I too find the Evo an intriguing device. The chess bot training concept is unique and a nice bonus. I can see myself creating a few personalities and it reminds me of the personalities in Chessmaster and now of course in the Millenium King Element. I’m not keen on the idea of subscription-based features in a dedicated chess computer but now that Chessnut are offering the first ten for free, this is probably enough for me. However, they are now offering the ability to buy a single bot training session for just under 5 Euros, so for someone who may only rarely wish to create a new personality can do so at a relatively small cost.

I believe that a bot trained from 200 games can achieve upwards of 63% accuracy in the personalities style and strength of play. I’m not sure how accurate Chessmaster personalities were, but this is probably good enough to get an idea of playing against a particular personality. The ability to train a bot from more games may be added later to increase this accuracy.