Asri-unix.134
net.games
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!mclure
Fri Nov 20 16:06:46 1981
more on chess tournament
Here's some additional information about the tournament.
When questioned, Ken Thompson felt that there would be a mechanical
world champion in about 20-30 years. Most of the other programmers
were a bit more optimistic. The programmers were also asked how
their personal ratings compared to their programs'. Thompson is
about a 1100-1300 player (about a full 1000 points below his program!).
One other programmer, Claude Jarry from Montreal, barely knew how to
move the pieces, but his program was one of the better ones.
At least two of the programs, BELLE and CRAY BLITZ (running on a CRAY-1)
were playing at master level (barely). I don't think the other top
finished, NUCHESS (rewrite of Chess 4.x in Fortran) had been rated
in human tournaments. There was considerable doubt at the beginning
of the 4th round as to whether BELLE would win the tournament. It
had a score of 2.5 while its 4th round competitor, CRAY BLITZ, had
a perfect score of 3.0. So it really depended on the game between them.
If BELLE won, and NUCHESS had won, BELLE would have tied for first place
with NUCHESS. As it was, NUCHESS only drew (or lost), I forget, and
BELLE managed to squeak by CRAY BLITZ after sacrificing two pawns in
its opening book. The tournament director, international master Mike
Valvo, for a considerable period of the game, felt that BELLE would
lose, but at the last moment, it pulled some sneaky tactics out, and
tied up CRAY BLITZ's bishop and rook on the back rank, so it was
essentially playing with two extra pieces; CRAY BLITZ's loss deprived
it of first place, and BELLE successfully defended its title.

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