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Subject: Re: Weissenberg Tournament

Author: Keith Ian Price

Date: 20:28:26 11/25/97

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On November 25, 1997 at 17:07:54, Fernando Villegas wrote:

>Hi Thorsten:
>Hey, you have gave us a taste of the cake, now is up to you to give us
>the complete stuff. I would love -all of us, I believe- the full
>hiostory behind the scenes. Is too much ask to ask you a translation? My
>german begins and end with "¡Achtung!".
>Chao

Since he has gone to bed, I will try, and he can correct it in the
morning:

"Shredder, the better Genius"

Hello Stefan,

Thorsten called me today, and said that you had been excitedly asking
for the
games of the tournament. Therefore, now a short tournament report and
some
comments of mine:

The tournament was played in seven rounds in the Swiss system. The
"thinking
time" was 3 hours per game using an external clock.

Shredder 2.0 was able to come out on top in the tournament, winning
with 6.5
out of 7, even with all of the available current top programs
participating!
With that it appeared, that Shredder has locked up second place in the
world at
least!

The opening library is very big and seemingly outstandingly coordinated
--  A
compliment! The opponents could in no way bring Shredder out of book in
a
clearly inferior position. The worst Shredder did out of book came
against
Rebel 9 in the seventh round.

Shredder 2.0 plays a pressure-filled, but strategically-oriented game of
chess,
but in no case boring! Tactically, it didn't leave anything exposed, and
positionally / strategically it didn't offer much to the opponent.
(Note: I am
not sure of the translation of the last sentence--too many idioms--kp)
Shredder has here reached the level of the top 2 (chess programs,
naturally)! Also a
fat compliment after Dortmund. The calculation depth display was
remarkable in
addition (11-13 ply in the middlegame!) - what do you make of that??

That, despite this, in some games (round 1 against the Tasc R30, round 2
against Scratch [a modified The King 2.54] and above all against Rebel 7
in
round 3), an inferior position came out, does not say much in my
opinion, since
this frequently depends on the chosen opening (which must not be badly
chosen!). That that itself can be a major problem, is shown, for
example, by the game against Hiarcs 6 on a power Mac  (approximately 50
-100% faster than the K6 with 225 MHz!), which was consistenetly won
from the opening on, without which Hiarcs would have had a real chance.

Even if one could still make out weaknesses in the middlegame; the
endgame, on
the other hand, was in a class by itself. In this phase, Shredder 2.0
could
still turn around a (probably) lost position (four times!!) (round 1-3,
in each
case, won, and round 7, drawn), once a dead drawn position wins (round
6), and
once an unclear endgame adjudicates for itself! As if the opponents
weren't
even there -- I have never seen anything like it!

Altogether, Shredder has earned fully (also in the height) the
tournament championship and I therefore immediately entered it in the
next tournament in March in Aufseß, and will operate it there again.

In the final analysis, Shredder plays strategically-selective and very
strong
chess in the style of Genius, but in many cases more interestingly and
also
better!

The games are enclosed.

Karsten

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope this isn't too far off,

kp



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