Qxc3 17.Bb2 Qa5 18.a4 b5 19.axb5 Qxb5 20.Ba3 Qb6+ 21.Kh2 Re8 22.Rab1 Qc7 23.Rec1 a5 24.h5 gxh5 25.Bd6 Qd7 26.Rb6 Ne7 27.d4 Nf5 28.Ba3 h4 29.g4 Qd8 30.gxf5 Qxb6 31.f6 Ba6 32.Qf2 Qb3 33.Bc5 Bh8 34.Qxh4 Bd3 35.Qxh6 Bg6 36.Nh4 Qd3 37.Rc3 Ra7 1-0

=Forum Posts=
 * Uniform Platform Match "DarkThought" vs. "XXXX II" by Ernst A. Heinz, rgcc, January 15, 1998
 * Uniform Platform Match "DarkThought" vs. "XXXX II" by Ernst A. Heinz, CCC, January 15, 1998 » DarkThought

=External Links=

Chess Program

 * XXXX's ICGA Tournaments
 * David Bronstein vs XXXX (Computer) (1997) from chessgames.com

Misc

 * XXXX (disambiguation) from Wikipedia
 * 48, XXXX from Wikipedia
 * Fourecks, Discworld geography from Wikipedia

=References=

Up one Level