What is your interest in Computer Chess?

[Ozymandias]

There are five options, which three do you find yourself using your engines for?

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

I play the chess engines in my own running tournaments and building a rpivate rating list which I hope soon to be able to publish.....

I use unorthodox methods for calculating the Elo and presenting the data.....
Dr.D

[ernest]

Position and game analysis.

How could you miss that in your poll?...

[Ozymandias]

To some extent... option 5?

[Ozymandias]

"Position and game analysis" are tools, to what end? The answer to this question will lead you to your choice.

[Graham Banks]

"Position and game analysis" are tools, to what end? The answer to this question will lead you to your choice.

Some do this for no other reason than enjoying it. They don't use it as preparation of any kind.

[pilgrimdan]

To clarify:
Playing against the engine is considered preparation. Analysing your own games or those of your opponents is also preparation, unless you make such a fine job that you find a novelty.
Setting up your engine for automatic play (either locally or in a chess server) would be option 4 or 5, depending on your objective.

for me...

chess represents the subleties of life...

we try to codify it...

and there is pleasure in doing that...

[Ozymandias]

Sheer enjoyment of the engine would be option 5. It's not engine play, but categories don't always suit you perfectly.

[Volker Annuss]

[X] none of the above

Volker, another statistically irrelevant programmer.

[hgm]

Doing research on piece values has nothing to do with being a programmer... That I also know how to program seems a really weird reason for statistically discarding me. You might as well have asked whether people do long-distance running, are truck drivers, live in Andorra, and then discard there votes because there are not enough people that do those things to make them statistically significant!