New York Times Chess Deluxe Edition

This one is from The Sharper Image. The difference with the one from Excalibur is that the border of the machine are made with black plastic.

 

 

The machine is not as strong as the manufacturer claims. Today, I estimate the Elo roughly around 1468 (manufacturer indicates 1800 which is optimistic). At a level of 45 minutes for 45 moves for the Deluxe, and level 5 for Mephisto MM II, the MM II had a score of 8.5/10. The games were so boring I did'nt find the necessary courage to continue the match. According to the Elo formula, 1.5/10 gives a 1468 rating, and an error of +- 101. If fact the Deluxe only reaches a depth of 4 and sometimes 5, so it can not see deep combinations and is very weak tactically.

Total games	10	Mean rating	1785,0	Error Barre (%)	12,6
	Score	Rating	Perf (%)	Rating opponents	Perf (elo)	Error Bar (Elo)	Elo
Mephisto MMII	8,5	1770,0	85,0	1800,0	2080,0	101,2	2101,3
New York Times Deluxe	1,5	1800,0	15,0	1770,0	1490,0	101,2	1468,7

The games can be downloaded here.

Below is the shortest games won by Mephisto MM II against Deluxe, in 17 Moves.

 

[Event "Computer chess game"]
[Site "PC-NOURS"]
[Date "2012.11.27"]
[Round "9"]
[White "MephistoMMII"]
[Black "New York Times Deluxe Edition Chess"]
[Result "1-0"]
[BlackElo "1800"]
[ECO "C42"]
[Opening "Russian Game"]
[Time "18:06:17"]
[Variation "Classical, Chigorin, 8...Bf5"]
[WhiteElo "1770"]
[TimeControl "5400"]
[Termination "adjudication"]
[PlyCount "35"]
[WhiteType "program"]
[BlackType "program"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. O-O Be7
8. c4 Nb4 9. cxd5 Nxd3 10. Qxd3 Qxd5 11. Bf4 Bf5 12. Nc3 Nxc3 13. Qxc3 c6
14. Rfe1 Be4 15. Bg5 Rd8 16. Bxe7 Kxe7 17. Rxe4+ Kd7 18. Re5 {User
Adjudication} 1-0

 

In a match against Chess Titan, the New York Times Deluxe won by 9 to 1. The level was 45 minutes for 45 moves (tournament mode). All the games can be downloaded here. In computer/computer games, it seems that the score difference may be huge, but the level of play is not so different nevertheless. Something I don't exactly catch at the time.

 

Back to the computer description : if you enlight the screen, the battery life duration is shroten drastically (a few hours). Otherwise, with additional light, the battery life is rather large (several days at least).