Kai Luebke also has a computer chess site, specialized in tournaments among programs and test suites, and has sent many friendly, and helpful e-mails, including also a link to this site in his own. Recently, Kai has restructured his site, including a lot of interesting information in a most clear, well structured format. Pay him a visit, you're bound to like it a lot !

Kai has also created an EPD file with most of my test positions, that he calls 'The Albillo VA33 set'. If you want this set in EPD format, ready to test on your favorite chess program, just download it from Kai Luebke's site, which you can visit clicking on the link above.

After he created the EPD file, Kai tested most of the positions on Crafty versions 12.6 and 12.8, running on his powerful Pentium Pro at 200 Mhz, with very large hash tables and all 3- and 4-man endgame tablebases. He also tested them on Chess Master 5500, and MChess Pro 5.0, and was so kind as to send me his results, and give me permission to include them in this site, so you can find them at the Results table for every Test position, under this marker after a while, or this other marker if they are new to the present update.

Kai has also started his own test suite, called "Shep '98", containing interesting positions from his test games. In his own words, "... they are are _very_ hard". The link to this suite is at his site.

Finally, Kai is hosting a mirror site for these pages, so that you now have a choice to download them from their base Mygale site of Kai's mirror site. Both sites will be updated in perfect synchronicity, and will contain identical information. Many thanks, Kai !

Robert Hyatt

Robert Hyatt, renowned author of world-class chess programs Cray Blitz and freeware Crafty, whose versions 12.6, 12.7, 12.8, 12.9, and 13.3 are extensively tested on this site, sent me kind e-mails, pointing several interesting things about some of my test positions, as well as listings with Crafty 13.3 analysis for some of them. You can see them in the Addenda at Test 01, 05, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 22, 29, 30, 33, and B03.

Also, all the results he submitted are identified in the tables with this marker. Many thanks, Robert.

Manolis Stratakis, which has an excellent chess page dedicated to problems, sent several e-mails and kindly included a link to this site. Besides, he did include the Mate in 6 problem I composed, Test 24, on his site. Many thanks.

Bert Seifriz, from Gambitsoft, which has an interesting site dedicated to chess software, sent a kind e-mail and included a link to this site. Many thanks.

Louis Kessler, which has one of the best and most useful personal chess sites I have seen, has sent a number of e-mails with support, comments, and positive criticism. He has also included no less than three links to different parts of this site. Thank you very much indeed.

Palle Mathiasen also has an enthusiastic chess site, with many interesting things in it, and has sent a kind supportive e-mail, as well as included a link to this site. Thanks a lot.

Harris Nizel has one of the most comprehensive sites specialized in chess links, sent a kind e-mail and included a link to this site. Many thanks.

Steffen Jakob has a very interesting chess page, also a chess sites database with an excellent search engine, and sent a kind e-mail, including too a link to this site. Many thanks.

Mark Ioli, from the University of Pittsburgh Chess Club, sent a kind e-mail, and included also a link to this site. Many thanks.

Bill Wall has a site which includes most of the chess links there are in the Web. He sent a kind supportive e-mail, included a link to this site, and commented that he liked too my astronomy links. Than you very much indeed.

Brian Gosling has a little but interesting site dedicated to the analysis of practical chess positions, sent a kind e-mail, and included several of my computer analysis on his page. Many thanks.

Jean-Christophe Weill has a personal page with very interesting articles about computer chess and Othello, and sent a supportive e-mail. Many thanks.

Claudio Bollini, an enthusiastic chess fan from Argentina, has sent several kind e-mails, offering his support. Thank you very much.

Jeff Kaan, which has a computer chess site of his own, sent a friendly e-mail, and submitted to the Chess Advisor section two endgame positions taken from actual correspondence games he had played. Both ended in draws, and he was eager to know if the could have been won. Many thanks.

Stefan Hahndel, has sent a couple of e-mails asking if my test suite was available in EPD format (which it is, at Kai Luebke's site) and offered to test it on both Rebel 8 and Fritz versions 1 to 5, and send the results, in which case I will publish them on this very pages. Thank you very much.

Ed Panek has sent a number of friendly, supportive e-mails, and most importantly, a number of results for top commercial program Chess Genius 5.0, running on his powerful PII/266 Mhz. You'll find them in the Results Tables under this marker. Thanks a lot, Ed !.

Mike Cooter is another gentle contributor, and has sent a number of interesting results for the Fritz-family of chess engines, including Fritz 3.10, Fritz 4.1, Fritz 5, and Hiarcs 6.0. His results are identified in the tables with this marker. Many thanks, Mike.

Howard Exner sent an e-mail offering to run some of my tests with Rebel 8, and lo and behold, he promptly delivered and sent results for no less than 42 of my positions !. You'll find then in the Results Tables under his own marker. Many, many thanks, Howard.

Roland Pfister, author of Patzer, sent results for all my tests at that moment. He ran automatic tests at 10 sec. per position, and then at 7000 sec. per position (nearly two hours). He also was kind enough to send me an executable of his program, Patzer v. 2.99y. You'll find the results at 7000 sec/pos. in the Result Tables under this marker. Thank you very much, Roland.

Tim Foden, author of Green Light Chess, a novel chess program, sent results for a number of my tests, ran with version 2.04g of his program. You can find them in the Result Tables under his marker. Tim also has an interesting chess site, recently updated, where he explain in some detail programming techniques used in computer chess, as well as introducing his program, which is freely downloadable. Thanks, Tim.

Tim Harding, author of a number of interesting Computer Chess Books, and whose book The New Chess Computer Book is reviewed in this site, sent a supportive e-mail telling me that he intended to write about my site on his printed magazine. I'm glad if it could help interested people to find this humble site. Tim has a part commercial, part free chess site, Chess Mail, the unique magazine for correspondence and Internet chessplayers, with a lot if interesting info. Thanks for writing, Tim.

Heiner Marxen, author of CHEST, sent results for some of my most difficult tests, including valuable comments and statistics. You'll find his results at the Result Tables under this marker. He has also his own WWW site at http://www.drb.insel.de/~heiner/. Thanks, Heiner.