don@cs.qmc.ac.uk (Don Beal) (07/03/89)
This is a refresher of details of the Computer Games Olympiad to be held in London this August. The world's first Olympiad for computer programs will take place at the Park Lane Hotel, London, from August 9th to 15th 1989. This unique event will feature tournaments for Chess, Bridge, Backgammon, Draughts(Checkers), Poker, Go, Othello, Scrabble, and other classic "thinking" games. In every tournament all of the competitors will be computer programs. The role of the human operators will merely be to tell their own programs what moves have been made by their opponents. Over 115 enquries from prospective entrants were received, and between 80 and 100 programs are expected to take part. The 1st London Conference on Computer Games will take place as part of the Computer Olympiad. There will be about 15 papers on various aspects of programming computers to play such "thinking" games as Chess, Go, Othello, Draughts(Checkers), etc. The conference Chair will be Professor Tony Marsland, from the Computing Science Department at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. The editor of the conference proceedings will be Don Beal, from the Computer Science Department at Queen Mary College, London University. The Computer Olympiad is organised by International Chess Master David Levy, who is President of the International Computer Chess Association. Competitors and conference participants will be coming from over 15 countries. Hotel bookings are available ranging from 5-star hotel to youth hostel. Anyone wanting more information on attending the event should contact: Computer Olympiad, 11 Loudoun Road, London NW8 OLP, England. Tel: +44 1 624 5551 Fax: +44 1 372 3266