Author: Will Singleton
Date: 17:36:52 08/22/00
Go up one level in this thread
On August 22, 2000 at 18:45:59, Andrew Williams wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I've just got back from my second (and last unfortunately) visit to WMCCC.
>Again, some brief thoughts in no particular order:
>
>Internet Access
>===============
>
>I talked to a guy in the "press room" and he seemed quite friendly and
>suggested that James Robertson could use a spare computer to post a report
>to the internet. A report from James has appeared on Frank Quisinsky's site,
>but I don't know if he used the press room to post it. As far as I could
>determine, there was no internet access from the playing hall itself (which
>is mostly laid out for human mind sports of all kinds). The press room is
>a little way off and it wouldn't be possible to provide "live" updates. The
>odd thing is that the Alexandra Palace is a spectacular venue (I'd guess that
>the human participants at the Mind Sports Olympiad are pretty happy).
>Unfortunately, it is nowhere near as good for Computer games as (say) a good
>university would be, because that would provide: (a) A large number of machines
>on-site (I'd guess you could run a uniform-platform event, albeit perhaps not
>with the latest equipment). AND (b) Excellent internet access for the
>participants. I would stress that the organizers of WMCCC are working hard and
>enthusiastically to make the event a success.
>
>
>Round Four
>==========
>
>I saw some of Round 4 today (I think you can find results on Frank Quisinsky's
>page). I had to leave before most games were concluded, however.
>
>Vincent Diepeveen was very unhappy, because Diep allowed its rook to become
>trapped, giving Zchess a relatively easy win. I think Franck Zibi was rather
>pleased, but he was too polite to show it while Vincent was so upset.
>
>Crafty's book was working OK. When I asked Graham Laight if it had played moves
>out of the book, Alexander Kure (operating Nimzo) interjected: "yes, but just
>not the right ones". Graham said that Crafty came out of book with a score of
>-1.5 (or something), but for a while it looked like Nimzo was struggling to
>make progress.
>
>I had a nice chat with Frans Morsch, while Matthias Feist was operating Fritz
>against Junior. He said that Fritz "thinks the world of its position", but
>was concerned that it wasn't making any progress in improving it. Frans said he
>didn't like blitz games, but Matthias was keen to enter Fritz in Wednesday
>afternoon's blitz tournament. All the while, a young kid was using Amir Ban's
>mobile phone to relay the moves to someone (Shay Bushinsky?).
>
>When I asked how his game was going, Stefan Mayer-Kahlen commented, "badly, but
>before it was terrible!". This was a little while before Shredder found its way
>out of a very sticky situation against Rebel.
>
>I think I embarassed Jonathon Schaeffer a bit by saying how much I enjoyed his
>book about Chinook! ("One Jump Ahead", highly recommended).
>
>I'm a little ashamed that I didn't mention Bruno Bras (programmer of Pacque
>Expert) yesterday. Apropos of nothing at all, he kindly gave me a free copy of
>his program on CD. Thanks, Bruno. Tony Werten's Xinix seems to have recovered
>from its problems in Round 1 and had a nice win against Pacque Expert.
>
>I wish I'd been able to have a quick chat with Rudolf Huber about SOS. I'd have
>been interested to hear his thoughts on MTD(f).
>
>I hope I've not mis-represented anyone in my two brief reports from WMCCC.
>
>Cheers
>
>Andrew
Thanks for the report. Sounds like a great show, what with all the varied
events going on, and interesting people to talk with. Was Schaeffer competing,
or just hanging out?
Did you learn anything about the lack of reporting from the site? I seem to
recall that a previous WMCC had a good website, with pgn available after each
round plus standings etc. Or maybe that was chessbase, can't remember. Do you
think they were relying on third parties to cover things? Was there a concern
from the participants about the info blackout?
Will
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