Socrates

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Socrates, a series of DOS chess programs by Don Dailey and Larry Kaufman. Socrates was initially the 8086 assembly port of the C program Heuristic Alpha, developed for Julio Kaplan's company Heuristic Software. It had its tournament debut at the ACM 1991. While the C program evolved to Mini and Titan aka Socrates II, winner of the ACM 1993 on a 486 PC ahead of Cray Blitz and HiTech, later sold to Electronic Arts as engine of the mass-market entry Kasparov's Gambit, its 32-bit x86 assembly counterpart Socrates, the best program at Harvard Cup 1992 with 3 out of 5, beating grandmasters Patrick Wolff, Maxim Dlugy and John Fedorowicz, incorporated knowledge from Titan and evolved to Socrates 3.0, finally released and commercially market in 1993 not by Heuristic Software, but through a company called MDI. Since Larry Kaufman mentioned in 1992 that Null Move Pruning doubles the speed of the search, NMP was likely also implemented in Socrates.

=Screenshot= Socrates 3.0 Screen

=Photos & Games= Harvard Cup 1992, Patrick Wolff and Don Dailey [Event "3rd Harvard Cup 1992 G/25"] [Site "New York, NY USA"] [Date "1992.07.11"] [Round "02"] [White "Socrates"] [Black "Patrick Wolff"] [Result "1-0"]

1.e4 d6 2.d4 c6 3.Nf3 g6 4.Be2 Bg7 5.O-O Nf6 6.Nc3 Qc7 7.h3 Nbd7 8.Re1 O-O 9.a4 b6 10.Bc4 e6 11.Bd2 Bb7 12.e5 dxe5 13.dxe5 Nd5 14.Qe2 a6 15.Rad1 c5 16.Bxd5 exd5 17.e6 Nf6 18.Ng5 d4 19.exf7+ Kh8 20.Nb1 Qc6 21.Qf3 Qxf3 22.gxf3 h6 23.Re7 Bd5 24.Ne6 Bxe6 25.Rxe6 Rxf7 26.Rxb6 Kh7 27.Kg2 Nd7 28.Rb7 Rc8 29.Na3 c4 30.Ba5 Rc5 31.Bb6 Rg5+ 32.Kf1 Rd5 33.Nxc4 Nxb6 34.Rxb6 Rxf3 35.Rxa6 Rxh3 36.Ke2 Rc5 37.b3 Rc3 38.Rd2 h5 39.Re6 h4 40.Re4 Rh5 41.a5 h3 42.Rd1 Rxc2+ 43.Kf1 Ra2 44.Re7 Kh6 45.Rf7 d3 46.Rd7 Ra1 47.Rxa1 Bxa1 48.Kg1 Be5 49.Nxe5 Rxe5 50.b4 Rb5 51.Rxd3 Rxb4 52.Rxh3+ Kg5 53.Ra3 Rb7 54.a6 Ra7 55.f3 Kf4 56.Kf2 Ke5 57.Kg3 g5 58.Kg4 Kf6 59.Ra5 Ke6 60.Kxg5 Kd6 61.f4 Kc6 62.f5 Kb6 63.Ra2 Ra8 64.a7 1-0

Game on Lichess.org

=See also=
 * Corel Chess
 * Heuristic Alpha
 * Kasparov's Gambit
 * Legend
 * Mini
 * Star Socrates
 * Titan

=Publications=
 * Larry Kaufman (1993). PC Software. Computer Chess Reports 1992-93, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 8-9
 * Larry Kaufman (1993). PC Software. Computer Chess Reports 1993, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 9
 * Thomas Mally (1993). Mäeutik oder Schmäh-Eutik? PC Schach 3/93 (German)

=Forum Posts=
 * Socrates 3 vrs. Kasp. Gambit by RBasham700, rgcc, November 08, 1997
 * socrates chess program by Frank Zimmer, CCC, May 31, 1998
 * Socrates 3.0 and Win95 by Tim OLena, CCC, July 29, 1998
 * Socrates 3.0 and Windows 95 by Heiko Mikala, CCC, November 07, 1998
 * Re: Socrates 3.0 and NT - incompatible ? by Don Dailey, CCC, February 25, 1999
 * socrates, don, posting here and future by Thorsten Czub, CCC, January 28, 2001
 * Re: How do you count nodes? by Don Dailey, CCC, September 05, 2011
 * La Máquina Preservadora 4. Don Dailey & Larry Kaufman by Luis a, Meca Foro, October 18, 2013

=External Links=

Chess Program

 * Socrates II from Wikipedia
 * The chess games of Socrates (Computer) from chessgames.com
 * Free Chess Downloads by Ed Schröder

Socrates

 * Socrates (disambiguation) from Wikipedia
 * Socrates from Wikipedia, the classical Greek philosopher
 * Titan (mythology) from Wikipedia

=References=

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