ICGA WCCC and WCSC in Santiago de Compostela

[Henk]

So there won't be a world champion next year? Or wasn't that the last tournament. Will this be the end of computer chess?

[AlexChess]

So there won't be a world champion next year? Or wasn't that the last tournament. Will this be the end of computer chess?

I know from a trusted source that probably they will restart, but with different rules and the first event could be in Bologna, Italy (after 1996 Roma, that was organized by my boss. This year even Richard Lang, my myth! more times World Champion was there (Mephisto, Genius). I talked to him in Rome 38 years ago and it could be really nice if he restarts to develop his engine )


Lang central on this picture, courtesy of Mclane.

[cpeters]

This is/was it? And people are ok?

The last "World Computer Chess Championship"? Some candy snappy-snaps form someone's phone? On a blogsite? The lectureroom with shitty internet filled with ten people? Fifty years...; the transcript of them lecture-words nowhere to be found (or is it not for the general public). No streaming of this event in the year 2024? Did they forget to bring their AOL-CDs from the states along with them?
Or am I supposed to send some stamps and get the DVD of the event?

Good Lord...

Here: https://www.vegvesen.no/trafikkinformas ... /1800193_1

Action!

[noobpwnftw]

Which one or more of the ten is amchess? No TalkChess elites from the center of the universe lecturing people there about chess programming?

[johnhamlen65]

So there won't be a world champion next year? Or wasn't that the last tournament. Will this be the end of computer chess?

I know from a trusted source that probably they will restart, but with different rules and the first event could be in Bologna, Italy (after 1996 Roma, that was organized by my boss. This year even Richard Lang, my myth! more times World Champion was there (Mephisto, Genius). I talked to him in Rome 38 years ago and it could be really nice if he restarts to develop his engine )


Lang central on this picture, courtesy of Mclane.

Hi Alex,

I had a nice time chatting with Richard over dinner. You'll be pleased to know that he hasn't changed a bit! He really enjoyed the tournament and talking with the participants and learning about their ideas but, sadly, has no interested in getting back into the field with a new program

Also of note in the photo (from the right) are Don Beal (my MSc supervisor from 1989 and a Mr. Null Move ), and Tony Marshland. Tony's program, "AWIT," competed in the 1st ACM tournament way back in 1970, whilst Don's program "Beal" competed in the 1st WCCC in 1974 !

Don, in his mid-70s, was certainly not poo-pooing the idea of getting back into chess programming and was telling me and Johan de Koning, that he had was getting 3Mnps/core with his old code on his "desktop PC in my flat". Inspiring stuff!

It was a real privilege being there!

[Rom77]

About the conference (in Russian):
https://habr.com/ru/companies/smartengi ... es/853546/

Gold Medal of Kaissa:
https://habr.com/ru/companies/smartengi ... es/834492/

[AlexChess]

So there won't be a world champion next year? Or wasn't that the last tournament. Will this be the end of computer chess?

I know from a trusted source that probably they will restart, but with different rules and the first event could be in Bologna, Italy (after 1996 Roma, that was organized by my boss. This year even Richard Lang, my myth! more times World Champion was there (Mephisto, Genius). I talked to him in Rome 38 years ago and it could be really nice if he restarts to develop his engine )


Lang central on this picture, courtesy of Mclane.

Hi Alex,

I had a nice time chatting with Richard over dinner. You'll be pleased to know that he hasn't changed a bit! He really enjoyed the tournament and talking with the participants and learning about their ideas but, sadly, has no interested in getting back into the field with a new program

Also of note in the photo (from the right) are Don Beal (my MSc supervisor from 1989 and a Mr. Null Move ), and Tony Marshland. Tony's program, "AWIT," competed in the 1st ACM tournament way back in 1970, whilst Don's program "Beal" competed in the 1st WCCC in 1974 !

Don, in his mid-70s, was certainly not poo-pooing the idea of getting back into chess programming and was telling me and Johan de Koning, that he had was getting 3Mnps/core with his old code on his "desktop PC in my flat". Inspiring stuff!

It was a real privilege being there!

Yes, Richard is exactly like I remember He was our main "problem" when I was working for Saitek-Kasparov. Julio Kaplan was a very skilled programmer, but H&G (Mephisto) hardware was far superior. When I encountered Mr. Winkler (Saitek boss) working for the Italian distributor, I begged him to switch to 16 or 32 bit like Fidelity, Mephisto and Novag. Analyst 8 Mhz module wasn't enough. I'm very surprised that he listened to me (being his fan #1) and revealed to me that he was working to fix that with Kathe and Dan Spracken. Risc 2500 (The King by Johan de Koning) and Spracklen's Sparc module were much better

[mclane]

On the picture is also jeff rollason.



https://www.chessprogramming.org/Jeff_Rollason


https://www.aifactory.co.uk/newsletter/ ... inimax.htm

[Viz]

About the conference (in Russian):
https://habr.com/ru/companies/smartengi ... es/853546/

Gold Medal of Kaissa:
https://habr.com/ru/companies/smartengi ... es/834492/

This world championship, as it turned out, will be the final one.

“We must admit that chess has fallen out of the sphere of artificial intelligence today. It’s time to put an end to this matter. Today’s programs are approximately of the same level. They play 30 games to a draw, then one of them wins, but this no longer arouses any interest,” Vladimir Lvovich noted.

And then, with a mysterious look, he added: “However, it is still impossible to say that the machine plays perfectly — we don’t know. I fully admit that a genius may be born who will beat the machine. Or perhaps he already lives among us.”
Well, this is a good meme material and shows you how "in line" are this legends with modern state of chess engines.

[mclane]

he was working to fix that with Kathe and Dan Spracken.

He could have FIXED that much better by buying Mark Uniackes Hiarcs World chess champion in Munich championship because hiarcs at that time was running on a sparc cpu too.

https://www.chessprogramming.org/WMCCC_1993

Then he would have had a world chess champion in his modules and use the same hardware/module the spracklens used.

Johan de konings engine in the saitek risc was the arm cpu from the chess machines put into a dedicated chess computer. In munich 1993 johan used a very powerful dec alpha machine with 150 mhz.

Johans engine made 2nd in munich 1993.
Even before Richards Genius.

I remember from preparation games before the Munich championship that hiarcs at that time beated all other engines with one exception: johan de konings „The King“ on chess machine .
So the final ranking of the munich championship shows imo very good the level of the engines at that time.

In the background on the picture there is also Ares programmer charles roberson and next to him Wolfgang Zugrav.

There was another participant in Munich using a sparc station hardware, that was werner koch with Breakthrough.