Comments of some participants

Amateur at CCT5 - Will Singleton Amyan at CCT5 - Antonio Dieguez Arasan at CCT5 - Jon Dart BringerXX at CCT5 - Peter berger Chezzz at CCT5 - David Rasmussen Crafty at CCT5 - Robert Hyatt Grok at CCT5 - Peter Kappler Hossa at CCT5 - Steffen Jakob Monsoon at CCT5 - Scott Gasch NoonianChess at CCT5 - Charles Roberson TheBaron at CCT5 - Richard Pijl Yace at CCT5 - Dieter Buerssner Zappa at CCT5 - Anthony Cozzi

Amateur at CCT5 - Will Singleton

I had a great time in CCT5. Because Amateur did well the first day, I had the good fortune to play a number of strong opponents. So, quick impressions: strong opponents, good conversation, silly talk on 64, prima donnas, newbies, old hands, upstarts, unknowns, good fun. ......................................................... Round 1 Amateur – Matascz 1-0 (Matacz v0.51: Maciej Pestka) This program had no book, and I was anticipating an easy game. Ignorance is bliss! Matacz got a strong passer in the center while also isolating Amateur's knight on the rim. Just one of those games where nothing went right, until Matacz failed to see a mate threat and lost. The author of Matacz was modest concerning his program's good play, and gracious in the loss. ......................................................... Round 2 Ferret - Amateur 1-0 Out of book, Amateur was worse, but Ferret was unable to convert the advantage. Amateur had equalized by the late middlegame. According to IM Commons, a critical position occurred after 14.Rd3

Ferret - Amateur 1-0
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR   BB    BR  BK   8 
 7   BP  BK    BP  BP  BP  7 
 6  BP   BP   BP     6 
 5         WQ  5 
 4      WP     4 
 3    WP  WR  WB     3 
 2  WP   WP    WP  WP  WP  2 
 1  WR       WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r1b2rk1/1pq2ppp/p1p1p3/7Q/4P3/2PRB3/P1P2PPP/R5K1 b - - 0 14 where Amateur played f5. This tended to neutralize Ferret's control of the center, and the game turned into a "dead draw." (Famous last words.) At move 37, Amateur played Qd1, which allowed Ferret's queen onto the 7th. Apparently, this was a fatal mistake.

Ferret - Amateur 1-0
 abcdefgh 
 8        BK   8 
 7         BP  7 
 6     BK    BP   6 
 5   BP  WB     WQ   5 
 4  BP   BB   WP     4 
 3    WP   WK     3 
 2    WP     WP  WP  2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)
am Qd1; "try it";

6k1/7p/3q2p1/1pB3Q1/p1b1P3/2P1K3/2P3PP/8 b - - 0 1 Ferret's author told me he would be sleeping during the game, so there was no dialogue. All things considered, that was fine by me. ......................................................... Round 3 Amateur - Hossa draw (Hossa v1.151: Steffen Jakob) Hossa is an old competitor from way back. Now playing on a fast P4 2.8ghz (same as Amateur), Hossa is a formidable opponent, and it showed in its strong tournament results. A Ruy Lopez eventually ended in a BOOC ending with Amateur up a doubled pawn. IM Commons noted that Amateur had a useless pawn in an absolute draw, but Amateur didn't recognize it. In fact, it later displayed a score of +6 in the KBPKB ending (opposite colors), which was a simple draw. I was embarrassed at the evals, which continued until the 50 move rule draw. Somehow, my late changes involving lazy eval and increased futility pruning had screwed up that code. Steffen Jakob and I had good conversations throughout the game, which I appreciated. (Hi to Lukas and Regina!) ......................................................... Round 4 Wildcat - Amateur 0-1 (Wildcat 2.73: Igor Korshunov) I dreaded playing Wildcat, since private play had convinced me that it was a good bit stronger than Amateur. The game turned into a slugfest, with each side attacking the other's kside with abandon. However, in the position that follows, Amateur unaccountably played the ingenious Rc5, which the reader should look at. Luck plays a big part in chess. Wildcat fell apart after that. I don't know if better play could have saved the game.

Wildcat - Amateur 0-1
 abcdefgh 
 8   BN      BR  BK  8 
 7    BK   BB    BP  7 
 6  BN   WB  BP  WQ   BP  WP  6 
 5  BR    WP  BP   WR   5 
 4   BP        4 
 3  BP  WP    WB  WP    3 
 2  WP   WP       2 
 1  WN  WK   WR      1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

1n4rk/2q1b2p/n1BpQ1pP/r2Pp1R1/1p6/pP2BP2/P1P5/NK1R4 b - - 0 34 Although Igor had disconnection problems in this and other games, he held up his end of the conversation, and I enjoyed talking with him. I certainly appreciate the fact that he and the other “non-english” players have the ability to speak english, and to speak it well. ......................................................... Round 5 Amateur – Movei 1-0 (Movei: Uri Blass) Amateur was lucky in this game, coming out of the opening in a good position. It won a pawn, then kept up the pressure to win another, and the game was soon over. Uri must have been disappointed with this one. Uri and I didn’t get the chance to converse much during the game, as it was a fairly quick one. But he did well overall in the tournament, and I’m glad he participated. ......................................................... Amateur ended the first day with 3.5/5 ......................................................... Round 6 Tao – Amateur 1-0 (Tao 5.41: Bas Hamstra) This game was a heartbreaker, because there were good chances which Amateur just barely failed to take. Especially against Tao, a great program.

Tao – Amateur 1-0
 abcdefgh 
 8    BR       8 
 7       BP  BK  BP  7 
 6      BP     6 
 5    WP   WP    BP  5 
 4      WR     4 
 3  BP       WP   3 
 2  WP  BB  WR  WN    WK  WP  2 
 1     BR      1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

2r5/5pkp/4p3/2P1P2p/4R3/p5P1/PbRN2KP/3r4 b - - 0 42 In this position, Amateur played Ra1, going for the a pawn. It’s very tempting, as many programs want to do the same thing. Amateur fails to realize that its rook will be trapped after c6 Rxa2 Nb3, effectively ending the game. Much better is Rxc5, getting rid of the c pawn, and giving some chances in the endgame. Bas commented throughout the game, and we had a good conversation. I wish Tao well in its future development. ......................................................... Round 7 Amateur – Postmodernist 1-0 (Postmodernist: Andrew Williams) The opening was a Ruy, Dilworth variation. It was commented early that with best play, the Dilworth was good for white. In the following position, white’s king is seemingly vulnerable. But note that the BN combination is strong, and defends well. Amateur plays the unusual 36.h4!, which apparently leads to h5 and the eventual weakening of the black kingside, causing the exchange to be won. The black qside pawns are stuck, and eventually fall.

Amateur – Postmodernist 1-0
 abcdefgh 
 8      BR   BK   8 
 7       BR  BP   7 
 6  WR   BP     BK   6 
 5   BP  WB  BP      5 
 4   WP        4 
 3    WP     WN  WP  3 
 2     WQ     WK  2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

4r1k1/5rp1/R1p3q1/1pBp4/1P6/2P3NP/3Q3K/8 w - - 0 36 Andrew is an old competitor, and his Postmodernist usually beats Amateur. This game, with a hardware (and opening) advantage, Amateur managed to win. Thanks to Andrew for his sportsmanship, and his commentary. ......................................................... Round 8 Amateur – Quark 0-1 (Quark v1.90CCT5: Thomas Mayer) We were Board 6. I was pretty nervous, since a win here would put Amateur into uncharted territory for the final round. Not to be! Interestingly, the game was identical to the Monsoon-Comet game thru move 24, which was in progress at the same time. IM Commons commented that white (in both games) had no idea what the game was all about. Apparently, white had to maintain its pieces and attack, rather than trade off. In the first deviation, Quark played 24...c4, while Comet played 24...Ra7.

Amateur – Quark 0-1
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR    BK   BB  BK   8 
 7        BP   7 
 6  BP      BN   BP  6 
 5   BP  BP  BP   WP    5 
 4  WP  BN        4 
 3       WB   WP  3 
 2   WP     WP  WP  WN  2 
 1    WB  WQ  WR   WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r2q1bk1/6p1/p4n1p/1ppp1P2/Pn6/5B1P/1P3PPN/2BQR1K1 b - - 0 24 I have to say that Quark played a better move than Comet, unfortunately. But enough about Monsoon-Comet. A few moves later, Amateur played what Schroer said might be a “TN”. I was intrigued, but it turned out after much analysis not to be the best. I will say that both Yace and Ruffian would have played the move, depending on the time-control. 26.Bxh6

 abcdefgh 
 8  BR    BK   BB  BK   8 
 7        BP   7 
 6  BP     WR  BN   BP  6 
 5   BP   BP   WP    5 
 4  WP   BP       4 
 3     BN   WB   WP  3 
 2   WP     WP  WP  WN  2 
 1    WB  WQ    WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r2q1bk1/6p1/p3Rn1p/1p1p1P2/P1p5/3n1B1P/1P3PPN/2BQ2K1 w - - 0 26 After that, Quark cleaned up pretty good. A very good game by Thomas’ program, and we had a good time during the game. ......................................................... Round 9 Terra – Amateur 1-0 (Terra v3.0: Peter Fendrich) At one point, Amateur had a +2 score, and was cruising. The next minute (well, hour, actually), the game was lost. Have to give credit to Terra for exploiting all opportunities in the best way. I like a few moves here. The moves 19...d5 and 20...Nf7 I thought were especially good, and equalized the game at that point. In the following position, Amateur had about a +2 eval.

Terra – Amateur 1-0
 abcdefgh 
 8     BR    BK   8 
 7  BP  BP     BN   BP  7 
 6       BP  BP  BB  6 
 5  WP   WP   BP     5 
 4    WN       4 
 3  WB  WR   BR  WP    WP  3 
 2         WP  2 
 1   WR      WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

3r2k1/pp3n1p/5ppb/P1P1p3/2N5/BR1rP2P/7P/1R4K1 b - - 0 32 However, white’s c pawn became very important, and black had a hard time defending. A very nice win by Terra. ......................................................... Conclusions The master commentary helped me to realize that most chess theory is way beyond my understanding, and I need professional advice in order to make progress. I hope I can get that. It’s a daunting task to try to synthesize a master’s knowledge. I’ll keep on plugging. Thanks to all the participants who made the effort, and walked the walk. Thanks also to IM Schroer for his tireless commentary. Will

Chezzz at CCT5 - David Rasmussen

This is an account of Chezzz's games during CCT5. I haven't analyzed any of them in depth, this is just my immediate thoughts. My rating is unknown but certainly lower 1500 or so, so don't expect too much :) Comments on the games are more than welcome (especially if they help nail down some bug or serious misevaluation). Round 1 (Chezzz 1 - 0 Chompster) -------------------------------- In the first round, Chezzz got paired against Chompster, Scott Farrell's Java chess engine. After 1. b3 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4 Nf6 4. Bb2 d6 5. d3 e6 6. e3 Be7 7. Be2 O-O 8. O-O e5 9. Nc3 Bg4 10. a3 Re8 11. Nd5 a5 12. Rc1

Chezzz 1 - 0 Chompster
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR    BK  BR   BK   8 
 7   BP    BB  BP  BP  BP  7 
 6    BN  BP   BN    6 
 5  BP   BP  WN  BP     5 
 4    WP     BB   4 
 3  WP  WP   WP  WP  WN    3 
 2   WB    WB  WP  WP  WP  2 
 1    WR  WQ   WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r2qr1k1/1p2bppp/2np1n2/p1pNp3/2P3b1/PP1PPN2/1B2BPPP/2RQ1RK1 b - - 0 12 Chompster moved 12... a4, sacrificing a pawn. Scott didn't understand this, and neither did I. Chezzz grabbed the pawn, and it was enough to win even though Chezzz played some weird moves sometimes, IMO. Round 2 (Quark ½ - ½ Chezzz) ---------------------------- In the second round Chezzz got paired against Quark. Chezzz had an okay record against Quark in the past months, so I wasn't expecting anything either way. After playing the first moves of a pretty regular Sicilian, Quark ended up in this position:

Quark ½ - ½ Chezzz
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR     BK    BR  8 
 7   BP  BK  BB  BB  BP  BP  BP  7 
 6  BP   BN  BP  BP  BN    6 
 5        WB   5 
 4      WP  WP    4 
 3    WN    WN    3 
 2  WP  WP  WP  WQ    WP  WP  2 
 1    WK  WR   WB   WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r3k2r/1pqbbppp/p1nppn2/6B1/4PP2/2N2N2/PPPQ2PP/2KR1B1R w kq - 0 11 and after 11. e5 dxe5 12. fxe5 Nd5 13. Nxd5 exd5 14. Bxe7 Nxe7 15. Bd3 O-O, I thought Chezzz was fine. White's e5 pawn looks a little vulnerable, IMO. After some moves, Chezzz allowed this position:

Quark ½ - ½ Chezzz
 abcdefgh 
 8      BR   BK   8 
 7   BP  BK   BR  BP   BP  7 
 6  BP         6 
 5     BP  WP  WQ    5 
 4   WP        4 
 3   WP  WP   WR    WP  3 
 2          2 
 1   WK    WR     1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

4r1k1/1pq1rp1p/p7/3pPQ2/1P6/1PP1R2P/8/1K2R3 b - - 0 36 I don't like black's king here, and against Quark, I felt sure that the loss was inevitable. But after reaching this position

Quark ½ - ½ Chezzz
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7   BP     WQ    7 
 6  BP   BK       6 
 5     BP  BR     5 
 4   WP    BK     4 
 3   WP  WP       3 
 2   WK   WR      2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/1p3Q2/p1k5/3pr3/1P2q3/1PP5/1K1R4/8 w - - 0 60 nothing much happened. Pieces were shuffled about, rooks were exchanged, and the vulnerability of the kings to the queens led to no progress for either side, and the game ended in a draw. Round 3 (Chezzz 0 - 1 Pharaon) ------------------------------ The next game was against Pharaon. The games I've seen from Pharaon have been very convincing so I expected to lose, although Chezzz haven't played against it before (I think). After 1. Nf3 c5 2. e4 Nc6 3. Bb5 d6 4. O-O Bg4 5. h3 Bh5 6. c3 a6

Chezzz 0 - 1 Pharaon
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR    BK  BK  BB  BN  BR  8 
 7   BP    BP  BP  BP  BP  7 
 6  BP   BN  BP      6 
 5   WB  BP      BB  5 
 4      WP     4 
 3    WP    WN   WP  3 
 2  WP  WP   WP   WP  WP   2 
 1  WR  WN  WB  WQ   WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r2qkbnr/1p2pppp/p1np4/1Bp4b/4P3/2P2N1P/PP1P1PP1/RNBQ1RK1 w kq - 0 7 Chezzz played Bxc6+. I am not at home writing this, so I cannot check whether this was in book or not. Anyway, with my limited chess capabilities, this seem a wrong move in the Sicilian. It seems a mistake to give up the bishop pair and at the same time stregthen black's pawn center. A little while later, this position was reached:

Chezzz 0 - 1 Pharaon
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR     BK  BB   BR  8 
 7      BP  BP  BP  BP  7 
 6  BP  BK  BP  BP   BN    6 
 5        WB  BB  5 
 4     WP  WP     4 
 3       WN   WP  3 
 2  WP  WP     WP  WP   2 
 1  WR  WN   WQ   WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r3kb1r/4pppp/pqpp1n2/6Bb/3PP3/5N1P/PP3PP1/RN1Q1RK1 w kq - 0 11 in which Chezzz moved Qc2. Pharaon's response was (of course?) 11... Bxf3. As I said in the beginning, I haven't analyzed any of this very deeply yet, but on the surface it seems there is no reason for white to weaken his king safety with the Qc2 move. I will have to look into this. After the moves 12. gxf3 Rc8 13. d5 Qc5 14. Qxc5 dxc5 15. dxc6 Rxc6 were played, though, it seems king safety was not so important anymore. Chezzz was quite happy in this position, if I remember correctly. The game continued, and black seemed to have problems getting his kingside going, but as white didn't make any real progress either, this position was eventually reached:

Chezzz 0 - 1 Pharaon
 abcdefgh 
 8      BK     8 
 7   BR   BN  BP    BP  7 
 6  BP     WN  BB    6 
 5    BP  WR      5 
 4          4 
 3   WP      WB  WP  3 
 2  WP     WR  WP  WK   2 
 1    BR       1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

4k3/1r1np2p/p3Nb2/2pR4/8/1P4BP/P3RPK1/2r5 b - - 0 34 Pharaon played 34... c4 and Chezzz answered 35. b4. I haven't analyzed so I don't know the true value of these moves, but after Chezzz's 35th move, the problems seem to begin for Chezzz. Black now had a passer that needed white's attention. After 35... Rb1 36. a3 Rb2 37. Re4 c3 38. Rc4 Nb6 39. Rd8+ Kf7 40. Rc6 Nd7 41. Ra8 Rb6 42. Nd8+ Kg6 43. Rc4 c2 44. Nc6 Rb5 45. Rxa6 Nb6 46. Rxc2 Rxc2 47. Na7 Rg5 48. Rxb6, the black passer was gone:

Chezzz 0 - 1 Pharaon
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7  WN     BP    BP  7 
 6   WR     BB  BK   6 
 5        BR   5 
 4   WP        4 
 3  WP       WB  WP  3 
 2    BR    WP  WK   2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/N3p2p/1R3bk1/6r1/1P6/P5BP/2r2PK1/8 b - - 0 48 Instead black now had the exchange for two connected passers. I don't remember Chezzz's evaluation in this position, but I think it was quite happy about the connected passers. I don't know whether it's justified in this position. After 48... h5 49. h4 Rg4 50. Rc6 Rb2 51. Nb5 Kg7 52. Kf3 Rb3+ 53. Ke2 Bxh4 54. Bxh4 Rxh4 55. Rc3 Rh3 56. Rxh3 Rxh3, black had a winning passer, and Pharaon soon won the game. As you will see, the losses of Chezzz in this tournament were all about passed pawns. So I guess I need to work a bit in that area. I don't know exactly what is wrong, whether it's misevaluation of some concept or the lack of knowledge (Chezzz doesn't know about potential passers, or the square of the king etc.). Round 4 (Qalat 0 - 1 Chezzz) ---------------------------- Already in the opening Chezzz made a weird move, I think:

Qalat 0 - 1 Chezzz
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR  BN   BK  BK  BB   BR  8 
 7  BP  BB  BP    BP  BP  BP  7 
 6   BP    BP  BN    6 
 5     WP      5 
 4     WP      4 
 3  WP   WN    WN    3 
 2   WP    WP  WP  WP  WP  2 
 1  WR   WB  WQ  WK  WB   WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

rn1qkb1r/pbp2ppp/1p2pn2/3P4/3P4/P1N2N2/1P2PPPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 6 In this position Chezzz moved 6... Nxd5. I thought in these kinds of openings, that it was important for black to keep a pawn on d5, as white otherwise would get a powerful center after forcing e4. On the other hand, after the bishop have developed to b7, I guess it would not be too smart to close the diagonal, and also, black's c-pawn can become weak in this kind of opening, the b-pawn having moved and all. So forcing white to close the c-line is a good idea. I guess. Anyway, I know next to nothing about chess, so... :) Sure enough white quickly reached this position with an impressive center:

Qalat 0 - 1 Chezzz
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR  BN   BK   BR  BK   8 
 7  BP  BB  BP    BP  BB  BP  7 
 6   BP    BP   BP   6 
 5          5 
 4     WP  WP     4 
 3  WP   WP  WB   WN    3 
 2       WP  WP  WP  2 
 1  WR   WB  WQ   WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

rn1q1rk1/pbp2pbp/1p2p1p1/8/3PP3/P1PB1N2/5PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b - - 0 11 In this position black moved c5. I don't know whether this move is good or bad. I guess challenging white's center is a good idea. But I would think that preparing with Na6 and Rc8 would be a good idea. Doing it now seems premature, and weakens the queenside pawns. Eh.. I think... :) Anyway, this is what happened: 11... c5 12. dxc5 Nd7 13. cxb6 Nc5 14. Bc2 Nxe4 15. Bxe4 Bxe4 16. Qxd8 Rfxd8 17. Bg5 Rd7 18. Nd2 Bd3 19. Rfc1 axb6, and black's bishops seem strong. I have no clue about what happened next: 20. Bf4 Rc8 21. Nb1 Bc4 22. a4 Rcd8 23. Re1 Rd1 24. Na3 Rxe1+ 25. Rxe1 Bxc3 26. Rc1 Bb2 27. Bg5 Bxc1 28. Bxd8 Bxa3 29. Bxb6, but suddenly Chezzz was up a piece. After this the win wasn't hard. Round 5 (Chezzz 0 - 1 Hossa) ---------------------------- Chezzz has an ok record against Hossa on ICC, so this could go either way. I didn't know at that point that Steffen had new strong hardware for the tournament. If I had known, I would probably have expected Chezzz to lose. Already in the opening I got worried when I saw 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 e5 4. Bc4 Be7 5. d3 Nf6 6. Nd2 d6 7. Nf1 Bg4 8. f3 Be6 9. Ne3 I thought that such a knight manoever couldn't be good for white, taking all that time. People told me that Kasparov had recently played all of this, and although Chezzz is far from being any Kasparov, this calmed me down. After 9... Bxc4 10. dxc4 black's d6 pawn was weak. After 10... Nd4 11. Qd3 O-O 12. O-O Qd7 13. Ncd5 Nxd5 14. Nxd5 f5 15. Be3 fxe4 16. fxe4 Bh4 17. c3 Ne6 18. Rad1 Rxf1+ 19. Rxf1 Rf8 20. Rxf8+ Kxf8 21. Qe2 Qf7 22. Qg4 Bd8

Chezzz 0 - 1 Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8     BB   BK    8 
 7  BP  BP     BK  BP  BP  7 
 6     BP  BN     6 
 5    BP  WN  BP     5 
 4    WP   WP   WQ   4 
 3    WP   WB     3 
 2  WP  WP      WP  WP  2 
 1        WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

3b1k2/pp3qpp/3pn3/2pNp3/2P1P1Q1/2P1B3/PP4PP/6K1 w - - 0 23 blacks weak pawn ended up not having that much influence on the game, but Chezzz felt fine. After 23. Bd2 h5 24. Qh3 Ke8 25. b4 b6 26. a3 Kd7 27. Qg3 Be7 28. a4 Bd8 29. Be3 Qe8 30. a5 bxa5 31. bxc5 Qf7 32. cxd6 Kxd6 33. Qe1 Kc6 34. Qb1 Qb7 35. Qd1 h4 36. Bf2 a6 37. Ne3 Kc7 38. Qd5 Qxd5 39. exd5

Chezzz 0 - 1 Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8     BB      8 
 7    BK     BP   7 
 6  BP     BN     6 
 5  BP    WP  BP     5 
 4    WP      BP  4 
 3    WP   WN     3 
 2       WB  WP  WP  2 
 1        WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

3b4/2k3p1/p3n3/p2Pp3/2P4p/2P1N3/5BPP/6K1 b - - 0 39 Chezzz thought he was winning, and I thought too. But: 39... Nf4 40. Kf1 a4 41. Nc2 Kd6 42. Ba7 g5 43. g3 hxg3 44. hxg3 Nh5 45. Kf2 Nf6 46. Ke2 Ne4 47. Ke3 Nf6 48. Nb4 a3 49. Kd3 Nd7 50. Be3 a5 51. Na2 Nc5+ 52. Kc2 Na4 53. Kb3 Nb2

Chezzz 0 - 1 Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8     BB      8 
 7          7 
 6     BK      6 
 5  BP    WP  BP   BP   5 
 4    WP       4 
 3  BP  WK  WP   WB   WP   3 
 2  WN  BN        2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

3b4/8/3k4/p2Pp1p1/2P5/pKP1B1P1/Nn6/8 w - - 0 54 white is having trouble with blacks "weak" passers. I am not sure where the deciding mistake is in the following, but I would very much like to know: 54. Bg1 g4 55. Be3 Bc7 56. Bg5 e4 57. Bf4+ Kd7 58. Bxc7 Kxc7 59. c5 Nd3 60. Kc4 Nxc5 61. Kd4 Kb6 62. Ke3 Nb7 63. Kd4 e3 64. Kxe3 Kc5 65. Kd3 Kxd5 66. c4+ Kc5 67. Nc1 Kb4 68. Kc2 Nc5 69. Kb1 Kxc4 70. Ne2 Ne4 71. Kc2 a4 72. Kc1 Nc3 73. Nf4 Kb3 74. Ne6 a2 75. Nd4+ Kc4 76. Nc2 a3 77. Na1 Ne2+ 78. Kd2 Nxg3 79. Ke1 Kc3 80. Kd1 Kb2 81. Nc2 a1=Q+ 82. Nxa1 Kxa1 83. Kc2 Nf5 84. Kc1 g3 85. Kd2 g2 86. Kd3 g1=Q 87. Ke4 Qd4+ 88. Kxf5 Kb1 89. Ke6 a2 90. Kf5 a1=Q 91. Ke6 Qaa7 92. Kf5 Qag7 93. Ke6 Qgd7# {White checkmated} 0-1 Chezzz again had troubles with the passers. I will put a lot more effort into analyzing this game when I get the time. I would very much like to know if there is a move that is losing, that can "easily" be avoided with the right knowledge, or a move where Chezzz obviously misevaluates some key position. David

PostModernist at CCT5 - Andrew Williams

Game 1 - PolarChess 0-1 PostModernist I didn't know much about PolarChess before this game, except that its rating is quite a bit less than PM's, so I was reasonably confident. Unfortunately, in response to PolarChess's 1.Nf3, PM decided on ...b6?! I had barely recovered from that before PM decided on: Nxf2?! in this position:

PolarChess - PostModernist
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR  BN   BK  BK    BR  8 
 7  BP  BB  BP  BP   BP  BP  BP  7 
 6   BP    BP     6 
 5    BB   WP     5 
 4        BN   4 
 3    WP    WN    3 
 2  WP  WP   WP  WB  WP  WP  WP  2 
 1  WR  WN  WB  WQ   WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

rn1qk2r/pbpp1ppp/1p2p3/2b1P3/6n1/2P2N2/PP1PBPPP/RNBQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1 To be honest, this just looks wrong. Against Amateur, PM would later be taught a harsh lesson on the value of RP vs 2 minors, although in that case the position (also involving Nxf2) came out of a book line. Anyhow, PM had a score of -0.29 at this point. PM's score remained negative until PolarChess's 14.Nc4 and then it shot up to over +2 after 20.Bd2. Game 2 - PostModernist 0-1 Comet I was drawn against Comet in game 2. I had slight hopes of a win against this program, the more so when Comet's Queen drifted offside early in the game. She was stuck there for quite a while, but PM doesn't really understand the importance of that. As very often happens when PM doesn't have anything to attack, it drifted around with its pieces. This is emphatically not wise against Comet, which is a *very* smooth operator. The speed at which it unraveled itself and set about forcing PM back was very impressive. A good nice win by Comet. Game 3 - NoonianChess 0-1 PostModernist I played against NoonianChess at the WCCC in Maastricht this year, where I ended up with a slightly lucky draw. In this game, Noonian didn't really get into it at all. Unlike the game against Comet, PM found a position which it could get its teeth into. The game seemed to turn in this position, where PM thought Noonian's cxd4 was a mistake:

NoonianChess - PostModernist
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR   BB  BK   BR  BK   8 
 7  BP  BP    BN  BP  BB  BP  7 
 6    BN  BP    BP   6 
 5    BP       5 
 4     BP  WP     4 
 3    WP   WB  WN  WP   3 
 2  WP  WP     WP  WB  WP  2 
 1  WR  WN   WQ   WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r1bq1rk1/pp2npbp/2np2p1/2p5/3pP3/2P1BNP1/PP3PBP/RN1Q1RK1 w - - 0 1 Game 4 - PostModernist 0-1 Searcher I was pretty worried to be drawn against Searcher, which lives up to its name and was outsearching PM by a couple of plies for much of this game. It is a *real* menace and it completely out-foxed PM in the middlegame, emerging an outside-passer to the good. Nevertheless, I entertained hopes of saving the game until PM allowed an exchange of Queens, which looked pretty stupid even to me. Towards the end of this game, I remembered that I hadn't mounted the HD with my (Nalimov) EGTBs on, and I briefly felt that that had cost PM the game. However, a blunder check on the game later suggested that this was not the case. Game 5 - Alarm 0-1 PostModernist Five games, five wins by Black! Alarm is another one which is rated much lower than PM, and he was also handicapped by crappy hardware, a 533MHz machine vs PM's 1200MHz. I said to Benny Antonsson that Alarm deserved better hardware, because although PM was in charge for much of the game, it seemed on the verge of losing its way towards the end. Maybe a possible extra ply of search depth might have helped Alarm wriggle out of this loss. Game 6 - PostModernist 1/2 - 1/2 Monsoon I like games against Monsoon, even though it's probably a bit tough for PM usually. This was a typical fluctuating struggle, with both programs at various points believing they were going to get the upper hand. Eventually, PM offered a draw, but Monsoon declined it. Sure enough, PM's score started to rise, and I think Scott got a bit worried. However, PM's advantage dissipated and the next time PM offered a draw, Monsoon accepted it. An enjoyable game; I've not looked at it in detail, but there didn't look to be any real howlers by PM. Game 7 - Amateur 1-0 PostModernist In general in CCTs, PM has been pretty lucky with the openings it has obtained. Not so here, but this game was characterised by the accuracy of Amateur's play. IM Kim Commons made many interesting comments on this game, and was highly impressed by the way Amateur handled its two minors against PM's R+P. This was probably the best game PM was involved in in CCT5. A fine win by one of PM's oldest rivals. Game 8 - Butcher 1-0 PostModernist Here was another game where PM never got going. Again, not a great opening for PM, again a very smooth performance by PM's opponent. Butcher has come on in leaps and bounds in the last year, it seems. Had the colours been reversed, I would have been ecstatic at this win. Game 9 - PostModernist 1-0 Aristarch I didn't know too much about Aristarch before CCT, other than that it had played in the WBEC leagues run by Leo Dijksman. I was a bit freaked out by the two crappy openings I had just had. But I needn't have worried. This time my opponent had the poor opening, and ended up with his King in the middle of the board, with my Queen, Bishop and two Knights keeping him company. Fairly quickly, PM won the exchange and Aristarch resigned without ever having really got into the game. So, 4.5 points and 24th place for PostModernist. I'll confess to being a bit disappointed, but as always in a CCT, I had a whale of a time. The commentary by IM Schroer (plus IM Kingway for the Amateur game) was excellent and very entertaining. I believe Schroer was "sponsored" by one of the participants, so thanks very much to whoever put up the cash. Biggest thanks are reserved for Volker Richey, who organized the whole event. I REALLY hope he enjoyed it, because then he's more likely to organize CCT6! :-) Andrew PS I've put the PGN for PM's games into a response to this message.

Amyan in CCT5 - Antonio Dieguez

I have not analyzed carefully at all, just will say a few comments now by reviewing the games. ****1st game: Amyan - Quark 0-1 The openning was a Scotch with 4. ... Nf6 5. Nxc6, very soon both kings were exposed but with queens off. Amyan felt just ok, especially after winning a pawn, but Quark had two bishops and a cinic passed d pawn at the middle.

Amyan - Quark
 abcdefgh 
 8      BR    BR  8 
 7       BP  BP   7 
 6   BK  BP       6 
 5    BB  BP  WP    BP  5 
 4   WN  BB       4 
 3  WP       WB   3 
 2   WP  WK    WP  WP  WP  2 
 1    WR      WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

4r2r/5pp1/1kp5/2bpP2p/1Nb5/P5B1/1PK2PPP/2R4R w - h6 0 26 In this position Amyan played f4, it was bad i suposse, as black put a bishop on e3 and secured it with d4. Later may be b3 was also bad, it just impulsed the other Quark's bishop to be in other cool square, f5. Soon Quark could put his rook in play via d8-e8-a5-c5 and ended with a big advantadge already. Perhaps less catastrophic would have been Ra1 instead of a4, but anyway black was doing better already. Quark did it well. ****2nd game: Czolgista - Amyan 0-1 Here Czolgista played an unsound sacrifice (Mr. Schroer said), after d4 d5 c4 e6 then e4!? Amyan got an advantadge quick then, wich was getting bigger and bigger, helped by not the stronger ones replies from the oponnent. ****3rd game: Amyan - Xinixx 0-1 Back again Amyan played a strong oponnent and again it loses. It was with oposite castlings, Xinixx had it long and Amyan short... Xinixx did it fine beginning with Rg8, g5 etc. simple and fast, while Amyan did not know well what to do, also played a strange 16.Qa3 etc. I really don't know for sure what are the best moves, 12. Ba4 was bad, 12.a4 wouldn't be so great neither after d4 cxd4 a6 Bc4 Nxb4 for example black is fine. Here is the position after 11. ... Ke8

Amyan - XinixXX
 abcdefgh 
 8   BK   BR   BB   BR  8 
 7  BP  BP  BP  BK  BN   BP  BP  7 
 6    BN   BP     6 
 5   WB   BP  WP    BB  5 
 4   WP        4 
 3    WP    WN   WP  3 
 2  WP    WN   WP  WP   2 
 1  WR   WB  WQ   WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

1k1r1b1r/pppqn1pp/2n1p3/1B1pP2b/1P6/2P2N1P/P2N1PP1/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 12 Amyan did nothing ok, it was a bit slow also. Xinix did it well. ****4th game: Robinx - Amyan 0-1 And back again Amyan to play a not very strong oponnent. I hope good luck to the author. Robinx played b4!? here, perhaps to quit that bishop of menacing f2 later, but then it doesn't want to eat the pawn on g7 and instead plays Qc1!? so amyan got a pawn for free, and later won easily.

RobinX - Amyan
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR    BK  BK    BR  8 
 7  BP  BB  BP  BP  BN  BP  BP  BP  7 
 6   BP    BP     6 
 5    BB       5 
 4      WP     4 
 3   WP   WB   WN    3 
 2  WP  WB  WP  WP   WP  WP  WP  2 
 1  WR    WQ  WK    WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r2qk2r/pbppnppp/1p2p3/2b5/4P3/1P1B1N2/PBPP1PPP/R2QK2R w KQkq - 0 9 ****5th game: Amyan - Grok 1/2-1/2 This was a though Caro-Kann, I find it always though. Surprisingly hard to win with white. Amyan had doubled rooks on the e file for some time and they looked a bit odd, like this:

Amyan - Grok
 abcdefgh 
 8    BR  BR     BK  8 
 7  BP  BK      BP  BP  7 
 6     BB   BP    6 
 5   WP   BN  BP     5 
 4  WP     WR     4 
 3   WQ   WN      3 
 2   WB     WP  WP  WP  2 
 1      WR   WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

2rr3k/pq4pp/3b1p2/1P1np3/P3R3/1Q1N4/1B3PPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 33 Grok played fine, (I guess! at least it played fine against amyan but is not hard) Amyan got into trouble and lost a pawn. Luckily for Amyan after echanges all the material in the board was KBPP vs KBPPP with the pawns on the same side. And all ended this way...:

Amyan - Grok
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7       BK    7 
 6         BP  6 
 5      WB  WK  BP   5 
 4       BP    4 
 3       WP    3 
 2       BB  WP   2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/5k2/7p/4BKp1/5p2/5P2/5bP1/8 b - - 0 57 Position in wich amyan says it is a draw after 40 sec depth=15 +0.00 . f2e1 e5f4 g5f4 f5f4 h6h5 g2g3 f7g6 f4e3 e1g3 e3e2 h5h4 e2f1 g3f2 oh wait, in a bit more than a minute it says depth=15 +0.01 f2e3 g2g3 f4g3 e5g3 h6h5 f3f4 g5g4 f5g5 f7e6 g5g6 h5h4 f4f5 e6d5 but then again at depth 16 it says draw. depth=16 +0.00 . f2e3 g2g3 f4g3 e5g3 h6h5 f3f4 g5g4 f5g5 f7e6 g5g6 e6d5 g6h5 d5e6 Nodes: 67595327 NPS: 631850 Time: 00:01:46.98 A "lucky" draw then for Amyan. ****6th game: Cyberpagno - Amyan 1/2 - 1/2 This game was with a "dunno what is its name as I'm so ignorant" openning. Orthodox? or whatever. An IQP position. Why not everybody starts with e4... It got simplified in some moves and I was happy about that, because amyan was sad because white had more space and his pieces were out before. It looks a delicate position for black, but surprisingly it does just fine. At least Amyan. Not me :) After goting an ending with only pawns and 1 rook each, black got king a little bit more of initiative. Here is the position where Amyan just played f4 and I was getting more happy:

Cyberpagno - Amyan
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7   BP    BR     7 
 6  BP   BP  BK     BP  6 
 5        BP   5 
 4     WP   BP    4 
 3     WK   WP  WP   3 
 2  WP  WP       WP  2 
 1        WR   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/1p2r3/p1pk3p/6p1/3P1p2/3K1PP1/PP5P/6R1 w - - 0 37 Amyan won a pawn there. But the ending was with a and c black pawns, and a white d pawn, besides the rooks. And Mr Schroer said it was a teoric draw, even if white gives the d pawn. After many moves, especially moving the rook back and forth, Amyan itself offered a draw and it was acepted. ****7th game: Noonianchess - Amyan 0-1 I'm unhappy with this one. Amyan got its pieces in an inconfortable position. Both of Amyan bishops were not good at a moment, and it looked to me that the rook in the h file was completely unusefull. Here after 23.c3:

Noonianchess - Amyan
 abcdefgh 
 8       BK    8 
 7  BP       BP   7 
 6   BP  BN  WN   BP  BB   6 
 5    BP  WN  BP   BB   5 
 4      WP   WP  BR  4 
 3    WP    WP    3 
 2  WP  WP      WB   2 
 1     WR    WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

5k2/p5p1/1pnN1pb1/2pNp1b1/4P1Pr/2P2P2/PP4B1/3R2K1 b - - 0 23 I get the feeling that it didn't lose just because NoonianChess didn't play the better moves. At the end, with some luck perhaps the dark squared bishop was usefull actually and the rook in the h file too. Amyan got finally a rook vs knight ending... that should be a draw but NoonianChess... dropped the knight! I don't know how as it is just a 7 ply tactic. Amyan won because of that. ****8th game: Amyan - Pharaon 1/2-1/2 This was a Sicilian. xyz variant. Pharaon echanged his dar squared bishop with a knight on c3. Amyan pinned Pharaon's knight on f6 and put some pressure there. So other couple of minor pieces and the queens were echanged there. Later Pharaon eated the c2 pawn while amyan eated the f6 pawn. Later a white rook there were to the h file and well, at the end had one more pawns, no two more pawns, but the only passed pawn of Pharaon was the strongest, and supported by its king, and Amyan just had to do a perpetual to avoid its promotion. Amyan king was all the time on h1... Amyan was overconfident in this one, a bit slow, it showed 0.0 too late. But it is hard to evaluate very good this. This is the position after 39. ... e4

Amyan - Pharaon
 abcdefgh 
 8      BR     8 
 7   BP     BP    7 
 6       WP  BK   6 
 5  WP   BN  WP      5 
 4   WR    BP   WN   4 
 3          3 
 2        WP  WP  2 
 1         WK  1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

4r3/1p3p2/5Pk1/P1nP4/1R2p1N1/8/6PP/7K w - - 0 40 ****9th game: Amyan - Arasan 1/2-1/2 This was a Sicilian, zyx variant. In this position Amyan played 18. Rxe6 !?

Amyan - Arasan
 abcdefgh 
 8    BR  BK   BR  BK   8 
 7   BP    BB  BP  BP   7 
 6  BP     BB  BN   BP  6 
 5     BP      5 
 4  WP    WQ     WB  4 
 3   WB  WN       3 
 2   WP  WP   WR  WP  WP  WP  2 
 1      WR   WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

2rq1rk1/1p2bpp1/p3bn1p/3p4/P2Q3B/1BN5/1PP1RPPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 18 It did it for no good reason. Later it retreated the rook to e1 then e2, etc. that is Amyan... After a little fight, there was a material unbalance, Amyan having a QBB and 5 pawns vs QR and 4 pawns of Arasan. Because Arasan king was much more exposed later it was in a hurry, and Amyan won 2 pawns more, getting this position:

Amyan - Arasan
 abcdefgh 
 8       BR    8 
 7    BK   BK     7 
 6          6 
 5        WQ   5 
 4        WB   4 
 3        WP  WP  3 
 2        WP  WK  2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

5r2/2q1k3/8/6Q1/6B1/6PP/6PK/8 b - - 0 57 And this ended in a draw. It looks like white can't advance his h pawn alone, so it must advance the g pawn too, leaving his king exposed. That's why Arasan got the draw, but perhaps Amyan played something bad. Perhaps echange queens would have been ok for white but I don't know if white can force that and am a bit lazy. That's it, Amyan got 5/9, wich was exactly was before I thunk I wanted, so it is just fine. See you.

Yace in CCT5 - Dieter Buerssner

Note - crossposted to CCC and the WB-forum. The comments following are not based on any deep analysis. It were just the impressions. We used (of course) a current developement version of Yace. The opening books were by José Luis Jiménez. First game was vs. Tao. Yace was white, came with slight positive score out of book. The same opening was on the board later vs. Arasan. For a long time, Yace had a triple c-pawn. But it even advance, and later one c-pawn promoted (to get captured). The position got better and better, and eventually was won. Second round with black vs. Baron. The first game I (Dieter) watched. Yace showed a positive score throughout the game, but I believe it was wrong. Baron was a few moves longer in book, and aligned up his pieces for a K-side attack. To me, the scores of Yace looked very naive, and Baron was over +1 soon. Nevertheless, Yace defended well. Re8 and Nf8 were probably a good idea, and the attack of Baron did not come through. Yace found its counterplay on the Q-flank, and succeeded. I was honestly shivering during the first phase of the game. 13...Qh4 seemed really bad. Third round with white vs. Arasan. Again the triple c-pawn. IM Schroer commented about it in the sense, that this looks stupid. In 3 games the second time. Perhaps, after all, it was not that bad. In the game vs. Arasan, the triple pawn soon converted to a nice majority on the Q-side with a solid pawn structure. From then on, the score rised slowly, until it was won. Fourth round with black vs. Crafty. I think an about equal position for a long time. Both engines saw a slight positive score in their favor. Crafty had the B-pair. In the rather close position Yace actually preferred the knight. At move 44 the score of Yace dropped significantly and again the next move. I think, the game was won here for Crafty. Fifth round with white vs. Pepito. Yace came out of book in a good position. Pepito had one more book move, I think. To me, the game looked very well played for Yace. After some critics, IM Schroer gave a very nice comment: "Schroer(IM)(64): Yace won with a very nicely played Minority Attack, culminating in tactics involving the 7th rank, a passed b pawn, and a potential pin on the h1-a8 long diagonal. Not so long ago, people openly wondered if a computer would ever be able to play a Minority Attack!" Not often, an author will here such a compliment. In fact, it was probably a bit more prosaic, and some tactics was seen. 6th round with white vs. Ferret. I think an untypical game of Yace vs a very strong opponent. Somehow everything done seemed very well. Yace was building up a nice attack vs. Ferret. Sune Larsen gave some comments at http://www.talkchess.com/forums/1/message.html?278192 7th round with black vs. Searcher. Again a Spanish game. Both opponents were in book for a long time. Both came out of book with scores in their favor. After 19. d5 (first out of book move of searcher) I did not like the pos of Yace. Looked very cramped to me. But fortunately, Yace found some chances on the Q-side, and the position totally changed in few moves. I think, again a good game. Yace even allowed Bxh7 of searcher, but the missing h-pawn was not a big problem. Later Yace itself got Bxh3, and the game was decided. 8th round, again black vs. Ruffian. Yace came out of book with negative score and never recovered. Ruffian did not give it a chance. It seems to me, Ruffian had everything under the whole time, and deserved the win. 9th round with black again (3rd time in a row) vs. Comet. The opening looked very strange. Schroer: "uncharted tactical madness". Uli and me suspected, that this might end soon in some perpetual check. Fortunately (for Yace) the engines did not agree, and one or the other saw its chances. I think, it ended in an interesting endgame, where Comet had more pawns, and Yace had the B-pair vs. a R. At the start of this phase, still both engines saw an advantage for themselves. Only few pawns were left, and I think only Yace could win at this time - but perhaps not very easy. Well, in the end it succeeded :-) After this, Yace ended with a split first place. The tiebreak followed. Yace lost all 3 played tiebreak games ... A great event, great pleasure and enjoyement. Thanks to all, who made this possible: the opponents, Volker as the TD and IM Schroer for his comments. In a followup, the games with scores of Yace will be posted, in case anybody should be interested. Regards, José Luis Jimenez and Dieter Bürßner

Zappa in CCT5 - Anthony Cozzi

Everyone is posting on their games with zappa so I thought I'd give my impressions. Round 1: Zappa - Bringer 1/2 Zappa's opening left Bringer with an advantage in center control, something Zappa never tolerates for very long, and in the ensuing mess Zappa missed 16 ..Bf5! which won a pawn for Bringer. Surprisingly, Bringer opted for an e passer instead of the extra pawn. Zappa had 3:1 on the queenside, and its king was quite close to passed pawn on e3, so I thought Zappa had a slight edge here [move 29]. However, Bringer was able to rescue its pawn and ended up with 2 passers on the 3rd rank, while Zappa putzed around and did nothing. Finally, just when Bringer was about to close in for the kill, Zappa sacrificed its c pawn, created connected passers on a4-b5, and was able to draw. Whew! Round 2: Robin - Zappa 0-1 Zappa's lack of opening book strikes again. It won a pawn from Robin in the first 7 moves, but Robin had good compensation. Robin began to tie Zappa's pieces in knots. Zappa could always see a way for Robin to win back the pawn, but Robin never did: I don't know whether it wasn't searching deep enough or its eval preferred blacks knotty position. Finally, 30 moves into the game, Zappa finally got rid of Robin's rook on the 8th!! rank. Zappa quickly moved its Knights into commanding positions on the queenside, forced trades, and won a Bishop for its passed c pawn.

Robin - Zappa
 abcdefgh 
 8    BB       8 
 7       BP  BK   7 
 6      BP   BP   6 
 5  BP   WN   WP   WP   5 
 4      WP  WP    4 
 3          3 
 2    BN    WK    2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

2b5/5pk1/4p1p1/p1N1P1P1/4PP2/8/2n2K2/8 b - - 0 50 In this position Zappa uncorked the beautiful Bd7!! Robin got its Knight down to b3, but it could never manage to get its King to the queenside: Ke2 allows Nd4, decoying the Knight and allowing Zappa to promote.

Robin - Zappa
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7       BP  BK   7 
 6      BP   BP   6 
 5      WP   WP   5 
 4      WP  WP    4 
 3   WN        3 
 2  BP   BN       2 
 1       WK    1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/5pk1/4p1p1/4P1P1/4PP2/1N6/p1n5/5K2 b - - 0 54 Zappa moved its King over to the queenside, promoted, and managed to checkmate with a pawn to top things off :) Round 3: Zappa - PepitoX 0-1 This was the one game in which I felt Zappa had no chances. PepitoX absolutely annihilated Zappa in a 2 bishop v Rook and pawn ending. I don't know why Zappa chose not to exchange its N for one of the Bishops, but Pepito simply marched its passed d pawn down the board, supported by the clerics, and topped things off with an attack on Zappa's King. Round 4: The Baron - Zappa 1 - 0 Zappa played another silly opening (Schroer called it 'Frank Zappaesque') and soon Baron had everything except the kitchen sink lined up at Zappa's King. Any human would be sweating bullets if they were in Zappa's position at move 23:

The Baron - Zappa
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR   BB       8 
 7  BP   BP   BR   BK   7 
 6    BP  BK   BN  BP   6 
 5     BP  BP     5 
 4     WP    BP   4 
 3   WN   WB  WP     3 
 2  WP  WP  WP  WQ   WP    2 
 1   WK      WR  WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r1b5/p1p1r1k1/2pq1np1/3pp3/3P2p1/1N1BP3/PPPQ1P2/1K4RR w - - 0 23 I would have been sweating bullets as the *author* if I wasn't out playing basketball. Somehow Baron was unable to land a knockout punch and Zappa slipped into a Rook ending with all pawns on the same side, down 3v2. I was quite happy at this point because I believe this is a draw. However, Zappa in one of the biggest blunders of the day exchanged rooks, and Baron quickly reached a winning position with the benefit of its tablebases. Round 5: Zappa - Wildcat 1/2 Wildcat's book contained pawn sacrifice for the initiative that neither engine suspected. As a result, Wildcat got just enough pressure for a perpetual on Zappa's king, and took it for a "grandmaster draw" :) A pretty boring game, especially since Tinker would have made a huge attack from there. Round 6: Tinker - Zappa 1/2 Zappa vs Tinker is always fun. Tinker is very speculative, while zappa (being a new engine with few terms) gobbles everything. Zappa seems to see just slightly more than Tinker to even things out a bit. Tinker sacrificed a Bishop for two pawns, a strong passed C pawn, and a completely open Zappa King. Zappa refused to go down without a fight, and traded off some pieces and pawns. The King attack was more or less over, but I still thought Tinker's strong passed C pawn would give it the point. After a lot of shuffling Tinker pushed its C pawn to the 7th rank and then began moving its 3 kingside passers. Zappa however had a pin on tinkers bishop and it managed to win the middle kingside pawn. In the end, I think Tinker was winning despite being down Queen for Rook. Tinker, however, did not agree and gave up its rook to reach a known TB draw, which Zappa of course never saw coming. Round 7: Zappa - CyberPagno 1-0 Zappa gave up its 3 kingside pawns for a piece again. CyberPagno thought it was winning bigtime, and I wasn't too happy about the position either.

Zappa - CyberPagno
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR  BN     BR  BK   8 
 7  BP  BP     BP  BP  BP  7 
 6    BP   BB     6 
 5     BP      5 
 4     WP    BK  WN  4 
 3   WP  WN       3 
 2  WP  WB  WP       2 
 1  WR     WQ  WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

rn3rk1/pp3ppp/2p1b3/3p4/3P2qN/1PN5/PBP5/R3QRK1 w - - 0 18 Here, Zappa thought it had a draw (Qh3-g4), I thought Black should start developing with Nd7 and Rae8, and CyberPagno grabbed the d4 pawn. The problem with this is that Zappa instantly developed a great deal of pressure on the g7 pawn due to the b2 Bishop suddenly becoming very strong. Zappa understands development fairly well (when you have no book, its pretty important) so I was feeling a little better. Then CyberPagno blundered with dxe4?? and instantly Zappa was at +5, which rapidly firmed up to a mate score.

Zappa - CyberPagno
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR  BN      BK   8 
 7  BP  WN   BB     BP  7 
 6    BP     BP   6 
 5       BP    5 
 4      BP   BK  WN  4 
 3   WP        3 
 2  WP  WB  WP    WQ    2 
 1       WR   WK  1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

rn4k1/pN1b3p/2p3p1/5p2/4p1qN/1P6/PBP2Q2/5R1K w - - 0 28 Round 8: Arasan - Zappa 1/2 Arasan played the Ruy lopez and quickly put the screws to Zappa. Zappa made some rash pawn pushes in the center and was barely able to survive. Once again the stronger engine was unable to close in for the kill and Zappa somehow weathered the storm. In the end, Zappa had 2 queenside pawns and a nice d5 Knight, while arasan had a Rook on the 7th. Arasan made what looked like a somewhat dubious exchange sac and the position was reduced to QRPP v QNPPP. Zappa annoyingly refused to exchange queens, and Arasan easily liquidated Zappa's pawns for another TB draw (R v N). Round 9: Zappa - Movei 1/2 For some reason, Movei allowed Zappa to shatter its Kingside pawns in the opening by exchanged B for N and Zappa never looked back. Knights are the only pieces Zappa knows how to handle, and it soon put the screws to movei. It pinned movei's doubled pawn to the f5 square and won it. Movei then blundered with 35 .. Rb6? allowing Zappa's rooks to penetrate, and the game looked like it would be over quickly.

Zappa - Movei
 abcdefgh 
 8      BR     8 
 7  BP  WR        7 
 6    BR  WR     BP  6 
 5    BK    WN    5 
 4      BP  WP  WP   4 
 3    BB   WK    WP  3 
 2  WP         2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

4r3/pR6/2rR3p/2k2N2/4pPP1/2b1K2P/P7/8 w - - 0 47 Then a bad eval term struck. Zappa evaluates doubled rooks on the 7th as very good, *even when the enemey king is not trapped behind them*, and it played the idiotic Rdd7. This put movei right back in the game. Zappa then confounded matters by placing its Knight in on a7. Eventually zappa was forced to sacrifice the exchange. But it was movei's turn to blunder again and it allowed Zappa to use its advanced f7 pawn to win back the exchange, and then lost its remaining pawn. Finally Zappa advanced its g pawn and won. I was extremely happy with this game because zappa showed good positional understanding for the first 40 moves or so. Uri was annoyed that Movei allowed its pawns to be doubled in the opening. In the end Zappa scored 5/9 for 16th place, which I think is amazing for a program with no book and no tablebases. I think Zappa was also a bit lucky, and as IM Schroer reminded me, "Its better to be lucky than to be good." (Capablanca). I was of course exceedingly happy with zappa's score in the tourney. anthony

Hossa in CCT5 - Steffen Jakob

Here are my notes about Hossa playing the CCT5. I have not yet analysed Hossa's game deeply but I want to give you a fast overview of my impressions. Please give me some feedback if I made mistakes in my quick analysis. I haven't worked a lot on the "old" Hossa since CCT4 because again I started to rewrite my engine (It sometimes runs as "Jockel" at ICC). Unfortunately this is a very time consuming and also sometimes boring job. This new version isn't by far as strong as the stable Hossa. Therefore I first didn't want to join CCT5. Also hardware was an aspect against joining because it seemed as if I had to play with my Athlon 900. Having a look at the participants list I saw that most engines will run on much faster machines. Hossa already is a slow searcher and gets outsearched most of the time. I feared that Hossa would not be competitive with a big hardware disadvantage. On the other hand I played all CCTs so far and didn't want to miss the fun I always had in those tournament. Then in the last month I began to enjoy to modify the old Hossa again. I think that the changes were significant compared to the CCT4 version so I decided to join CCT5 - encouraged by people like Alex Kure and Bob Hyatt - and not to miss the fun even if I had to play on a slow hardware. I was very happy that some days before CCT5 the hardware problem was solved. Alex Kure organized a P4 2.8 GHz with 2 GB RAM for me which I could use for CCT5! This made me much more optimistic. On thursday we installed RedHat 8.0 without problems on the P4. Hossa was ready to go. Then finally the tournament started. ---------------------------------------- Round 1: Monsoon - Hossa (0-1) ---------------------------------------- After the tournament I read that people think that rank 6 for Monsoon was a surprise. I wasn't suprised about that at all because I had played many games with Monsoon before and knew how strong it was. Hossa had a very bad score against Scott's creature. So I wasn't too optimistic for round #1. Well, if I had lost I could declare it as having played a swiss gambit. ;-) One of Hossa's biggest problem is his opening book. I tried to compile a very small opening book and hoped that Hossa would survive this phase. It wasn't successful all the time. Right in the first round Hossa allowed his opponent to destroy blacks king pawn shield:

Monsoon - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR   BB  BK   BR  BK   8 
 7  BP  BP  BP  BP   BP    7 
 6   BB  BN    BP   BP  6 
 5   WB    WP     5 
 4     BP      4 
 3    WP    WN    3 
 2  WP  WP     WP  WP  WP  2 
 1  WR  WN   WQ   WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r1bq1rk1/pppp1p2/1bn2p1p/1B2P3/3p4/2P2N2/PP3PPP/RN1Q1RK1 w - - 0 10 after 9... gxf6 Later Hossa gave away a pawn (c6) and got a rather strong passer on the d file:

Monsoon - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR      BR    8 
 7  BP   BP    BP  BK   7 
 6   BB  WN       6 
 5     BP  WP   BP   5 
 4        BB   4 
 3    WN       3 
 2  WP  WP     WP  WP  WP  2 
 1    WR    WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r4r2/p1p2pk1/1bN5/3pP1p1/6b1/2N5/PP3PPP/2R2RK1 b - - 0 18 after 18... d4 I was more confident now. Monsoon was very happy with its position though. In move 20 Monsoon offered the exchange:

Monsoon - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR      BR    8 
 7  BP   BP    BP  BK   7 
 6   BB  WN       6 
 5      WP   WN   5 
 4     BP      4 
 3          3 
 2  WP  WP    BB  WP  WP  WP  2 
 1    WR    WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r4r2/p1p2pk1/1bN5/4P1N1/3p4/8/PP2bPPP/2R2RK1 b - - 0 20 after 20... d3 I am a bit proud that Hossa refused to take the rook but instead played 20... d3 and kept the pressure. Later Hossa opened the f file and all his pieces very involved in active play. Monsoon even gave his e pawn so that black got a pawn on the e file which could support the strong pawn d3. This is the position one move before Monsoon resigned:

Monsoon - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7  WN   BP      BK  7 
 6          6 
 5  WP     WR  BR    5 
 4   WP    BP  BR    4 
 3     BP     WP  3 
 2     WR  BB   WP  WK  2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/N1p4k/8/P3Rr2/1P2pr2/3p3P/3Rb1PK/8 w - - 1 33 after 32... R8f5 Here Monsoon played 33.Kg3 and resigned after 33... Rxe5 because of 34.Kxf4 e3 35.Ra2 d2. But what if Monsoon had played 33.Re6 ? This was the move which Hossa expected during the game with a draw score. Can anybody find an improvement for black in after this move?? ---------------------------------------- Round 2: Hossa - Crafty (0-1) ---------------------------------------- This game was a disaster. I could not watch most parts of the game because some minutes after its beginning my wife had a circulatory collapse. Fortunately she was ok very soon. Hossa showed solidarity with Regina and collapsed, too. I saw Crafty computing more than 2600000 nps in that game! Crafty was able to build a king attack and with that computing power it was over very soon.

Hossa - Crafty
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR      BR   BK  8 
 7   BP      BP   7 
 6    BP  BP    BN  BP  6 
 5    BB   BP    BK  5 
 4  BP     WQ   BB  WP  4 
 3  WP   WP  WP   WN  WP   3 
 2  WB  WP   WN   WP  WK   2 
 1  WR       WR   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r4r1k/1p4p1/2pp2np/2b1p2q/p3Q1bP/P1PP1NP1/BP1N1PK1/R5R1 b - - 0 20 before 20... Rxf3 I resigned in move 26. ---------------------------------------- Round 3: Amateur - Hossa (1/2-1/2) ---------------------------------------- Games between Amateur and Hossa are most of the time interesting. IMHO they are about equally strong. Amateur ran on the same CPU as Hossa did, so I expected an open fight. Unfortunately the opening was bad again. Hossa was down a pawn at move 15:

Amateur - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8  BB    BK   BR  BK   8 
 7    BP   BB  BP  BP  BP  7 
 6     BP   BN    6 
 5   WN        5 
 4      WP     4 
 3   WP  WN       3 
 2   WP     WP  WP  WP  2 
 1    WB  WQ  WR   WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

b2q1rk1/2p1bppp/3p1n2/1N6/4P3/1PN5/1P3PPP/2BQR1K1 b - - 0 15 after 15.Ndxb5 Kingway said: "few humans would want that pawn" Soon lots of pieces were exchanged. Both sides had a rook, a queen, and a bishop of opposite color. My hope was that Amateur would allow to trade even more pieces. Kingway comment was: " trading rooks and queens is trival draw, trading queens is easy draw, trading rooks is still work...". I was right: in move 31 Hossa could exchange the rooks. The position was already very drawish. Amateur was still very happy with its position though. In move 33. Amateur took Hossas queen and the position was a dead draw:

Amateur - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8        BK   8 
 7     BK   BP  BP  BP  7 
 6    BP       6 
 5    WB    BB    5 
 4   WP        4 
 3       WP    3 
 2   WP      WP  WP  2 
 1     WQ    WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

6k1/3q1ppp/2p5/2B2b2/1P6/5P2/1P4PP/3Q2K1 w - - 1 33 before 33.Qxd7 Although it was a easy draw the game continued to move 144. Hossa even almost blundered and I started to get nervous but in the end the game was drawn. It also was interesting that Amateur showed a score of >+6 in the last moves. Will could not explain this. I hope he can find and fix this bug. ---------------------------------------- Round 4: Hossa - Averno (1-0) ---------------------------------------- At the beginning of this game I had some massive lag. Hossa got disconnected but luckily I could establish the internet connection soon again. This game was the cleanest victory from Hossa. Averno didn't have much chance. Already in move 17 white had an impressive center:

Hossa - Averno
 abcdefgh 
 8     BR  BN  BR  BK   8 
 7   BP  BK  BN  BP  BP  BB  BP  7 
 6  BP       BP   6 
 5  WP   BP  WP  WP     5 
 4       WP  BB   4 
 3    WN  WB  WB  WN    3 
 2   WP    WQ   WP  WP  2 
 1  WR      WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

3rnrk1/1pqnppbp/p5p1/P1pPP3/5Pb1/2NBBN2/1P2Q1PP/R4RK1 b - - 1 17 It was only a question of time when something tactically was possible: [D]3rnr1k/1pqnp2p/p4p1b/P1pPP1p1/2B2PbN/2NQB3/1P4PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 21 In this position Hossa found the nice 21.Ng6+! Of course other moves were winning, too (e.g. 21.d6). I am interested if your favourite engine would play Ng6+ here, too. Black couldn't stop whites king attack and resigned at move 28. ---------------------------------------- Round 5: Chezzz - Hossa (0-1) ---------------------------------------- I was already very exhausted - this is something btw. which my wife could not understand. She asked me why I was exhausted because I had nothing else to do than to start the games. Everything else was done by the engine. Technically speaking she is right, of course ;-). I could hardly follow the game and expected to fall asleep during the game.

Chezzz - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR    BK  BK    BR  8 
 7  BP  BP    BB  BP  BP  BP  7 
 6    BN  BP  BB  BN    6 
 5    BP   BP     5 
 4    WB   WP     4 
 3    WN  WP  WN  WP    3 
 2  WP  WP  WP     WP  WP  2 
 1  WR   WB  WQ  WK    WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r2qk2r/pp2bppp/2npbn2/2p1p3/2B1P3/2NPNP2/PPP3PP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 2 9 before 9... Bxc4 After 9... Bxc4 black had already a suspicious position because his d pawn became weak. Usually Hossa took about 1-2 minutes per move in the tournament. Now something strange happened in this position:

Chezzz - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8     BB      8 
 7  BP    BK   BK  BP   7 
 6     WP  BN     6 
 5  BP    WN  BP    BP  5 
 4    WP   WP     4 
 3    WP   WB   WQ   3 
 2        WP  WP  2 
 1        WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

3b4/p2k1qp1/3Pn3/p2Np2p/2P1P3/2P1B1Q1/6PP/6K1 b - - 0 32 White had just taken d6 and Hossa started to think and just didn't want to move. Suddenly I was awake. Already while Hossa was still thinking I could find with the help of the log file and having a look at the source what was going wrong. In certain circumstances Hossa extends the search time by small pieces. The pieces should get smaller each time the time gets extended. Here it was different! The pieces got larger, much larger. As Hossa usually plays blitz most of the time this bug was not visible because with shorter time control the time doesnt be extended as much there. Luckily Hossa wasn't in danger to extend its search time over the remaining time. It was also a lot of luck that this bug occured in the last round of the day so I had time to implement a workaround until day 2. When Hossa moved 32... Kxd6 he had spent more than 17 minutes for this move!! He had about 5 minutes left on the clock. Chezzz had more than 20 minutes IIRC. And the position wasn't very well, neither. Then Hossa had a lot of ponder hits which helped him to recover a bit on the clock. But also the position on the board changed. Chezzz traded the queens and suddenly the two a-file passers became dangerous. This game needs some deeper analysis which I haven't done so far. In the following position I think white is already lost:

Chezzz - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7    BK       7 
 6          6 
 5  BP    WP      5 
 4    WP   BP   BP   4 
 3  BP  WK  WP     WP   3 
 2  WN  BN        2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/2k5/8/p2P4/2P1p1p1/pKP3P1/Nn6/8 w - - 0 59 White played until he got checkmated in move 93. David was very unhappy with that game which I can understand very well. It's the opposite here of course. I already thought that Hossa would lose this one for sure. It was a nice turnaround for me. ---------------------------------------- Round 6: Hossa - Bringer (1/2-1/2) ---------------------------------------- This was the first round of the second day. I hoped that the workaround for the bug from game 5 was working (spoiler: it did!). So far Hossa had performed much better than I had expected it. But I knew that I would get only very strong opponents on the 2nd day (well, the opponents from day 1 were strong, too). Hossa played a strange opening again in this game with 1.f4 d5 2.d4 e6 3.Bd2 and tried to play actively with 11. f5 and later with 25.g4.

Hossa - Bringer
 abcdefgh 
 8    BR    BR  BK   8 
 7  BP  BP   BB    BP  BP  7 
 6   BK    BP   BN   6 
 5     BP      5 
 4     WP    WP   4 
 3  WP   WN   WQ   WB  WP  3 
 2   WP  WP       2 
 1   WR    WR    WK  1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

2r2rk1/pp1b2pp/1q2p1n1/3p4/3P2P1/P1N1Q1BP/1PP5/1R2R2K w - - 3 30 Here Hossa played 30. b4 which I could not understand. Bringer improved the pressure on the c file:

Hossa - Bringer
 abcdefgh 
 8       BR  BK   8 
 7  BP  BP   BB    BP  BP  7 
 6    BK     BN   6 
 5     BP  BP     5 
 4   WP  BR  WP    WP   4 
 3  WP   WN   WQ   WB  WP  3 
 2    WP       2 
 1   WR   WR    WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

5rk1/pp1b2pp/2q3n1/3pp3/1PrP2P1/P1N1Q1BP/2P5/1R1R2K1 w - - 2 33 White already loses material. Hossa played 33.b5 which gives the best counterplay IMHO. Hossa won back the pawn later and it even looked as he had good chances to win the game.

Hossa - Bringer
 abcdefgh 
 8        BK   8 
 7     WK    BP   7 
 6     WP     BP  6 
 5          5 
 4          4 
 3       WR    3 
 2          2 
 1        BR   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

6k1/3K2p1/3P3p/8/8/5R2/8/6r1 b - - 0 74 As Peter already stated tablebases helped to fix the draw. ---------------------------------------- Round 7: Terra - Hossa (0-1) ---------------------------------------- In the opening white moved his queen in an inactive position:

Terra - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8   BR   BK  BK    BR  8 
 7  BP  BP     BP  BB  BP  7 
 6    BP  BP  BB  BN  BP   6 
 5  BN     BP     5 
 4  WQ   WP  WP      4 
 3   WP  WN   WP   WP   3 
 2  WP     WN  WP  WB  WP  2 
 1  WR   WB   WK    WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

1r1qk2r/pp3pbp/2ppbnp1/n3p3/Q1PP4/1PN1P1P1/P3NPBP/R1B1K2R b KQk - 0 11 Hossa has some expensive knowledge about queen mobility which should pay in this game. Nevertheless white had the better position because he managed to build some pressure on Hossa's center pawns:

Terra - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8    BR   BN  BR  BK   8 
 7  BP  BP      BK  BP  7 
 6    BN  BP  BP  BB  BP   6 
 5    BP       5 
 4  WQ   WP       4 
 3   WP  WN   WP   WP  WB  3 
 2  WP  WB   WR   WP   WP  2 
 1    WR     WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

2r1nrk1/pp4qp/2nppbp1/2p5/Q1P5/1PN1P1PB/PB1R1P1P/2R3K1 b - - 13 1 Here a move like 21... Qf7 seems obvious to protect e6. Hossa instead played for positional reasons 21... Nc7 which I like very much. This gives away the pawn d6 but removes a lot of pressure from his position. Look at the position after move 27:

Terra - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8     BK    BK   8 
 7  BP  BP       BP  7 
 6  BN   BN   BP  BB  BP   6 
 5    BP       5 
 4  WQ   WP       4 
 3  WP  WP  WN   WP   WP   3 
 2   WB     WP   WP  2 
 1       WB  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

3q2k1/pp5p/n1n1pbp1/2p5/Q1P5/PPN1P1P1/1B3P1P/5BK1 w - - 0 28 Whites queen is still under control which Hossa knew. White has the d file. Later Hossa forced Terra to give a knight in order to save his queen:

Terra - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8   BN   BB   BK    8 
 7  BP         7 
 6   BP  BN   WB   BP   6 
 5   WQ  BP      BP  5 
 4  WN   WP       4 
 3  WP  WP    WP   WP   3 
 2   WB   BK   WP   WP  2 
 1        WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

1n1b1k2/p7/1pn1B1p1/1Qp4p/N1P5/PP2P1P1/1B1q1P1P/6K1 w - - 3 36 The threat was a6 therefore Terra played 36. Nxb6. But even after that white was not able to free his queen for some time. This time Hossa used to grab some pawns. Finally when white's queen escaped from her prison it was already too late. ---------------------------------------- Round 8: Hossa - Ferret (0-1) ---------------------------------------- This is the 2nd loss from Hossa in CCT5. Hossa was as chanceless as in the game with Crafty although Bruce meant "Hossa is still kicking" when I thought it was already over. Hossa lost time for his development by playing Ne5 and Nb5 too early. After move 17 there was a triple pawn on the board:

Hossa - Ferret
 abcdefgh 
 8     BR  BK    BR  8 
 7  BP     BP  BP  BB  BP  7 
 6  BK     BB   BP   6 
 5   BP  BP   WP     5 
 4          4 
 3   WP    WP   WP   3 
 2  WP  WB  WQ   WP   WB  WP  2 
 1  WR      WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

3rk2r/p3ppbp/q3b1p1/1pp1P3/8/1P2P1P1/PBQ1P1BP/R4RK1 b k - 0 17 Ferret soon got two connected advanced passed pawns on the b and c file and had no problems to get the full point and become leader of the table. ---------------------------------------- Round 9: Diep - Hossa (1/2-1/2) ---------------------------------------- The first move after having left the opening book was 8... g6 and allowed Diep a nice tactical manoever:

Diep - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR  BN  BB  BK  BK  BB   BR  8 
 7  BP     BP  BP   BP  7 
 6    BP     BP   6 
 5   BP    WN     5 
 4  WP   BP  WP  WP     4 
 3    WP       3 
 2       WP  WP  WP  2 
 1  WR   WB  WQ  WK  WB   WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

rnbqkb1r/p3pp1p/2p3p1/1p2N3/P1pPP3/2P5/5PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 9 After 9. axb5 cxb5 Diep played 10. Nxf7! Kxf7 11. Qf3+ Kg7 12. e5 Nc6 13. Qxc6. Later Diep was a pawn up by winning c4.

Diep - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR        BR  8 
 7      BP  BK  BB  BP  7 
 6        BP   6 
 5  BP         5 
 4    WR  WP   WB    4 
 3    WP       3 
 2       WP  WP  WP  2 
 1      WK    WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r6r/4pkbp/6p1/p7/2RP1B2/2P5/5PPP/4K2R b K - 0 21 Hossa managed to push the a-file passed pawn to a2. After a while the following position was on the board:

Diep - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8      BK     8 
 7        BB   7 
 6      BP     6 
 5    WB       5 
 4    WP  WP   WR    4 
 3    WK       3 
 2          2 
 1         BR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

4k3/6b1/4p3/2B5/2PP1R2/2K5/8/7r b - - 2 50 I am not qualified to comment this endgame. After the game Vincent said that he thinks that white should win. In the game Diep could not find a winning plan and it was a draw after move 74:

Diep - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7  WR         7 
 6      BP  BB  BK   6 
 5    WK       5 
 4    WP  WP      4 
 3          3 
 2     BR   WB    2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/R7/4pbk1/2K5/2PP4/8/3r1B2/8 w - - 51 1 ---------------------------------------- Conclusions ---------------------------------------- It was a lot of fun to play this very well organized tournament. The time control is too fast for my taste but on the other hand it's more family-friendly to play on only one weekend. For the next CCT5 I would vote for not having a winner decision by blitz games. Crafty, YACE and Ruffian all deserve to be named as winners of this tournament. Some conclusions: - Hossa had some comebacks in bad positions. I think my latest changes were rather good. - Hossa overlooked some tactical shots, but not as many as it usually does. The 2.8 GHz machine helped a lot here. - I badly need a better opening book! - Now I see lots of ways how to improve the old Hossa. Motivation came back. I think I will freeze the reimplementation and continue to work on Hossa-1.151. - My time management needs a redesign. - TD is the abbrevation for "touch down", BOOC means "bishops of opposite colors" ;) I am looking forward for CCT6. Best wishes, Steffen.

Grok in CCT5 - Peter Kappler

I've always enjoyed reading the summaries from the other programmers, so I thought I'd write something up, too. This was Grok's first CCT since CCT1 in Feb 2000. A lot has changed. It's a bigger event now, better organized, and has a much more international flavor. In 9 rounds, I faced opponents from 9 different countries: Comet Germany Movei Israel Polarchess Norway Armageddon Poland Amyan Chile Chezzz Denmark Wildcat Belarus Alarm Sweden Tinker USA How cool is that? It was great to meet a bunch of new people, and the mood in channel 64 was generally light-hearted and fun. The social aspect is really the best part of the event. Volker Richey did a fabulous job running the tourney, and IM Jonathan Schroer was on hand to comment on all of the games. If you've never entered or watched a a CCT, I highly recommend it! Round 1, Comet-Grok, 1-0 I stumbled out of bed at 5:55am, cursing the event schedule and wishing I lived several timezones to the East. I logged in to ICC, and right away a surprise was waiting for me. My opponent, Messchess, was having connection problems and after 25 minutes of waiting, Volker re-paired Grok with Comet. So, instead of facing the 45th seed, Grok was up against the 5th seed! I was happy for the chance to face a strong opponent, but found myself having to make a bit of a mental readjustment. I had been preparing myself for a relatively easy game, and instead I was a big underdog. Grok played the Marshall Attack in the Ruy Lopez, exiting book with 17...f5 (17...Re6 is better). On move 20, Grok exchanged Queens, a pretty stupid idea in a position where Black has gambited a pawn for an attack.

Comet - Grok
 abcdefgh 
 8       BR   BK  8 
 7      BR   BP  BP  7 
 6  BP    BB      6 
 5   BP   BP   BP    5 
 4     WP   WP    4 
 3    WP   WB   WP  BB  3 
 2  WP  WP   WN     WP  2 
 1  WR     WR   WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

5r1k/4r1pp/p2b4/1p1p1p2/3P1P2/2P1B1Pb/PP1N3P/R3R1K1 w - - 0 22 The resulting pawn-down ending isn't pleasant, and Grok put up only meager resistance. Comet activated its dark-squared bishop and won routinely. Round 2, Grok-Movei, 1/2-1/2 Movei played a Petroff Defense, and got Grok out of book quickly with 6...Nd7. Grok's 10. f3 and 11. h3 are moves that beg Black to launch a sacrificial attack, which is exactly what happened.

Grok-Movei
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR     BK    BR  8 
 7  BP  BP   BB   BP  BP  BP  7 
 6     BB      6 
 5     BP      5 
 4     WP  BN    BK  4 
 3     WB   WP   WP  3 
 2  WP  WP      WP   2 
 1  WR  WN  WB  WQ   WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r3k2r/pp1b1ppp/3b4/3p4/3Pn2q/3B1P1P/PP4P1/RNBQ1RK1 b kq - 0 11 I was convinced that White would lose quickly, but it's not so easy for Black, actually. If you analyze the above position with your favorite engine, please let it think for a long time. Some of the variations are very deep, and although Black can win material, he hands the initiative back to White and can actually end up with *his* king in danger. Feed the moves in and watch the score drop for Black. Uri suggested 16...Ke7 as an improvement for Black, and I think he's probably right about that, but I'm still not sure who is better there. After 16...Kd8, Grok enjoyed the upper hand in the middlegame, but never found anything decisive. [Event "ICC 45 10 u"] [Site "Internet Chess Club"] [Date "2003.01.18"] [White "Grok"] [Black "MoveiXX"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ICCResult "Game drawn by repetition"] [WhiteElo "2367"] [BlackElo "2354"] [Opening "Petrov: modern attack, Symmetrical variation"] [ECO "C43"] [NIC "RG.02"] [Time "11:19:28"] [TimeControl "2700+10"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 Nxe4 4. Bd3 d5 5. Nxe5 Bd6 6. O-O Nd7 7. c4 c6 8. cxd5 cxd5 9. Nxd7 Bxd7 10. f3 Qh4 11. h3 Bxh3 12. fxe4 Bh2+ 13. Kxh2 Bg4+ 14. Kg1 Bxd1 15. Rxd1 dxe4 16. Bb5+ Kd8 17. Nc3 Rc8 18. Rf1 Qh5 19. Ba4 f5 20. Nb5 Qg6 21. Bf4 Rc6 22. Bb3 Qf6 23. Rad1 Ke7 24. d5 Ra6 25. Nc7 Rd6 26. Ne6 Qxb2 27. Bxd6+ Kxd6 28. Rxf5 Rc8 29. Ng5 e3 30. Rf7 e2 31. Ne4+ Ke5 32. Re7+ Kf4 33. g3+ Kf5 34. Re1 Rc1 35. Kf2 Qd4+ 36. Kf3 Qd3+ 37. Kf2 Qd4+ 38. Kf3 Qd3+ 39. Kf2 Qd4+ {Game drawn by repetition} 1/2-1/2 Round 3, PolarChess-Grok, 1/2-1/2 PolarChess played the English Opening. I don't know any of the theory in this particular line, but Grok was out of book after move 12, and then proceeded to follow a line that was in PolarChess's book all the way until move 27. This sounds neat, but it was horrible. It turns out that PolarChess' author had manually added some analysis of a Kramnik game into his book, including a bad variation where Black exchanges straight into a losing ending. Grok played right down this line, repeatedly failing low and allocating more search time. By the time PolarChess exited book on move 27, Grok was down an exchange and behind on the clock by a huge amount, 47 minutes to 15!

PolarChess-Grok
 abcdefgh 
 8       BB  BK   8 
 7  WR      BP   BP  7 
 6   BP      BP   6 
 5          5 
 4       WP    4 
 3          3 
 2  WP      WP   WP  2 
 1        WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

5bk1/R4p1p/1p4p1/8/5P2/8/P4P1P/6K1 b - - 0 27 This is certainly lost, but somehow Grok created a passed h-pawn and swindled a draw. PolarChess' author told me that he found bugs in his pawn hashing right before the tournament, and had decided to play with it disabled. Perhaps this contributed to Grok's lucky escape. Round 4, Grok-Armageddon, 1-0 A Sicilian defense. Armageddon's 19...g5? severely weakened its kingside, and Grok took advantage of this pretty efficiently. This was probably Grok's smoothest game of the tournament.

Grok-Armageddon
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR   BB     BK   8 
 7   BP   BR   BP    7 
 6  BP   BP   BP    BP  6 
 5  BK   BB   WP   BP   5 
 4    WQ    WB    4 
 3    WP     WP   3 
 2  WP   WP    WP  WB  WP  2 
 1   WR    WR   WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r1b3k1/1p1r1p2/p1p1p2p/q1b1P1p1/2Q2B2/2P3P1/P1P2PBP/1R2R1K1 w - g6 0 20 It's late here, so I'll stop now and continue with rounds 5-9 tomorrow. -Peter

Monsoon in CCT5 - Scott Gasch

I'm looking back over the games monsoon played on the first day of CCT5 (esp the losses to Hossa and Bringer) and thought I would post some positions I thought were interesting. Round 1 monsoon had white against Hossa and played it's favorite tournament opening for white, the Ruy. ECO called it the Ruy: classical defense, Benelux variation. Monsoon was out of book, though, at move 8 though and proceeded to make two mistakes in the forms of bishop for knight trades. Normally reluctant to do this, I can see the engine's reasoning in both cases -- 9. Bxf6 opens black's king fortress while 12. Bxc6 gives black a damaged pawn structure. The position after the recapture is:

Monsoon - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8  BR   BB  BK   BR  BK   8 
 7  BP   BP    BP    7 
 6   BB  BP  BP     BP  6 
 5      WP     5 
 4          4 
 3       WN    3 
 2  WP  WP     WP  WP  WP  2 
 1  WR  WN   WQ   WR  WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r1bq1rk1/p1p2p2/1bpp3p/4P3/8/5N2/PP3PPP/RN1Q1RK1 w - - 0 13 Monsoon likes white here because of the open black king, black pawn defects etc. However I was very worried at this point about the two black bishops on what is looking like it will be a very open board and wondering how monsoon can manage to trade one off. Black will also get a passer on d no matter how you slice it. I think black may be better here despite the king position. Yace, crafty and warp favor white still but not nearly as much as monsoon did. Hossa loses one of the doubled c pawns on move 18 but has a dangerous d passer by then. The queen trade on move 17, though, might have favored black. A critical position (or, a critical mistake by monsoon) was move 23:

Monsoon - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8      BR  BR    8 
 7  BP   BP     BK   7 
 6   BB  WN    BP    6 
 5      WP   WN   5 
 4          4 
 3     BP      3 
 2  WP  WP   WR  BB  WP  WP  WP  2 
 1    WR     WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

4rr2/p1p3k1/1bN2p2/4P1N1/8/3p4/PP1RbPPP/2R3K1 w - - 0 23 Believe it or not, because of the open black king and extra white pawn material monsoon still thinks white is ahead here and plays Ne4 giving up the e pawn (and giving the d monster eventual support) in what I believe was an effort to get rid of a black bishop. Here's the plan: Ne4 fxe5 b4 Rf4 Nc5 e4 Nd4 Bxc5 bxc5 e3 fxe3 Rxe3 Nxe2 Rxe2 Rxd3 Rxa2 Better here might have been exf6+ Nf3 Bxf3 gxf3 Re2 Rxd3 Rxf2 Nd4 Rxb2. Or it might be too late for white already by now. One thing monsoon needs help on in the eval, I think, is knowing that advanced connected passers are even worse than it thinks when the defendign side only has rooks and maybe a minor since rooks are terrible with connected passers. The game is over once the e pawn gets up to support its comrade on d. Monsoon did manage to get a bishop off the board but only at the expense of the critical f file. It resigned here:

Monsoon - Hossa
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7  WN   BP      BK  7 
 6          6 
 5  WP     BR     5 
 4   WP    BP  BR    4 
 3     BP    WK  WP  3 
 2     WR  BB   WP   2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/N1p4k/8/P3r3/1P2pr2/3p2KP/3Rb1P1/8 w - - 0 34 Because after Kxf4 black wins easily with: e3 Ra2 d2 Nc6 d1=Q Nxe5 Qd4+ Kf5 Bd3+ Nxd3 Qxd3+ Kf4 e2 Rxe2 Qxe2. Nice game, Hossa. I was glad to learn Steffen had a hardware upgrade for CCT5 so monsoon at least had an excuse. In game 2 monsoon played Bringer and lost again. Monsoon was again out of book early, move 8. 8. d6 looks solid to me though and monsoon is happy about the open white king position. It proceeds to ruin attacking prospects with a queen trade on move 15. This is the second game in a row monsoon has taken what I thought to be a bad queen trade. It has also nowhere good to put it's king and ends up leaving it uncastled blockaded behind the central pawns. Here's the position at move 28:

Bringer - Monsoon
 abcdefgh 
 8         BR  8 
 7   BP   BK  BP  BP    7 
 6  BP    BP     WP  6 
 5     WP   BB    5 
 4      WP  WB  BP   4 
 3    BP    WP    3 
 2  BR   WP     WP   2 
 1    WK  WR     WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

7r/1p1kpp2/p2p3P/3P1b2/4PBp1/2p2P2/r1P3P1/2KR3R w - - 0 28 Monsoon is still calling this even despite its entombed bishop at f5 and the huge white passer on h. I thought black had attacking chances earlier on but the open white king position and the attacking pawn at c3 are less useful now that the rest of black's army is traded off and monsoon is overestimating the severity of the white king position. Here's an important position:

Bringer - Monsoon
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7   BP   BK   BP   WP  7 
 6  BP    BP      6 
 5          5 
 4    BR   WP   BP   4 
 3    BR    WP    3 
 2  BB   WP  WR    WP   2 
 1    WK      WR  1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/1p1k1p1P/p2p4/8/2r1P1p1/2r2P2/b1PR2P1/2K4R b - - 2 36 Monsoon has managed to get the bishop out and played Rb3 here threatoning Rb1# forcing white to check the black king with Rxd6. This leads to an endgame where monsoon has a rook and a minor against white's newly promoted queen. Here's the position at 41:

Bringer - Monsoon
 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7   BP     BP    7 
 6  BP    BK      6 
 5          5 
 4    BR   WP     4 
 3       WP    3 
 2  BB   WP  WK      2 
 1         WQ  1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/1p3p2/p2k4/8/2r1P3/5P2/b1PK4/7Q b - - 0 41 Instead of Rb3 yace thinks black should have played Rc8 defending the passer and leading to a position like this:

 abcdefgh 
 8         WR  8 
 7   BP   BK   BP    7 
 6  BP    BP      6 
 5          5 
 4      WP   BB   4 
 3    BR       3 
 2    WP  WR    WP   2 
 1    WK       1 
 abcdefgh 
 white to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

7R/1p1k1p2/p2p4/8/4P1b1/2r5/2PR2P1/2K5 w - - 0 40 Crafty, though, seems to agree with monsoon's line. Either way looks bad for monsoon but to me yace's line is less-bad. Anyway, monsoon opts for the queen vs. rook+minor line and the queen dominates allowing the white majority on e and f to create a passer. It's basically over here, which is near where monsoon resigned:

 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7   BK   BR   BP    7 
 6  BP  BP    WP     6 
 5   BB     WP    5 
 4       WQ    4 
 3      WK     3 
 2    WP       2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/1k1r1p2/pp2P3/1b3P2/5Q2/4K3/2P5/8 b - - 0 50 Well I was in none too good a mood by the end of this one but I'm glad to say the next seven rounds went better. Maybe that old man's advice about losing the first (two?) games of a swiss was good. Monsoon got chompster and phark, two new engines, in the next two rounds. It won both games and played frenzee, Sune's engine, in the last match of the day. (P.S. frenzee has some wild finger notes, have a look at http://www.chessclub.com/cgi-bin/finger/finger.pl?handle=frenzee) I think frenzee lost the game because it aggressively pushed it's king shelter pawns in an attempt to storm monsoon's king position. Here's a position:

 abcdefgh 
 8  BR   BB  BK   BR  BK   8 
 7  BP  BP        7 
 6    BN    BP    6 
 5    BP  BP  WP  BP  BP  BP  5 
 4     WP      4 
 3  WP   WP    WN  WQ   3 
 2    WP    WP  WP  WP  2 
 1  WR   WB   WR   WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r1bq1rk1/pp6/2n2p2/2ppPppp/3P4/P1P2NQ1/2P2PPP/R1B1R1K1 b - - 1 14 Here monsoon was expecting f4. Crafty/yace prefer either Qc7 or g4. g4 is what frenzee played which allowed Bh6 and the white counterattack. The next few moves are all aggressive for white: 14 ... g4 15. Bh6 Rf7 16. exf6 Qxf6 17. Re8+ Kh7 18. Ng5+ Kxh6 19. Nxf7+ Qxf7 20. Qd6+ Kh7 21. Rae1 Monsoon trades two minors for a rook but ended up with an active attack. Black's army is still at anchor in the harbor and can't defend the king:

 abcdefgh 
 8  BR   BB   WR     8 
 7  BP  BP     BK   BK  7 
 6    BN  WQ      6 
 5    BP  BP   BP   BP  5 
 4     WP    BP   4 
 3  WP   WP       3 
 2    WP    WP  WP  WP  2 
 1      WR   WK   1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

r1b1R3/pp3q1k/2nQ4/2pp1p1p/3P2p1/P1P5/2P2PPP/4R1K1 b - - 3 21 The black queen falls here and though it's a rook and minor vs. monsoon's queen, the queen easily traps the rook and minor on the back rank and wins the game. Monsoon had a really exciting draw against Comet in the second day but I'm tired of looking over games for tonight... maybe I post part 2 tomorrow. Scott

NoonianChess - Charles Roberson

The tournament was great fun. Tiring, but fun. I prefer the format at WCCC 2002, but it would be too much for all tournaments to be like that. The competition was great. I have lots of analysis data. The talk on ch 64 "compfortably numb" (pun intended). I enjoyed the IM commentary and Volker performed excellently as TD. I hope to see more like these several times a year. You can't get better competition without an expensive trip to Europe. Version 3.4 was used. It is 2x faster than 3.3 and more knowledgable: better king safety, mobility, ... It averaged a ply deeper than the Maastricht version even at half the time control. I'll comment on some of the games as the theme seems repeatable. Game 1: Searcher - NoonianChess 1 - 0 I tried our a virtually untested new book. Ran into a bug on move 6. This caused the drop of a bishop for 2 pawns. Amazingly, Noonian played quite well after this -- it used its center pawn advantage to control the center and the game. Then a mistake on move 34; KxB should have been the move (a free bishop and now Noonian would be up a full two pawns). But seems there is a bug that caused the mistake. Analysis from CM8000 revealed that after 34 ... KxB, Noonian can force the win of the other bishop but alas Searcher could for a draw by perpetual check or 3frp. So, I was happy with the game and use my old tournament book for the rest of the tournament. Game 3: NoonianChess - PostModernist 0 - 1 Noonian gained a draw from PM in WCCC 2002. It was a great experience competing against Andrew so, I was quite happy to do it again. Noonian stayed in book for 10 or so moves. Noonian makes questionable bishop moves on moves 17 and 18. (remember game 1 -- mistake in not taking a free bishop). Noonian does not make the same mistakes when given the positions but it does if the game is played to that point (a bug a bug -- or is it something to dig into). After this, PostModernist performs excellently in controlling the game. Game 4: Matacz - NoonianChess 0 - 1 Noonian won a pawn and created a passer on the A file by move 21. The rest of the game centered on this one pawn. Noonian pushed the pawn and Matacz spent most of the rest of the game keeping the a pawn from promoting. There were times when I thought Noonian had stronger moves but I'm not sure (I haven't analyzed it deeply but the stronger moves involved a bishop -- hmm bishop problem sounds like a theme to me). Finally, Matacz is able to capture the pawn on a2. However, Noonian has too many threats on the king which causes the win of material and the eventual mate of Matacz. A long game. After the first two, I kept wondering when is the bug going to happen again and lose this one. The great part of live games!!!! Game 5: NoonianChess - Aristarch 1 - 0 The opening had me on the edge of my seat. Noonian was agressive from the start with an attack on Aristarch's king side. I had some of that "Australian speed skater luck": Aristarch lost its connection for more than 15 minutes and forfeited the game. Game 6: Pepito - NoonianChess 1 - 0 I was happy that Noonian held its own to move 35. Pepito sacs a rook for the bishop and things go down hill from there. A rook for a bishop -- hmm is there an issue with bishops? Game 7: NoonianChess - Amyan 0 - 1 NoonianChess plays well from opening to midgame. I was happy to move 25. Noonian has a nice position. I need to analyze this deeply to see what really happened. At move 35, Noonian has a passer and seems there is a lot of potential for a win. However, at move 41 Noonian gives up a rook for a pawn and knight. I suspect it liked 3pawns and a knight vs a rook and a pawn -- especially considering 2 of Noonians pawns are passers. Amyan forces the trade of all this and the ending is a forced draw. However, I didn't have egtb's and move 65 is a mistake. I loaded this position into Noonian latter and it doesn't make the mistake. Another bug to fix. Also, this the second game in live tournament competition lost due to lack of egtb's -- the first is Goliath Lite - NoonianChess Maastrict WCCC 2002. Game 8: Czolgista - NoonianChess 0 - 1 I expected to win this one as the programs met in competition on ics this week. However, Czolgista froze up on move two and lost on time having made only one move. Wow, that Austrailian speed skater luck was with me. Game 9: NoonianChess - XiniX 1 - 0 This is my favorite game. I have not analyzed it yet but I can't wait. This game had classic horizon effect issues. Both sides had chances in the middle game. So, it was quite exciting. Forget the edge of my seat -- I was pacing during this one. At move 30, Noonian considers itself up 2.8 pawns. The kibitzing made this far more interesting than without it. For a series of moves Noonian and Xinix agree with the scores that Noonian is up 3 pawns. Then Xinix searchers a little deeper and claims the score is even. A move later (move 45), Noonian thinks it is down 4/10 of a pawn. After several moves of 3 pawns up, now both programs call it even. (so where is this bug?). Oh no -- on move 46 both programs claim XiniX is up 3 pawns. At move 47, both programs claim the game is even again. Are these programs fickle or what? At move 48, Noonian is up 2 pawns. (Yes, both programs are searching 10+ ply deep per move or so claims the kibitzing). Noonian makes move 49 and kibitzes that it is up a queen!!! XiniX agrees and resigns. Again the tournament was great!!! Thanks to IM Schroer and Volker. Thanks to all the participants for the games and the entertainment on ch 64. Also, big thanks to my wife for giving me a weekend in front of a PC. Hmm -- did I just define nerd or geek?

Arasan in CCT5 - Jon Dart

Arasan did ok, finishing 4.5/9, which is about where it was in the previous tournaments. It started out well by beating Armageddon and Pepito. Pepito is generally stronger than Arasan, in my experience, but anything can happen in one game. Next round, Arasan lost to Yace, as could be expected. It held out for a long time but around move 29 started going downhill. Next game was a draw against Tao. Again, Arasan was a bit lucky here, as it has lost to Tao over a couple of long offline matches I have run. Arasan was actually on top early and likely had winning chances, but in the end its extra material didn't help and the endgame was drawn. Round 5 was a draw against thebaron. IM Schroer was dubious about thebaron's 5. c3 in the RL Exchange. (Generally, one feature of this tournament is that all the work I've done on Arasan's opening book didn't give much of a visible benefit. Or maybe the benefit was that it didn't do anything really bad in the opening). After this promising start, in round 6, Arasan had xinix. Arasan was out of book early in something ICC calls the Four Knights variation of the Giuoco Piano. It played 7. Bxf2+, and then had to follow up with 9. Ng3+, losing the Knight for pawns. This isn't a "book" line, I'm pretty sure. I wasn't really happy about things at that point, but Arasan went on to gobble material and was easily winning. I then went on to look at some other games and wasn't paying much attention to mine. Then I realized I hadn't seen Arasan move for a long time. I switched back to the game, and saw it wasn't moving. I had no clue why. I had recently fixed a bug where the Winboard interface code wasn't recognizing moves from the opponent and this had caused a failure to move, so my first assumption was that the bug wasn't really squashed. I had only a minute or so left on the clock, so there wasn't much time to think. If the bug was the culprit, then I could force Arasan to move by logging out and back in again. However, this would cause the opponent to lose ponder information. And since I wasn't sure what the cause was, and wasn't sure about the ethics of disconnecting, I just let the time run out. It turned out that I had typed "obs searcherx" from the Arasan console window instead of the window where I was logged in as jdart. This caused a "new" command to be issued to the engine, resetting it. So there was no bug here, just operator error. Frustrating, because Arasan was so clearly going to win and it got a loss on time instead. Believe me, after that, I was really watching what window I was typing in. Arasan went on to draw the last 3 games. The frenzee game was another case where Arasan built up material advantage but the endgame was drawn. Against Zappa, Arasan was down material. Zappa doesn't even have TBs, and it was getting substantially less ply depth than Arasan, but it made Arasan struggle through the endgame. However, I was pretty sure the endgame was drawish, although the Zappa author seemed to think differently until the final exchanges. Zappa is impressive and not to be underestimated. Against Amyan in the final round, Arasan also had a long endgame struggle. It was actually worse than against Zappa, because Amyan had a bishop and two pawns advantage, vs. Arasan's rook. But this game was also drawn. Overall, I was reasonably happy with Arasan's result, although round 6 was a disaster, and I would have liked to be able to play more of the top half of the field. I am looking forward to the next CCT.

TheBaron in CCT5 - Richard Pijl

CCT5 was the first time that the Baron participated in an online tournament and from the seeding I understood that it would be one of the large group of outsiders. Nonetheless I was hoping for a nice result But opposition was tough. The first game against Movei was very equal until Movei allowed the Baron's rooks (pigs according to IM Schroer) to reach the 7th rank. The game was over soon after that. The next game against Yace started promising with a kingside attack by Baron. Unfortunately the attack was easily defended and Yace pushed back on the queenside. Yace was successfull. I could not really follow the third game as I had visitors, but occasionally I could take a peek on the screen. It was kind of fortunate that I did as Wildcat got disconnected and Baron was closed for matches. That was quickly corrected. The game was kind of boring though. Baron never got the chance to gain a decisive advantage and in the end sacrificed a piece to force the draw The fourth game against Zappa seemed to be over quickly but Zappa was defending the tactical shots Baron fired on it. I saw Baron attacking after a not so good opening phase by Zappa. Baron sacrificed a pawn and got a major attack on the black position and I was quite surprised (like the author of Zappa) that Zappa survived. Remaining was a rook endgame where Baron had one pawn more.

 abcdefgh 
 8          8 
 7  BP    BR      7 
 6    BP  BK      6 
 5    WR       5 
 4   WP        4 
 3          3 
 2  WP  WK  WP       2 
 1          1 
 abcdefgh 
 black to move
ChessDiag V1.01 (12-OCT-2002)

8/p2r4/2pk4/2R5/1P6/8/PKP5/8 b - - 0 1 In the game followed: 46..Rb7 47.Kb3 Rb5? 48.Rxb5 and the remaining pawn endgame is a simple win. I'm not sure if Baron could have won after a different move in the diagram position. The fifth game against Arasan had a drawish outlook very soon and wasn't very interesting after that. The sixth game was a walk-over ... by Ruffian. In the seventh game Butcher was grabbing the initiative and launched a promising kingside attack after a strange move by the Baron (which I have to examine further). But the attack failed soon and Baron was able to take over, winning a pawn. Baron created a passed pawn which decided the game. The eighth game featured a KR+7p against KR+7p closed position. Baron's pawn structure was better, so it tried to break Aristarchs position. Both programs managed to get a rook into the enemy position which dealt with a lot of pawns. Although Baron ended up with one pawn more, the position was very hard to win, and dangerous to push for the win too. Both engines did great in going for a draw in the end. The last game, against Bringer, brought the opening advantage to the Baron. Baron exploited the bad positioning of Bringer's pieces and won the game. This was an entertaining game I recommend anyone to look at: [Event "ICC 45 10 u"] [Site "Internet Chess Club"] [Date "2003.01.19"] [Round "-"] [White "thebaron"] [Black "BringerXX"] [Result "1-0"] [ICCResult "Black resigns"] [WhiteElo "2450"] [BlackElo "2263"] [Opening "Sicilian: Taimanov variation"] [ECO "B48"] [NIC "SI.40"] [Time "16:10:03"] [TimeControl "2700+10"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. Be3 a6 7. f4 b5 8. Qf3 Bb4 9. Qg3 Bxc3+ 10. bxc3 Nce7 11. Qxg7 Qxc3+ 12. Kf2 Qxa1 13. Qxh8 Bb7 14. Rg1 Qb2 15. Bd3 h6 16. Rd1 Qc3 17. e5 O-O-O 18. Ne2 Qb4 19. Bb6 Re8 20. Qg7 Nd5 21. c3 Qe7 22. Bd4 f6 23. Qxe7 Rxe7 24. c4 bxc4 25. Rc1 fxe5 26. Rxc4+ Kd8 27. Bxe5 Ngf6 28. Bd6 Rg7 29. g3 h5 30. Rc1 h4 31. Rb1 hxg3+ 32. hxg3 Bc8 33. Rb8 Rg8 34. Kf3 Ne8 35. Be5 Ndc7 36. Bc3 d6 37. Nd4 Kd7 38. Bc2 d5 39. Ba4+ Nb5 40. Nxb5 axb5 41. Bxb5+ Kc7 42. Be5+ Nd6 43. Bxd6+ Kxd6 44. Ba6 Bxa6 {Black resigns} 1-0 I enjoyed myself in watching the games and hope there will be a CCT6 soon. Richard.

BringerXX in CCT5 - Peter Berger

To really get it posted, this one will have to be quite brief. Right after cct-4 Gerrit Reubold decided to do a complete rewrite of his engine. As his time has been very limitted , the cct-4 Bringer version is still the strongest one so far. So it was the public Bringer 1.9 to compete again - but there was a hardware update - Bringer played on a rather recent Athlon XP2600+. Last time it finished 7th - so there was some result to defend ;) . First game was against Zappa. Bringer played a few training games against it before the ccts and it is still a quite young program it seems . The tournament game soon reached a little advantage for the favourite , but Bringer being a little too fond of a free pawn that turned out to be rather weak , spoilt it. This was a well-deserved draw for Zappa, and probably also Zappa's tournament highlight. Second game featured Bringer- Monsoon with the white pieces. This has been commented on elsewhere so i can keep it short. The opening sucked and Monsoon was completely won after the opening. To add something new to the discussion, Monsoon probably spoilt the win when it left the b1-h7 diagonal delebaretely (spelling?) with its bishop , when suddenly the white passer on h became very strong. As has been already discussed Monsoon might have been able to defend itself by sacking the exchange when it decided to defend Q-RB which was hopeless. So a (very) lucky win here. Third round Searcher - Bringer brought a very tiny advantage for Bringer, that at some time tended to become more real , but it didn't really work out and it petered out soon. 4th round Quark - Bringer ( black again !) followed a theoretical game of Smirin where black improved (IMHO) with Nxf4 - again slight advantage for black - again not enough. 5th round Bringer - XiniX featured some very strange opening - strange, strange, stranger was how XiniX played . Probably some bugs made life harder for black here. So, this was the first day - Bringer did well after a rather slow start - with 3.5/5 it was doing well and was ranked at 6th place ( should have been enough rounds anyway according to Prof. Hyatt ; ) ) 6th round was Hossa-Bringer (black again!) , that started with the rather strange 1. f4 2. d4 3. Bd2 - anyway, this game was the highlight IMHO - both played very well . Bringer reached a decent advantage though , but just when it is was about to become decisive Hossa found the amazing c5! that turned out to be a viable defense. Bringer might have won this one anyway methinks , but missing some nuances it was in fact Hossa who had the advantage in late endgame here . Only with the help of the tablebases Bringer managed to escape. Couldn't we have stopped here (at last) ? :) OK, talking about preparation. In cct-4 Bringer was well-prepared for the openings I think . This was not true this time where a default book was loaded ( fuck my laziness). 7th round? AARGGH - Bringer - PepitoXX - this was SUCH a torture , a torture indeed. Bringer out of book too early allowed its black-squared bishop to become miserably weak . But what really made it soo hard watching was that Pepito never really seemed to be able to take advantage of it - the ( sometimes very huge) advantage of Pepito became less and less - and Pepito seemed to have really spoilt it - ..a4 ? Hah ! Yet it _did_ work - Pepito won - accident, skills ? Who knows .. 8th round ? Bringer - Wildcat - oh what a miserable opening .. - as I had been to lazy to even load the old tournament book I tried to play with little book - Wildcat varied early and Bringer didn't really react properly . Then Wildcat really RULED - playing SO well . It should have won ! But Bringer was superior detecting a perpetual Wildcat didn't understand early enough - and it was a draw again. The final round Bringer finally got caught because of the miserable opening preparation - The Baron just simply finished it off right out of the opening - well-deserved , but not what you like to see .. . and oh, how Bringer tried to fight, and oh, just how useless it was ;) So, this was cct-5 for Brínger . Regards, Peter PS: that's the way of the world and I had a tough time watching .. - still thanks for the tournament and I really enjoyed the lovely Yace performance as I did enjoy many friendly talks with opponents and friends.

Crafty in CCT5 - Robert Hyatt

Round 1. Crafty vs Qalat The game went 19 moves in book and when we dropped out, it was almost perfectly equal. Crafty's first search was 13 plies deep and the eval was +.06... It averaged searching 14 plies deep for the next 10 moves or so and by move 28 the score was -.27, not a very good trend. By move 32, a 17 ply search pegged the score back to +.13 and things were moving in the right direction. At move 35, black let the game get away by playing 34. b5 which lets Crafty break things open and take advantage of the openness... Score was +.5 here after an 18 ply search. At move 35, crafty expected Bxb5 with the +.5 score, but black played axb5 and my score went to +1.82 instantly and by the time it finished 18 plies the score had stabilized at +1.25... Another couple of inexact moves by black turned this into a lost ending. Altogether a bit of a worry as the win was more due to the opponent making a couple of mistakes, rather than great play by Crafty. Round 2. Hossa vs Crafty Crafty popped out of book at move 8 with a score of -.5 (-=good for black). The eval climbed about .1 every move for the next 10 moves, and at move 18, crafty uncorked a king-side attack that worked out well. 18. ... f5 saw the score climb to -3.19 after 12 plies. In the moves prior to this, it had slowly built up a significant number of attackers and move 18 saw the beginning of an explosion. After white's 19. Rg1 move, fxe4 led to a score of -6.0 after 13 plies. At move 26 Crafty announced a mate in 9 and Hossa resigned in a hopeless position. A nice king-side attack that was the start of a trend for the next three games.. Round 3. Crafty vs Ruffian I had personally thought that Ruffian would be the program to beat in this event, as it seems to be very tactical, although it doesn't seem to be a "strategic" thinker. The game went 13 moves in book, and then I watched a repeat of the previous game, where Crafty slowly built up a "crowd" on the kingside. By move 18 the score was +.5 with the move Be3. And things went bad for black beyond that point. By move 22 the score was +1.0, based only on positional considerations on the king-side. At move 29, the score had climbed to +1.5, the average search depth for the previous 10 moves was 14 plies. At move 31, Ruffian saw trouble and thought for 5 minutes but could not find a better move than that played in the game. After 17 plies, Crafty was sitting at +2.08 as it played move 32. Qf6. By move 38 the score was approaching 3 with a fail-high on Rb7. The rest was anti-climatic as the kingside attack led to a simply won ending. It was not as easy as it looked, from my perspective. :) Round 4. Crafty vs Yace Another primary contender. Due to a bit of botched seeding, Crafty ended up seeded lower than it really should have been (seeding was on an old ICC standard rating, rather than the current standard rating) crafty ended up with white two games in a row. Who am I to complain? :) Same opening, but yace chose a different path after a few moves and by the time Crafty dropped out of book at move 13, the score was -.52. By move 15 the score was back to "even" and the kingside build-up started again. By move 21 the score was +.40. For the next 20+ moves, nothing happened. A lot of shuffling, posturing and re-location of pieces by both sides. Suddenly, around move 40, things started moving up for crafty and at move 44, Nh4 had a score of > 1.23 (a fail high on that beta value). At move 48, the wildest event of the tournament happened. Crafty was looking at Bc7 and after depth=14, the score was +3.34. It kibitzed this line, but as we watched, it played Ne6+ instead. I was afraid that a bug had just turned a win into a loss. I looked at the log file, no mention of Ne6 until it actually played the move (ie no fail high). It turned out to be ok. After the game I went back and sure enough, Ne6 was the best move at depth=14. After looking at the source, the move Ne6 apparently became best right at "time out". And while it saved the best move, after time runs out it doesn't print anything else, which made it look strange. It turns out Ne6 is only slightly better than Bc7, but when you don't see any analysis, ugh. The game was basically over at this point as crafty's score was +4 and climbing. Yace resigned at move 55. Three good king-side attacks in a row. Another is coming, but for the wrong side. Read on. Round 5 Ferret vs Crafty Another tough opponent. 19 moves in book, first search score was +.24, not bad. At move 20, crafty played h6 to drive Ferret's bishop back to e3 it thought, but Ferret played Bh4 inviting g5 trapping and winning the bishop. Ferret then traded a piece for the g/h pawns and started an attack. Crafty's score here was right at zero, which was alarming, because it was a piece for two pawns up (+1.0 advantage) and the "bad trade" code added another 1.5 to that since trading a piece for pawns is bad. 2.5 pawns of score, yet the kingside safety was dragging that back down to zero. It turned out the attack was sound, although it wasn't obvious to me that it was, at the time. And I can certainly forsee situations where it would fail miserably. But here it worked, Ferret played quite accurately, and by the end of the game at move 57, it had played very well. End of the first day. four good games, plus one that was hard to fault other than the result. Even in the loss, Crafty played very accurately and made the win very difficult to hit. Round 6 Crafty vs Searcher A near disaster for the first game of the second day. The same d4 opening led to a similar position, but things did not go very well here. First score out of book was -.42, which was typical for every 1. d4 game crafty played as white. But it was able to pull that up quickly normally. 10 moves out of book, the score hadn't changed, showing that searcher was playing very well and with a reasonable amount of understanding of the position. Finally by move 24, Crafty was back to a slightly + score, and this held until it started dropping as it misjudged the queen/rook attacking in the center. At move 32, the score was -.68 after 16 plies. at move 35, the score was -1.5, at move 40 -2.0, -2.5 at move 50, -3 at move 60, and at this point Crafty dug in its heels and pulled the score back to -2.3 where it stayed for a long while. But it slowly traded pawns, and the score started swinting back. By move 80, it was -2.0 again, -1.5 by move 85, -1.0 by move 95, and it finally reported a draw score at move 102. Of all the games it played, this was a really nice effort as it showed a lot of understanding about king rook and pawn endings, something I have worked on a lot over the years. The game ended at move 115 with a repetition. Round 7 quark vs Crafty 18 book moves, score 0 on leaving book, not a bad start as black. A tactical oversight saw the score drop to +.70 (good for white) at move 21, but this pawn "sac" was quickly recovered positionally and by move 24 the score was -.10 and I was breathing easier. By move 30 the score was -.7. By move 65 the score was nearly equal, and it looked to be headed to another draw. However, at move 65 quark sacrificed a bishop for crafty's last pawn, leaving it in a KRB (crafty) vs KNPPP (quark). The bishop/rook quickly ganged up on the pawns and won them one by one, leading to a krb vs kn endgame table loss for quark. A good game by quark, and the bishop for pawn looked like a draw, but with a lot of maneuvering, the two pieces were simply overwhelming. Round 8 Pepito vs Crafty (two blacks in a row to offset two whites earlier) I didn't know much about pepito, so I simply watched the game. Out of book at move 7 had a score of -.37 so this seemed promising. Around move 25 the score started dropping and pepito won a pawn. As in round 6, crafty dug in and by move 63 this was a drawscore game as well. Nothing good or bad to say here, it was just "a game". Round 9 Crafty vs Tao A Ruy Lopez that endedthat ended after 11 moves, and after Crafty played Bh6, Bxh6, Qxh6 and then Qg7 the game instantly turned into a K, two rooks and two minors for each side ending, with 3 pawns on each wing.. My score was dead zero here and it really looked like a draw. However, around move 24, black moved his rook off the e-file and that gave crafty a window of opportunity to penetrate, and it did so with a score of +.5 at move 24. By move 33, the score was solidly at +.5 and by move 50 it was clear that white was going to infiltrate and eat the queenside, which it did... All in all an interesting experience. Again, as always, the book is critical, and I did _zero_ book preparation which hurt in several games. Using an automatically produced book can work, I am convinced, but it needs to include recent games, so that old lines with refutations are not played. The next tournament will find me with a better book. :)