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Subject: CCT-3 - An operator report - Der Bringer

Author: Peter Berger

Date: 11:28:14 05/28/01


After reading all the interesting reports by various programmers I thought it
might be
interesting for some people to read a Joe User report :)

If memory serves me well in late April Gerrit Reubold , the author of the
program
"Der Bringer" ( free download at http://www.reubold.onlinehome.de)  and friend
of mine
contacted me and asked if I wanted to operate Bringer in CCT-3 .

CCT-3 was the second "official" tournament for Bringer - it had already
participated in CCT-1
some time ago .

CCT-1 preparation had been kind of a chaos - I borrowed a fast computer
( PIII500 then ) and had everything set up about 5 minutes before the start of
the first
game . Opening preparation - none until the very last games . So Bringer happily
agreed to play a Benoni with black against archrival PostModernist and got
spanked . Another
unfortunate game was a draw out of a good position against Grok .
In the end everything went a little smoother until in the last round Bringer had
to play
LambChop - it won a pawn and got a good position - but instead of winning it
drew :( .
It finished with 4/8 - good for a new starter , but not too outstanding either .

For CCT-3 everything was starting much more fortunate . Bringer 1.8 had just
been released - so a well-tested
and stable version was availlable - and : Bringer has improved quite a lot since
CCT-1 times .

I planned to buy a new computer anyway so very fast hardware was availlable .

Planned changes for Bringer 1.9 are book tuning and book learning . Book
learning is not yet availlable ( no problem
for a tournament ) but book tuning has been made way easier by Gerrit .
Everything could be done in a comfortable way in
the Beta's GUI .

So the engine that participated was in fact Bringer 1.8 - the engine is
identical to the release version so far .

This time there was plenty of time to set everything up , tune the book a little
and test it . So I was confident that
this was the meanest Bringer beast the world has seen so far - ready to take any
challenge :)

The aim was : to get one big scalp this time - a win against one of the big ones
- (5,5/8 was declared the dream result).

( I personally hoped to get a chance to see a game of Bringer against Ferret,
too ) .


1st Round : Bringer-Chezzz 1-0

A book victory in fact as Chezzz has no opening book yet and Bringer was set up
for the Queen's Gambit - Chezzz happily
took the pawn on c4 and tried to keep it ... . Although Chezzz showed some tough
resistance it was futile .

A good start !

Chezzz' programmer expressed his fears to see this game repeated a few time
against others but also took it as encouragement
to work on his book code .


2nd Round : Hiarcs8x - Bringer 0-1

Second round and major tournament goal already reached :)). At this time it was
unknown how strong the new Hiarcs is but as it
lost only this game in the tournament and finished 3rd it can't be that weak .

Bringer was set up to answer 1.c4 with 1. ..e6 to head for
Nimzo-Indian/Queens-Indian position types instead of the tough
English ones and this tactic worked well - Bringer was equal after the opening
was finished .

After the opening the operator of Hiarcs informed me that Hiarcs was set up for
all or nothing .
Dunno to what he referred , but if it was the contempt factor it was definitely
not the right position to play with IMHO.

[Event "ICS Match (Partie in 45 Minuten + 10 Sekunde(n) pro Zug)"]
[Site "unbekannt"]
[Date "2001.05.26"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Hiarcs8x(C)"]
[Black "Bringer1.9ß02"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2200"]
[BlackElo "2481"]

1. c4  e6  2. Nf3  Nf6  3. d4  b6  4. Nc3  Bb7  5. e3  d5  6. cxd5
exd5  7. Bb5+  c6  8. Bd3  Be7  9. O-O  O-O  10. b3  Nbd7  11. Bb2
Bd6  12. Ne2  Re8  13. Ng3  g6  14. Ng5  Qe7  15. Rc1  Nh5  16. Qg4
Nxg3  17. hxg3  a5  18. Qh4  f6  19. Nf3  a4  20. Rc3  axb3  21. axb3
Ra2  22. Rc2  Rea8  23. Rfc1  Ba6  24. Bxa6  R8xa6  25. Rb1  c5
26. Rd2  Qe4  27. Qxe4  dxe4  28. Ne1  f5  29. dxc5  bxc5  30. Rbd1
Bf8  31. Bc3  Rxd2  32. Rxd2  Nf6  33. Bb2  Kf7  34. Nc2  Rb6
35. Na1  h5  36. Kf1  Ra6  37. Nc2  Ke6  38. Na1  Ra2  39. Bc3
Ra8  40. Nc2  Nd5  41. Bb2  Rb8  42. Na1  Nb4  43. Bc3  Ra8  44. Rd1
Nd5  45. Bb2  Ra2  46. Bh8  Be7  47. Rc1  Nb4  48. Re1  Nd3  49. Re2
Ra8  50. Bg7  Kf7  51. Bc3  Ra3  { 2.29/17 0:00:47.0 } 52. Kg1
Bf6  { 2.86/17 0:00:34.1 } 53. Bxf6  Kxf6  { 2.87/18 0:00:34.1 (PB: 0:00:26.7 )
}
54. Nc2  Rxb3  { 3.07/17 0:01:45.6 (PB: 0:01:45.5 ) } 55. f3
Rb1+  { 3.14/16 0:01:17.9 } 56. Kh2  Ne5  { 3.18/17 0:01:04.4 (PB: 0:00:01.5 ) }
57. Na3  exf3  { 3.19/17 0:00:49.9 (PB: 0:00:01.5 ) } 58. gxf3
Rb3  { 3.31/16 0:00:36.1 (PB: 0:00:35.9 ) } 59. Nc2  Nxf3+  { 3.33/16 0:00:31.5
(PB: 0:00:31.4 ) }
60. Kg2  Ng5  { 3.48/16 0:01:36.1 (PB: 0:00:24.0 ) } 61. Na1
Rb4  { 3.58/16 0:00:26.9 (PB: 0:00:01.6 ) } 62. Nc2  Rg4  { 3.88/16 0:01:04.7 }
63. Kh2  h4  { 3.90/16 0:00:58.8 (PB: 0:00:01.5 ) } 64. Rg2  h3  { 3.95/16
0:00:44.6 (PB: 0:00:01.5 ) }
65. Rf2  Ra4  { 4.04/15 0:00:27.9 (PB: 0:00:08.1 ) } 66. Ne1
Ra3  { 4.12/15 0:00:32.0 (PB: 0:00:31.7 ) } 67. Nf3  Ne4  { 3.98/14 0:00:28.9
(PB: 0:00:28.8 ) }

{Hiarcs8x resigns}0-1

Well done, Gerrit !!


3rd Round : Bringer - Deep Fritz 1/2

An easy draw in fact ; game was about equal all the time .


4th Round : Deep Shredder - Bringer 1/2

After an equal opening Shredder slowly seemed to make major progress but
couldn't get enough advantage to win .

So after 4 rounds at the end of the first day Bringer had 3.0/4 after playing
Hiarcs, Fritz and Shredder - quite a day :) .

A funny experience was how stressing these games were for me :) ; I had to do
_nothing_ but watch and chat but it felt like a
day of hard work - in fact it was very similar to having to play for myself .. -
but it definitely was exciting .


5th Round : Bringer - Diep 1/2

This probably was the game to decide whether there will be a good or a
sensational tournament performance for Bringer.

Both engines commited several serious blunders . Bringer got the better out of
the opening . In fact Diep was out of book
at about move 6 . Although Vincent informed me that he used a big book and all
games were checked by search and at first
he was quite optimistic as he said Diep had to fill its hashtables and that
needed time.

To me the time management of Diep looked strange as it used about half of its
time for the first dozen moves or so .

Bringer went for the dubious plan to play 13. Nb5 and 14.c5 - sacrifying the
bishop pair for a passer on c6 .

Black probably was already better here , but Bringer had several chances to
reach a clear draw which it refused as it enjoyed
its position because of the passer .

Diep slowly advanced until it blundered with the miserable 35. ... Rh1 so it was
even again .

Then Diep even sacked a pawn because now _it_ was dreaming of a strong passer -
I think at this stage Bringer had
some serious winning chances .

But it was Bringer's time to blunder again - it went for bad pawngrabbing and
came into zugzwang .

Diep went on to win : Bringer was at -2.80 at move 61 and even displayed some
lines where it went to -5 :( .

But much to my surprise Diep played 72. ...Kh8 ? allowing an easy perpetual .

In the end I was quite happy with the result . Diep is strong - but this game
didn't show good play by both programs .

It was much fun to talk and analyze with Diep's programmer . Vincent is a very
strong chessplayer and saw several things
I didn't notice - and he is very emotional watching the games :)) .


6th Round : Crafty - Bringer 1 - 0

Only game with a serious hardware disadvantage against the Quad but the game
seemed to start well as it went straight
into an expected line in the Sicilian which is very drawish I think - and
another draw would have been a nice result ;)

Suddenly Crafty sacked a pawn for great compensation which Bringer grabbed . I
was very happy to see Bringer
playing 15. ...Nd5 ! returning the material but after a few pieces were
exchanged and the dust settled it was Crafty with
the bishop pair in an open position where it slowly advanced .

I had some hopes after Crafty refused to play f6 and allowed Black to play 22.
...f6 but after all it was one of those
positions Crafty simply plays well and my impression was : it just played
stronger than Bringer here .

With hindsight a sharper opening line might have been a better idea .


7th Round : Bringer-LambChop 1-0

So it was Chop again ;) ! I didn't have great expectations for this game after
the loss against Crafty and knowing how
strong LambChop plays - also I thought of CCT-1 ..

But much to my surprise LambChop's opening book blundered with 11. ...Nd7 ?? and
the quite obvious 12. Nb5 ! saw
Bringer with +1.5 up .

This game was big fun to watch because PeterMcKenzie and Gerrit Reubold had
interesting discussions about chess
programming and it was fun to sit there and listen .

On the chessboard it looked like an easy win for a long time .

Although I didn't like 17. dxc5 Bringer seemed to improve its position nicely -
but then it played 35. b6 ?! closing the
queen side .

Now it was clear that at some point it had to advance its kingsside pawns to
make progress . IM Schroer commenting praised
White and predicted an easy win , the chessprogrammers were more sceptical
though .

Problem was that Bringer thought it was +2.0 up positionally so why weaken this
perfect position by "weakening" the kingside
with pawn moves ?

Fortunately Gerrit told us he had learned his lesson from the Grok game in CCT-1
and Bringer now recognizes the 50 moves
rule in search .

It got quite exciting now ; now and then Bringer made a pawn move or what looked
like a promising King move but the game
went on and on without any noticeable progress . I don't know if Bringer would
have won this ( no deeper analysis done so
far ) but by this time LambChop had started to make some tiny weakening pawn
moves without being forced to . Those didn't
seem to hurt too much - until : 122. ...h4 ?? throwing away the game in one
move.

This game definitely looked like a computer's game .


Final Round : SOS - Bringer 1-0

As the LambChop game lasted that long there wasn't any time left to think about
what to play against SOS so Bringer
had to deal with the lines chosen against Crafty again . I don't know
what to think about this game . Opening position was nearly equal, slightly
worse for Bringer and then it went downhill slowly .
I haven't analyzed this game so far - it felt like being smashed .


So with the much better field of competitors in CCT-3 compaired to CCT-1 Bringer
finally scored 4,5/8 .
As it played nearly all the big ones it got a huge SOP/Buchholz and would have
finished 9th .
Ahead of Crafty and Shredder ;-) .
Slightly ahead of GnuChess :)) .
A shared 9th is still a good result .


Bringer beat Hiarcs in a nice game .

My private hope of getting a shot against Ferret wasn't fullfilled .

I think this tournament was a nice success for Gerrit Reubold and showed Bringer
isn't _that_ far away anymore .

Maybe next time even better :) ??

pete



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