WMCCC 1995TalXXXX

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[ Library of the Paderborn University [1] The Thirteenth World Microcomputer Chess Championship took place from October 10-15, 1995, in the Library of the Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany.

Two Computer World Championships in one year. After the 8th World Computer Chess Championship in Shatin, Hong Kong - China in May, the 13th WMCCC in Paderborn was held in October, hosted and organized by the ICCA and the Paderborn University. There were 34 participants, a record so far, 14 programs from Germany, four Dutch and British each, three from United States and Russia, one each from Austria, France, Denmark, Israel, Spain and Switzerland. The 13. WMCCC was simultaneously the 5th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championship.

Participants

13th World Microcomputer Chess Championship, Oct. 1995, Paderborn GER [4]

| Program | CC | Authors | Operators | Hardware | MHz

Alpha IDE
Rainer Feldmann, Peter MysliwietzSparc 2070
Amy IIDE
Thorsten GreinerSparc 2070
Ananse 2.0CH
Walter BannermanPentium100
Bobby IIDE
Hans-Joachim Kraas, Günther SchrüferPentium120
BreakThroughDE
Werner KochSparc 1060
Centaur-MRU
Victor Vikhrev, Alexey ManjakhinPentium120
CheironDE
Ulf LorenzPentium120
Chess GeniusGB
Richard Lang, Ossi WeinerPentium120
Chess System TalGB
Chris WhittingtonThorsten CzubPentium120
CometDE
Ulrich TürkePentium120
DarkThoughtDE
Ernst A. Heinz, Markus Gille, Peter GillgaschDEC Alpha
Diogenes 2.0DE
Jörg BurwitzPentium120
DragonRU
Yuri ShpeerPentium120
FerretUS
Bruce MorelandPentium120
FrancescaGB
Tom KingPentium120
GandalfDK
Steen Suurballe, Dan WulffPentium120
GromitDE
Frank SchneiderPentium120
HIARCS XGB
Mark Uniacke, Eric HallsworthKarsten BauermeisterPentium133
IsiChess 2.0DE
Gerd IsenbergPentium120
JuniorIL
Amir Ban, Shay Bushinskylocal staff
Pentium120
KallistoNL
Bart WeststratePentium120
MChess Pro 5.0US
Marty HirschPeter SchreinerPentium120
Mephisto MontreuxNL
Johan de KoningARM614
MirageRU
Yuri Shpeer, Vladimir RybinkinPentium120
NightmareDE
Reinhold Gellner, Gaby von RekowskiPentium120
Nimzo 3AT
Chrilly DonningerPentium133
QuestNL
Frans MorschPentium120
Schach 3DE
Matthias Engelbach, Thomas KreitmairPentium120
ShredderDE
Stefan Meyer-KahlenSparc 2070
StoborUS
Tom KerriganSparc 2070
The KingNL
Johan de KoningPentium120
Virtual ChessFR
Marc-François Baudot, Jean-Christophe WeillPentium120
XXXXDE
Martin ZentnerPentium133
ZeusES
Gerardo Castaño RecioPentium120

Photos & Games

Round 7, MChess Pro 5.0 operated by Peter Schreiner (right) vs. Quest by Frans Morsch [5] [6]


[Event "WMCCC 1995"]
[Site "Paderborn, Germany"]
[Date "1995.10.12"]
[Round "7"]
[White "MChess Pro 5.0"]
[Black "Quest"]
[Result "1-0"]

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d3 Bb4 5.Ne2 Na5 6.Bb3 O-O 7.O-O d6 8.Bg5 c6 9.d4 Bg4
10.f3 Bh5 11.Na4 Nxb3 12.axb3 h6 13.Bh4 Re8 14.c3 Ba5 15.Qd3 b5 16.b4 Bc7 17.dxe5 Rxe5
18.Ng3 g5 19.f4 gxh4 20.fxe5 hxg3 21.Rxf6 gxh2+ 22.Kh1 bxa4 23.Raf1 Qf8 24.e6 Qg7
25.exf7+ Kf8 26.Qa6 Bb6 27.Qb7 Rd8 28.Re6 1-0

Photos

A Tropism towards Trophies, The professional trophy awarded to Chess Genius by Richard Lang,
the absolute World Champion, MChess Pro 5.0 represented by Peter Schreiner [7]

Games

  • Some games between top contenders with analyze and graph evaluation on Lichess :
    • Chess Genius - Ferret : [1]
    • Chess Genius - Quest : [2]
    • Ferret - MChess Pro 5.0 : [3]
    • MChess Pro 5.0 - Dark Thought : [4]
    • MChess Pro 5.0 - Quest : [5]
    • Quest - Ferret : [6]

The Tournament

The host was represented by two programs, Cheiron and Alpha I, a single processor version of Zugzwang. Reigning World Microcomputer Champion HIARCS wasn’t represented by Mark Uniacke, but a local operator, who unfortunately lost some time between moves up and then [8] [9] [10] . MChess on the other hand was operated by an encouraged Peter Schreiner with great care. Richard Lang was abort on behalf of Chess Genius, Johan de Koning with The King. From the United States Bruce Moreland was present, while Junior was operated by local university staff. Fritz, who just won the Shannon Trophy a few months before did not participate in person, but his twin brother Quest by Frans Morsch.

Titles

After a lot of tough and thrilling matches, the title of the Professional Microcomputer Chess Champion was finally shared between MChess Pro 5.0 by Marty Hirsch and Chess Genius by Richard Lang, which were tied with 8 out of 11 each. The title of the “absolute” Microcomputer Chess Champion was decided by a playoff, which was won by MChess. Ferret by Bruce Moreland from the United States played a strong tournament and became third a half point behind the top scorers, and gained the World Amateur Microcomputer Chess Champion title, since the tied Nimzo 3 by Chrilly Donninger et al., from Austria, had to withdrawal the playoff for logistical reasons, after already being late due to the nerve-racking Blitz playoff. World Blitz Computer Chess Champion was won by The King by Johan de Koning from The Netherlands in 9 playoff matches against Nimzo 3.

System Tal vs XXXX

A small anecdote appeared in the last round between Chess System Tal by Chris Whittington versus Martin Zentner’s XXXX (FourX). Instead of a queen-promotion with a fast mate, the graphical System Tal board indicated a minor promotion to a knight! System Tal operator Thorsten Czub played the move over the board and had to resign on behalf of Chess System Tal, while Chris, already celebrating the safe point in the cafeteria, was not amused when he arrived back on the board. A bug in a graphics drawing routine indexed the wrong piece and caused some rule discussions in the news groups [11] [12] [13] . Chris on place argued the PVs, as stored inside a log-file, indicated the mate score and the correct moves. Nevertheless, Tournament Director Jaap van den Herik was unpersuadable.

Winner’s Curse

With hindsight MChess’ title of the “absolute” Microcomputer Chess Champion wasn’t the expected commercial breakthrough of the MS-DOS program. Windows 95 was already dominating the PC-market, and the trials by his European Distributor Martin Stamer to place a DOS program in the mass market was not that successful. Due to some formal advertisement faults by Stamer and some questionable and euphoric statements in his Chess Computer Catalogue 1996 [14] , problems arose, with monetary consequences for the programmers under contract, Marty Hirsch [15] and Gerd Isenberg. Mutual preliminary injunction initiated by Stamer’s business rival Ossi Weiner and continuous court cases over years [16] was the consequence. In February 1997 Marty made a public accusation against his former distributor in a newsgroup [17] , while he was already about to collaborate with Weiner. The German Magazine Computerschach und Spiele broached that issue [18] , where Stamer made a counterstatement.

Publications

Forum Posts

References

  1. Library of the Paderborn University, Image by Sören Brandes, July 17, 2006, Universitätsbibliothek Paderborn – Wikipedia.de (German)
  2. 13th World Microcomputer Chess Championship ICGA tournament site
  3. 13th World Microcomputer Chess Championship, Oct. 1995, Paderborn GER from the CSVN tournament site
  4. 13th World Microcomputer Chess Championship - Paderborn 1995 (ICGA Tournaments)
  5. Photo by Rainer Feldmann. ICCA Journal, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 255
  6. Paderborn 1995 - Chess - Round 7 - Game 3 (ICGA Tournaments)
  7. Photo by Rainer Feldmann, ICCA Journal, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 231
  8. ICCA rules by Martin Zentner, rgcc, October 31, 1995
  9. Mark Uniacke (1995). Computers & Operators. Computer Chess Reports Vol. 5 No. 3+4 pp. 65
  10. Mark Uniacke (1995). Autoplayers. Computer Chess Reports Vol. 5 No. 3+4 pp. 66
  11. TOP 10 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD STOP PROGRAMMING CHESS by Martin Zentner, rgcc, October 20, 1995
  12. TOP 10 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD STOP PROGRAMMING by Thomas Kerrigan, rgcc, October 24, 1995
  13. ICCA rules, was TOP 10 REASONS… by Thomas Kerrigan, rgcc, October 29, 1995
  14. Der Schachcomputer-Katalog 1996, Redaktion: Peter Schreiner, Editorial by Martin Stamer, challenging Garry Kasparov to play MChess
  15. Marty Hirsch by Andreas Mader, rgcc, June 6, 1997
  16. Bundesgerichtshof, Urteil vom 13. 2. 2003 (German)
  17. Re: KK’s Gold Metal list by Marty Hirsch, rgcc, February 24, 1997
  18. Dieter Steinwender (1997). MChess vor dem Ruin. Computerschach und Spiele 2/97 pp 42

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