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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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:
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:
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:
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:
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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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. :)