Author: Mike Byrne
Date: 19:50:05 02/08/04
If case you have not figured this out by now, my intent it to continue with
posting all 11 of the Nolot positions, dig up the game score from the actual
game -- post the orginal comments made by Pierre Nolot (original author of the
article where these positions were discussed) and Feng-Hsiung Hsu, Deep Blue
Inventor, who was preparing Deep Thought/Deep Blue for the match with Kasparov
that was to come in 1995 and took a keen interest in these positions. He
believed that if Deep Blue were able to solve these type of positions quickly,
Deep Blue would have a very good shot at defeating Kasparov. It is interesting
to see what today's software on fast hardware think of these positions.
So far these posts have gone very well and I appeciate everyone who has
particpated in this excercise.
Nolot #3 is a semi-controversial position as there are many doubters that the
claimed winning move is truly a forced win. When one also considers the nearly
200 point in the ratings of the particpants, it easier to understand why the
favored player, GM Sergey Smagin, now 47, played the daring and very complicated
Ng5!?. I suspect he would not have played that move if he had been playing
Kasparov. GM Dragutin Sahovic is now 63 years young and is still active in the
Serbia & Montenegro Chess Federation.
[Event "Biel (open) 50/122"]
[White "Smagin,S"]
[Black "Sahovic,D"]
[Date "1990"]
[Annotator "Smagin,S"]
[WhiteElo "2550"]
[BlackElo "2370"]
[ECO "B 00"]
[Result "1-0"]
1. e4 Nc6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 ( 3. Nc3 {Ue 50/(122)} ) 3... Bf5 4. c3 e6 5. Nd2
{N} ( 5. Ne2 ) 5... f6 6. f4 fe5 7. fe5 Nh6 8. Ndf3 Nf7 9. Ne2 Be7 10. Ng3
Bg4 ( 10... Bg6 11. h4 $16 ) ( 10... g6 $5 ) 11. Bd3 {
[d]r2qk2r/ppp1bnpp/2n1p3/3pP3/3P2b1/2PB1NN1/PP4PP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 11
I let Crafty 19.10 SE search about two hours just on this move - it was
searching the 20th ply deep and was returning a draw score by an apparant
repetition. Unfortuanately I had not saved the analysis and I do not feel like
running the position again.
}
11....Ng5 12. Ng5 $3 ( 12.
Bg5 Bg5 13. O-O $14 ) 12... Bd1 13. Ne6 Qb8 ( 13... Qd7 14. Bf5 $18 ) 14.
Ng7 Kd8 ( 14... Kf7 15. Bh6 $5 ( 15. N7f5 Bg4 16. Nh6 ) 15... Bf8 16. O-O
Kg8 17. N7f5 $1 17... Bg4 18. Rf4 $1 18... Bf5 19. Bf5 Nd8 ( 19... Qe8
20. Bf8 $18 ) ( 19... Bh6 20. Be6 Kg7 21. Nh5 Kg6 22. Bf7 Kg5 23. h4 {#} )
20. Be4 $3 20... Bh6 21. Bd5 Kg7 22. Nh5 Kg6 23. Rf6 Kh5 24. Bf3 Kg5 25.
g3 $18 ) 15. Kd1 b5 16. Ne6 Kc8 17. Nf5 Bf8 ( 17... Qb6 18. Nf4 $5 18...
Rd8 19. Ne3 $1 $16 ) ( 17... Kb7 18. Bb5 $36 ) 18. Rf1 $1 18... Kb7 (
18... Qb6 19. Ne3 $5 $16 ) 19. Bh6 $3 19... Bh6 ( 19... Kb6 20. Ne3 $3 (
20. Nf8 $14 ) 20... Bh6 21. Nd5 Ka5 ( 21... Kb7 22. Nc5 Kc8 23. Rf7 {#C5
#CCf5+#BB} ) 22. b4 Ka4 23. a3 $1 23... Kb3 24. Nc5 Kb2 25. Rf2 $1 25...
Ka1 26. Nb3 {#} ) 20. Nc5 Kc8 21. Nh6 Ne7 22. Be2 Ng6 23. Nf7 $1 {#5B#C5
#CCg4##5D} ( 23. Nf7 $1 23... h5 24. Nh8 )
1-0
========================================================================
Comment by Pierre Nolot, published in the July 1994 issue
of Gambisco
========================================================================
# Position: 3
# Move: W
r..qk..r Smaguine - Sahovic, Bienne 1990
ppp.b.pp White wins with a queen sac but black has several ways to defend
..n.p... 12.Nxg5!! Bxd1 13.Nxe6 Qb8 14.Nxg7!! Kf8 15.Bh6! Bg4 16.0-0+
...pP.n. 17.Kg8 17.Rf4 +-
...P..b. It should take between a few months and a few years for a program
..PB.NN. to find 12.Nxg5!!
PP....PP
R.BQK..R
========================================================================
Comment by Feng-Hsiung Hsu , Deep Blue Inventor
========================================================================
White to move
8 R * - Q K * - R
7 P P P - B - P P
6 - * N * P * - *
5 * - * P p - N -
4 - * - p - * B *
3 * - p b * n n -
2 p p - * - * p p
1 r - b q k - * r
a b c d e f g h
Source: Smagin-Sahovic, Biel 1990.
Solution move is 1. Ng5!. Verified that the move is sound by following
the published analysis, but could not play it within one hour time. This
is more a positional sac than what would be normally called tactics.
========================================================================
Additional Comment by Feng-Hsiung Hsu , Deep Blue Inventor
========================================================================
We took a closer look at this position. 12. Ng5 is a sound positional
sac, but depending on the temperament of the player, it might not be
the best move. The published annotation gives 12. Bg5 Bg5 13. o-o as
+=, but white could play 13. h3 instead and white appears to have a simple
positional squeeze. The critical line in the 12. Ng5 variation turns out
to be 12. Ng5 Bd1 13. Ne6 Qb8 14. Ng7 Kd8 15. Kd1. Black's queen and rooks
are temporarily out of play, black is up a pawn, but white has a protected
passed pawn, and lots of pressure. (The annotator gave one line that
ended "with the attack":). From DT-2's point of view, The Bg5 line was
gaining 0.20 pawn after each iteration, and so was the Ng5 line. Except
that the Bg5 line has about a 0.20 pawn lead at the same depth. There
appears to be no kill in the Ng5 line when black king goes to d8
instead of the f file. Black would have to give up the extra pawn to
activate the queen and the rooks, and while white is definitely better, black
is not without counter play. On the deepest search that we checked out,
black's evaluation stopped dropping at around -1.4 pawns, and black's pieces
were becoming active.
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