When computers play chess

There was sensation at the International Computer Chess Association's computer chess world championships over the last weekend at the Chinese University of Hongkong.

Fritz 3, the Dutch chess-playing program running on an Intel Pentium 90MHz personal computer, trounced defending champion Deep Blue in the final round of the tournament to propel itself as the new computer chess champion.

Every three years, the ICCA organises the computer chess world championships and the 24 participants in Hongkong this year included some of the world's strongest chess playing computers.

Chess Genius, a British program which created worldwide interest by defeating Kasparov in a two-game contest last year, was also participating. Incidentally, Kasparov had his revenge two weeks ago when he beat the program 1.5-0.5 in a two-game rematch.

All eyes, however, were on IBM's Deep Blue. This program, universally regarded as THE chess program to beat, was also the winner of the ACM international championship in 1994.

Deep Blue was, however, not physically present in Hongkong. Throughout the championship, it was running on an IBM RS/6000 workstation with 14 slave processors back in the United States and its moves were relayed to the Chinese University of Hongkong via the Internet.

Four other programs were also connected to Hongkong in similar style from their home locations in Europe or North America.

Also from the United States, Star Socrates was running on a 1824 node Intel Paragon supercomputer while Hitech was on a Sun 4 workstation with dedicated chess hardware. Frenchess was running on a Cray T3D supercomputer back in France and Zugzwang was using a system with 1023 T800 transputers from Germany.

But the rest of the programs were there in Hongkong using real chessboards and clocks. Three of them - Ulysses (Germany), SOS (Germany) and Cheiron (Germany) - were running on Sun Microsystems Sparc 20 workstations; the Sun Phoenix (Canada) program was on a Sparc 2000 20cpu system; and Dark Thought (Germany) was on a DEC Alphaserver 2100.

The remaining programs - Fritz 3, WChess (USA), Junior (Israel), Rebel (USA), Zeus 3 (Spain), Virtua Chess (France), Schach 3 (Germany), Chess Genius, Pandix (Hungary), Nightmare (Germany), Ferret (USA), LChess (Netherlands), Gandalf (Denmark) and Woodpusher (UK) - were using 90MHz Pentium systems.

The ICCA world championships was primarily sponsored by IBM but the other major sponsors included Sun Microsystems, Compunetics, the ACM (Association of Computing Machinery), Saitek, Varitronix, the Hongkong Chess Federation and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

PENANG CHESS LEAGUE BEGINS NEXT SUNDAY

Teams intending to play in the fifth Penang Bayview Chess League are reminded that tomorrow is the closing date for the submission of entries. This tournament, the premier event of the Penang Chess Association, starts on June 11 at The City Bayview Hotel.

The hotel is the sponsor for the annual team event. Two years ago, it donated an 45-cm pewter challenge trophy worth RM6,000 towards the championship and at a cheque presentation ceremony earlier this week, the hotel's general manager, Nasihin Ali, reaffirmed the hotel's continued sponsorship. It will also remain the venue for the Chess League.

Only teams legitimately representing the public and business sectors, factories, universities, schools, colleges and registered associations, societies and clubs are allowed to play in the Chess League which will be played over several weekends. Each team is allowed one guest player.

Provision is made for about 24 teams to take part, and each team is allowed to register up to eight players. However, only four players from each team will be playing in every round.

Entry fee is RM150 and attractive cash prizes are guaranteed for the top five teams in each division. Division One will consist of the top teams in the state, including two teams promoted from last year's Division Two.

Teams entering for the first time will be placed in Division Two and their prospects for promotion to the premier division will depend on their performance in the league this year.

For more information, contact Alan Phang or Goh Yoon Wah in the evenings. With the closing date being tomorrow, a meeting of all team managers will be held at the hotel on June 7 at 8pm.