The Story Behind The Engine Names ?

[rainhaus]

When I participated in my first tournament in 2002 I was interviewed and asked about the name of my chess engine 'The Baron'. More specifically the question was whether it was a tribute to Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen, who created the Turk in the 18th century.
That would have been a good story, but it is not true.
I lived in Breda, the Netherlands at the time I created it, and was member of the chess club 'De Baronie' (the Barony) which made is logical at the time to call the engine 'The Baron'. Especially since the name was not yet taken and there were quite a few engines at the time carrying noble titles, like The King, Queen and Duke.

Later, when writing a new chess engine I called it Crashtest Dummy (CTD) as it was intended as a test version to become the new 'The Baron'. It actually participated under that name in one of the CSVN tournaments, operated by my daughter Tessa. Running on a slow laptop it almost beat the old Baron version. It earned her the prize for 'best operator', which considering her age at the time (10 years old) was well deserved!
Richard.

Hi Richard,
Your Baron is an old tournament battlehorse, known for 20 years tournament-proven in many important computer chess championships. From Leiden and Paderborn, for example, ChessBase and CSS magazine have reported regularly.

Personally I have always enjoyed the name. It stands out from the mass of martial destroyers, and reminds that chess is also a noble, a royal game. The engine shows its nobility also in the fact, that in the competition it likes to give way to some ambitious rival, who wants to win at all costs To be among colleagues and old-familiar faces is probably the most noble thing, isn't it?

Thanks for your info on how the name came about. Congratulations also for the new version, that goes well together.

Here's the CPW photo of your reported tribute to 10 year old daughter Tessa from DOCCC 2007, who handled the "Crashtest Dummy" so virtuously.. Guess she has remained faithful to chess?


From left to right:
Erdogan Günes, Hans van der Zijden, Tessa Pijl (best operator award), Harvey Williamson and Gian-Carlo Pascutto

Bet regards to Belgium, respectively the Netherlands, the country of computer chess programmers...
Rainer
.

[pijl]

Here's the CPW photo of your reported tribute to 10 year old daughter Tessa from DOCCC 2007, who handled the "Crashtest Dummy" so virtuously.. Guess she has remained faithful to chess?

She has joined me in playing quite a few tournaments after the initial tournament in 2007, initially as an operator for the Baron (so I could walk around a bit more) and later as an operator for Arasan. In recent years her priorities shifted (work/studies/fiancee) and has not been operating a chess program anymore. She did visit the tournament last april though.

[rainhaus]

...btw, I like the Zahak story:
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Zahak
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Zahak#Etymology

Zahak (or Zahhak or Azhi Dahak) is an evil figure in Iranian/Kurdish/Perisan mythology, evident in ancient Iranian folklore as Azhi Dahāka, the name by which he also appears in the texts of the Avesta. Legend has it, that he had two giant snakes on his shoulders and he had to feed them two human brains on daily basis.

Giant brain eating snakes, beautiful theme for an chess playing engine
--
Srdja

Hi Srdja, thanks for mentioning the engine Zahak by software engineer Amanjy Sherwany. Z A H A K, oh yes, the name is a weapon itself, it sounds scary and bloodthirsty. Fortunately, the author does not program robots
A very confused etymological thing, is Zahac now a person or a monster ? In one version he/it includes both, he transforms from a supernatural monster to an evil human being.
One thing must be put right though, he doesn't have a huge brain eating snakes, but he has two snakes on the shoulder eating at least two brains daily



Hydra and Medusa would be female mythological pendants with snake heads.

The engine Hydra even exists. It comes from the Austrian Chrilly Donninger. One version even ran on a computer cluster with currently 32 Intel Xeon processors under Linux! So this chess monster already had 32 tentacles at that time When the Hydra loses a head, two new ones grow in its place, moreover the head in the middle was immortal.

Monsters, creatures, hybrids, Fantasy, popular sources for engine names. The following examples are all taken from the CCRL list:

- Zangar, a wizard
- Predateur= Predator, an alien species that hunts humans on Earth.
- Jabba, an interstellar criminal villain from Star Wars
- Thor's Hammer knocks everything short and small
- Ares is the god of war himself in Greek mythology.
- Ktulu or Cthulhu is a several hundred meter tall monster of great power invented by American horror writer H.P Lovecroft that came to earth several hundred million years ago, with tentacle-covered octopus head. It slumbers in death-like sleep in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, locked between ocean plates. It will rise again when the stars are right to once more execute its reign of terror over the earth, which will ultimately mean the death of all life on earth.
This monster reminds me of something real

Rainer
.

[chrjly]

My first chess engine was named BB and made its first move in 1986 (1 e4 with no book if I remember). BB like Bobby fisher Blitz
The second was named Techno Chess because the techno music was trendy in the year 1995
The latest was named KnightX for the knight piece of chess. I added the x letter maybe because the Knight name was already used.

Christophe

http://technochess.free.fr/index.html