wtb@ihuxt.UUCP (10/28/83)
Congratulations to Robert Hyatt, Albert Gower and Harry Nelson - authors of the Fourth World Computer Chess Champion: Cray Blitz. Score Pgm Country Place 4.5 Cray Blitz USA 1 4.0 Bebe USA 2,3 4.0 Awit Canada 2,3 3.5 Nuchess USA 4,5 3.5 Chaos USA 4,5 3.0 Belle USA 6-9 3.0 Advance 3.0 England 6-9 3.0 Mephisto X West Germany 6-9 3.0 Schach 2.7 West Germany 6-9 2.5 Fidelity X USA 10-13 2.5 Merlin Austria 10-13 2.5 Novag X USA 10-13 2.5 Phoenix Canada 10-13 2.0 BCP England 14-16 2.0 Ostrich Canada 14-16 2.0 Pion Netherlands 14-16 1.5 Bobby X West Germany 17-21 1.5 Conchess Sweden 17-21 1.5 Patsoc 2.0 USA 17-21 1.5 Philidor England 17-21 1.5 Shy Finland 17-21 0 Sfinks USA 22 Notes: Cray Blitz is the fourth distinct program to be crowned World Champ - none of Kaissa, Chess 4.x, or Belle have managed to repeat. Cray Blitz runs on the new Cray XMP - a dual processor machine. Only draw was with Nuchess in round 4. Beat Belle in round 5. Had black pieces in both matches. Bebe, the work of Tony Scherzer, owner of SYS-10 INC in Hoffman Estates Illinois, is a bit slice piece of special purpose chess hardware exploiting brute force search. Tony freely admits to knowing very little about chess, but certainly seems to know his hardware. Bebe, playing white, beat Nuchess in round 5 by winning a pawn with a combination of a rather dubious positional move by Nuchess and outsearching by Bebe. Other victories were against Philidor, Schach 2.7, and Fidelity X. Lost in round 1 against Merlin. Awit, the work of Tony Marsland of the University of Alberta, was clearly the most improved program at the event. The true strength of the program is rather hard to judge however as the luck of the pairings and initial seating resulted in victories over Ostrich (14-16), Novag X (10-13), Patsoc (17-21), and Phoenix (14-16). The program lost a second round match against Advance 3.0 (6-9). Nuchess went into round 5 tied for the lead after beating Belle in round 3 and drawing Cray Blitz in round 4. Nuchess had white in both matches. Lost with black against Bebe. Fate probably required this loss for 2 reasons: 1) Bebe's Scherzer replaced the name cards before the match with "Christians" for Bebe and "Lions" for Nuchess. Final: Christians 1, Lions 0. 2) In the last round of last years ACM tournament, Bebe was denied a four way tie for first when a program bug turned a draw against Nuchess into a loss. Chaos drew with Schach 2.7, beat Shy and Patsoc, lost to Belle, then closed with a victory over Advance 3.0. Belle lost with black against Nuchess in round 4 and white against Cray Blitz in round 5. It was later learned that Thompson and Condon experimented in this tournament with a new search technique which seemed to reduce its average search depths by about 1.5 plies. Apparently the compensation of other benefits of the search was not enough. These losses were Belle's first against computers since at least 1980. The overall level of play was quite good. There were few easy victories in this tournament. Further information will undoubtedly appear in the International Computer Chess Association (ICCA) Journal. Interested individuals should write to: William Blanchard 3S 253 Blackthorn Ln. Warrenville Il.