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Subject: Most brilliant novelty from cct7 Witchess-Arasan

Author: Vincent Diepeveen

Date: 07:56:24 02/14/05

Go up one level in this thread


On February 14, 2005 at 10:33:12, Jon Dart wrote:

>A few notes from Arasan's games in CCT7:
>
>Game 1 against Homer, Arasan had Black in a QID that Schroer called
>"a super high-class line, very theoretical". Arasan was in book until
>move 18. It appears Homer misplayed the next few moves. Arasan's score
>rapidly climbed and it won.
>
>Arasan won easily against Alarm after it blundered here with .. Bxa3:
>
>[D] 3q1b1k/1p4pp/rn2rp2/BR2p3/p3N3/P2PP1P1/5P1P/1QR3K1 b - - 0 1
>
>Black is not in good shape already, but the pawn can't be taken.
>
>Arasan lost against Fafis. The opening was some unusual variant of the
>Four Knights .. Arasan was out of book at move 7. Arasan's score
>was positive until move 45. I haven't analyzed this yet so I am
>not sure where it went wrong but it lost rapidly after that.
>
>This game against nullmover gave me some anxious moments. 7 .. Ne8
>is unusual (..c6 is more common) and Arasan was out of book after
>that. Black got what looked like a pretty scary k-side attack
>in the KID. But Arasan defended - in fact its score was never
>negative. Finally Arasan broke through on the q-side -- standard
>play in the KID - and won. The nullmover author mentioned his program
>had no passed pawn code and in general has a simple eval.
>
>[Event "?"]
>[Site "chessclub.com"]
>[Date "2005.02.13"]
>[Round "?"]
>[White "Arasan 9.0"]
>[Black "nullmover"]
>[Result "1-0"]
>[ECO "E87"]
>[WhiteElo "2594"]
>[BlackElo "2202"]
>[TimeControl "3000+3"]
>
>1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 O-O 6. Be3 e5 7. d5 Ne8
>8. Qd2 f5 9. exf5 gxf5 10. Bd3 Na6 11. Nge2 Nb4 12. O-O f4 13. Bf2
>Nxd3 14. Qxd3 Rf5 15. Ne4 Rh5 16. b4 Rh6 17. Rfe1 Rg6 18. Kh1 Nf6
>19. N2c3 Nxe4 20. Nxe4 Bf5 21. Rg1 Kh8 22. a4 Qe7 23. c5 dxc5
>24. bxc5 Rg8 25. d6 Qf7 26. Rad1 Rh6 27. Rge1 cxd6 28. cxd6 b6
>29. Qd5 Be6 30. Qd2 Bf8 31. Qc3 Qg7 32. g4 Rh3 33. g5 Bg4 34. Rd3 Bf5
>35. a5 Rh5 36. Rd5 Bxe4 37. Rxe5 Qf7 38. R5xe4+ Bg7 39. Qc6 Rxg5
>40. Re8 Rg6 41. axb6 axb6 42. Bxb6 Qa2 43. Rxg8+ Kxg8 44. Re8+
> 1-0 {nullmover resigns}
>
>Against Pharaon, Arasan played a reasonable variant of the Slav and
>was ok for a long time. Finally at this point Pharaon played Bh6:
>
>[D] q6k/3r1p2/p4Pp1/1pRn3p/3PQ3/P6P/1P1B4/6K1 w - - 0 1
>
>and then posted the Bishop on g7. Neither Arasan nor Crafty would play
>Bh6 at the tournament time level on the hardware I have, but Crafty
>does eventually fail high on it, with a score of +1.7, so this may
>have been the decisive move.
>
>I wasn't watching for a while, but the next time I looked Pharaon was up
>a Knight--not quite sure how that happened, but seems like it found a
>nice tactic.
>
>Pharaon was strong even before its recent version update and now it
>is really formidable.
>
>In the Chompster game, 37 .. a4 by Chompster was a bad mistake,
>gifting Arasan with an outside passer:
>
>[D] 2q1r1k1/5pp1/5bp1/p7/4PQ2/1Br5/P4RPP/5R1K b - - 0 1
>
>But the game got into a bishop of opposite colors ending and was
>drawn. I actually made the draw manually, which brought a protest
>from sfarrell: he is right that under the rules this should not
>have been done without the TD's consent. It seems several programs
>broke this rule in this round.
>
>I was disappointed to lose the last game against cEng (witchess). It
>had a very unusual opening:
>
>[Event "?"]
>[Site "chessclub.com"]
>[Date "2005.02.13"]
>[Round "?"]
>[White "witchess"]
>[Black "Arasan 9.0"]
>[Result "1-0"]
>[ECO "C28"]
>[WhiteElo "2397"]
>[BlackElo "2594"]
>[TimeControl "3000+3"]
>
>1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bc4 Nc6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nxe4 d5 6. Bd3 dxe4
>7. Bxe4 Ne7 8. c3 f5 9. Bc2 e4 10. Ne5 Qd5 11. f4 exf3 12. Nxf3 Qe6+
>13. Kf2 Qb6+ 14. d4 Be6 15. Ba4+ c6 16. Re1 Bd5 17. Bb3 O-O-O 18. Bg5
>Qc7 19. Bxd5 cxd5 20. Qe2 Qb6 21. c4 Rd7 22. cxd5 Kb8 23. Qe5+ Ka8
>24. d6 Rxd6 25. Bxe7 Bxe7 26. Qxe7 Rc8 27. Kg1 Rg8 28. Rac1 Rdd8
> 1-0 {ArasanX resigns}
>
>I analyzed this overnight with Crafty but didn't find where Arasan
>went wrong. I didn't like 7.. Ne7 and 7.. Bd6 seems to be better -
>this has occurred in a few games with this line. After Ne7, Arasan
>had its Bishop locked in and failed to develop it.

I watched this game live and found it a very strong game from witchess.
Especially because it plays without book. Let's be honest there. That's 700
rating points (a real strong book).

>1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bc4 Nc6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nxe4 d5 6. Bd3 dxe4
>7. Bxe4 Ne7

Ne7 was first move out of book and to me it looked not only very strong, it is
also well known theory.

>8. c3

Personally i would have played Bd3 there, but c3 is a very solid setup.

> f5 9. Bc2 e4 10. Ne5 Qd5 11. f4 exf3 12. Nxf3 Qe6+
>13. Kf2

Kf2 is simply the best move. Amazingly no one plays it.

> Qb6+

I understand why programs go Qb6 here to avoid a quick d4-d5 later. However
perhaps it's the wrong plan. Just development with Bd7 and you can still choose.

Yet whites advantage is obvious after Bd7.

For your own confidence, even the top programs see relative little score
difference between Qb6 and other moves here. Only after a few moves they realize
the problem bigtime for black.

>14. d4 Be6 15. Ba4+ c6 16. Re1 Bd5 17. Bb3 O-O-O 18. Bg5

After Bg5 the position is already completely won.

>Qc7 19. Bxd5 cxd5 20. Qe2 Qb6 21. c4

c4!!

> Rd7 22. cxd5 Kb8 23. Qe5+ Ka8
>24. d6 Rxd6 25. Bxe7 Bxe7 26. Qxe7 Rc8 27. Kg1 Rg8 28. Rac1 Rdd8
> 1-0 {ArasanX resigns}

It's a brilliant game from white.

Black has made 0 mistakes and lost.

>I was a bit surprised by 13. Kf2, keeping the Queens on -
>Arasan expected Qd2 and a Queen exchange.

13.Kf2!! is simply an improvement of the theory which deserves 2 exclamation
marks.

Because black has made 0 mistakes and white has shown a superb novelty, this
is therefore the best game of the tournament by a large margin.

>cEng played a nice attack and won handily.

>Overall I am happy with a 4.5 score but it seems like you have to
>keep improving to stay even - this is the best Arasan version I have

50 points a year at least.

>ever had, and the best hardware, and it is still finishing in the
>middle of the field. As others have said, the amateur chess community
>generally is improving.
>
>I appreciate the opportunity to have my program play and hope we will
>do a CCT8.
>
>--Jon



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