; Blitz Blasts Best T.A. Marsland The 15th North American Computer Chess Championship was held in con- junction with the ACM National Conference, San Francisco, Oct. 7-10 1984. Once again the chess program designers provided a public benchmark of their progress. From the spectator's point of view the competition was fierce, and from time to time even the commentator, U.S. master Mike Valvo, had to concede that the computer's move was better than his proposed continuation. Certainly the audience seemed to be impressed, with a hard core of viewers staying several hours and attending nearly every session. The competition itself was strong with the average program having an estimated USCF rating of over 1850. The results themselves do not begin to tell the tale. One might think that Cray Blitz, using possibly the world's most powerful computer (a four processor Cray XMP), steam rolled over the opposition. That was far from true. Certainly it crushed Fidelity X, but it could have easily lost to both Chaos and Nuchess, where only superior engame play saved the day. Both Chaos and Fidelity X finished well, but this year it was Fidelity who recovered from its first round loss with a fine "swiss gambit". The other experimental versions of commercial products did not fare as well, although the participants viewed the Novag X as equally forceful competitor. That this year's competition was tough, was illustrated both by the way the former world champion Belle seemed to struggle, giving up a draw to Phoenix and persevering with difficulty against Merlin, and the eclipse of last year's third place finisher, Awit. While some of these dif- ficulties could be attributed to luck, the title of unluckiest program must December 14, 1984 ; - 2 - go to Merlin, or perhaps Phoenix. Both gave up winning advantages against high finishing opponents. Both, for example, had a definite edge over Chaos, but could not correctly handle the dangers that such an experienced campaigner posed. This year the Canadian programs (Awit, Ostrich and Phoenix) did not do well. In many ways Phoenix (born in Waterloo, nurtured in Alberta and using McGill's computer!) carried the flag well. It salvaged a draw against the former world champion, Belle, had a heart breaking loss against Chaos and also split the point with Nuchess (itself a successor to a former cham- pion). The final round was especially exciting. A win by Nuchess over Blitz would have lead to a 5-way tie for first place! Several times it looked as though this would occur, but finally Blitz came through after Nuchess miscalculated as only a computer can. Going into the last round, Blitz needed only a draw to take the title. Nuchess played a fine posi- tional game and eventually reached an easily won endgame. However, inade- quate chess knowledge in Nuchess gave Blitz the point. When making move 45, Nuchess realized that all the material could be exchanged reaching a won (!?) king and pawn ending. However, when assessing this endgame, it mis-evaluated the pawn promotion. Either it failed to remember that the pawn on a7 can move forward two squares, or did not see that its own optimal path was blocked, or it even forgot whose move it was! December 14, 1984 ; - 3 - Nuchess - Blitz NG5+ (31) KG7 C4 ( 1) E5 NF3 (32) NF7 NC3 ( 2) BB4 NXE5 (33) NE5 A3 ( 3) BXC3 BD4 (34) KG8 PDXC3 ( 4) NE7 BXE5 (35) NE7 G3 ( 5) D5 E3 (36) KF7 PXD5 ( 6) QXD5 RF6+ (37) KG8 QXD5 ( 7) NXD5 KG2 (38) RC8 BG2 ( 8) NB6 KF3 (39) RE8 A4 ( 9) O-O RA6 (40) RA8 A5 (10) NC4 Rb :: :: :: Kb :: Rb Nb Bb :: Rb Kb :: Pb :: Nb :: Pb Pb Pb :: Pb Pb Pb Rw :: :: :: Pb :: :: :: :: :: :: Pw Bw Pb :: Pb Pw :: Pb :: :: :: :: :: :: Nb :: :: :: :: :: Pw KW Pw :: Pw :: Pw :: :: Pw Pw Pw :: Pw Pw Bw Pw :: :: :: :: Rw Bw KW Nw Rw DEC 14, JU6.4 WHITE'S MOVE 41. RA4 (11) ND6 KF4 (41) KF7 A6 (12) ND7 KG5 (42) RG8 BE3 (13) NB6 RF6+ (43) KE8 RH4 (14) RD8 BD6 (44) NC8 PXB7 (15) BXB7 RXG6 (45) RXG6+ BXB7 (16) NXB7 KXG6 (46) NXD6 NF3 (17) RD5 PXD6 (47) A5 C4 (18) RA5 G4 (48) PHXG4 O-O (19) RA2 KXF5 (49) A4 RD1 (20) RXB2 E4 (50) A3 Rb :: :: :: Kb :: :: :: Kb :: :: Pb Nb Pb :: Pb Pb Pb :: :: :: :: Nb :: :: :: :: Pw :: :: :: :: Pb :: :: :: :: :: :: Pw :: :: Rw :: :: Pw :: KW :: :: :: Bw Nw Pw Pb :: :: :: Rb :: Pw Pw Pw :: :: Pw Pw :: :: Rw :: KW :: :: :: :: C5 (21) NC8 DEC 14, JU6.4 BLACK'S MOVE 51. RD7 (22) F6 KXG4 (51) A2 RG4 (23) G6 E5 (52) A1=Q RH4 (24) H5 F4 (53) QG1+ RXC7 (25) ND8 KF5 (54) QXH2 RA4 (26) RB7 E6 (55) QC2+ RXB7 (27) NXB7 :: :: Kb :: :: RA6 (28) KF7 :: :: :: :: ND2 (29) ND8 :: Pw Pw :: :: NE4 (30) F5 :: :: :: KW :: Rb :: Nb Nb :: :: :: :: Pw :: Pb :: :: Kb :: :: :: :: :: Rw :: :: :: Pb :: :: Qb :: :: :: :: Pw Pb Pb :: Pb :: :: :: :: :: :: Nw :: :: DEC 14, JU6.4 WHITE'S MOVE 56. :: :: Bw Pw :: :: Pw Pw Pw :: :: :: KW DEC 14, JU6.4 WHITE'S MOVE 31. The following brilliant speed game, in which Danny Kopek succumbs to Belle, is presented without comment. White: Belle Black: Kopec 1. e4 e6 2. d4 c5 3. c3 d5 4. e:d5 Q:d5 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Na3 c:d4 7. Nb5 Qd8 8. Bf4 e5 9. N:e5 Qe7 10. c:d4 f6 11. Qh5+ g6 12. Nd6+ Q:d6 13. N:g6 Qe6+ 14. Ne5+ Kd8 15. O-O-O f:e5 16. d5 Qf5 17. d:c6+ Kc7 18. B:e5+ K:c6 19. Qe8+ Bd7 20. Q:d7+ Q:d7 21. Bb5+ K:b5 22. R:d7 Kc6 23. Rhd1 Nf6 24. B:f6 Rg8 25. g3 Rg6 26. Be5 Bc5 27. Rc7+ Kb6 28. Rdd7 Rb8 29. R:c5 December 14, 1984 ; - 5 - rating 1 2 3 4 score 1 Cray Blitz 2200 2+w 4+b 3+w 6+b 4.0 (U. So. Miss.) 2 Fidelity X 1900 1-b 11+w 9+b 10+w 3.0 (Fidelity Inc) 3 Bebe 2100 12+b 10+w 1-b 8+w 3.0 (Sys 10, Inc) 4 Chaos 1850 11+b 1-w 13+b 7+w 3.0 (U. Michigan) 5 Belle 2200 7=b 6-w 12+b 13+w 2.5 (Bell Tele. Labs) 6 Nuchess 2150 8=w 5+b 7=w 1-w 2.0 (Northwestern U) 7 Phoenix 1910 5=w 9+w 6=b 4-b 2.0 (U. Alberta) 8 Novag X 1900 6=b 12+w 10=b 3-b 2.0 (Novag Inc) 9 Intelligent Soft. X 1800* 13+b 7-b 2-w 11+w 2.0 (Intell. Soft. Inc) 10 Schach 2.7 1800* 14+w 3-b 8=w 2-b 1.5 (Munich W.G.) 11 Ostrich 1750 4-w 2-b 14+w 9-b 1.0 (McGill U.) 12 Awit 1660 3-w 8-b 5-w 14+b 1.0 (U. Alberta) 13 Merlin 1800* 9-w 14+b 4-w 5-b 1.0 (Vienna, Aus) 14 Xenarbor 1400* 10-b 13-w 11-b 12-w 0.0 (San Francisco) * estimated (provisional) rating based on a few games. Most ratings are official USCF ratings, except for the Canadian programs for which CCF or PQ ratings are provided. December 14, 1984