So, I heard some chatter about this Fritz versus Shang prediction thing a while back. Got me thinking, you know? Who’d actually come out on top? I spend a fair bit of time tinkering with stuff, trying to figure things out, so I thought, why not give it a shot myself?
First thing, Fritz. Yeah, I know Fritz. Had an old copy of that chess program on a dusty hard drive somewhere. Dug it out, installed it again. It’s a beast, everyone knows that. Pure calculation, logic. That part seemed straightforward enough.
But this ‘Shang’… that was the tricky part. Wasn’t entirely sure what it represented. Another program? A person? A style? Decided it didn’t really matter for my little experiment. I’d just make ‘Shang’ represent the other way of predicting things. Less about raw numbers, more about… well, gut feeling, observation, maybe a bit of guesswork.
My Little Prediction Setup
Okay, so here’s what I did. I set up some scenarios, some theoretical positions, on the Fritz program. Let it crunch the numbers. Watched it spit out lines of moves, evaluations down to the hundredth of a pawn. Very precise. Very cold. It told me what should happen, according to pure logic.
Then, I did my ‘Shang’ prediction. Put the computer away. Grabbed a notebook. Started thinking about different angles.
- What if there’s a surprise opening?
- What if one side feels pressure?
- What if someone makes a very human mistake?
I didn’t have specific games for ‘Fritz vs Shang’, so I just imagined typical clash scenarios. I thought about styles – aggressive versus solid. Tried to factor in things the computer wouldn’t easily see. My notes were messy, lots of arrows, question marks. Felt more like art than science, really.
Comparing the Results
After a while, I put my notebook next to the computer screen. On one side, Fritz’s neat printout of variations and scores. On the other, my chaotic scribbles. Felt kinda funny, actually. My human intuition against the silicon brain.
Now, I didn’t have a real match to check against right then. This was more of a thought experiment I ran for myself. But thinking back on actual surprising games I’ve seen later… Fritz, or engines like it, often get the ‘best move’ right in hindsight. But they don’t predict the blunders, the moments of doubt, the creative sparks that don’t fit the optimal lines. My ‘Shang’ method, the human way, was worse at finding the absolute best move, for sure. But it felt closer to understanding why a game might go off the rails, why the unexpected sometimes happens.
So, what did I learn? Not much about who would actually win between some specific Fritz and Shang. It was more about the process. Realized that just looking at engine evaluations doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s this other unpredictable, human element. Or maybe just randomness. Trying to predict it is tough. Fritz gives you the numbers, but sometimes the story is written in the margins, in the messy notes. It was an interesting afternoon, anyway. Just messing around, trying to see things from different sides.
