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Subject: Re: Computer Chess History, did you know.......

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 19:11:57 07/04/01

Go up one level in this thread


On July 04, 2001 at 10:54:44, Uri Blass wrote:

>On July 04, 2001 at 09:35:13, John Wentworth wrote:
>
>>Did you know.....
>>
>>In 1947, Alan Turing specified the first chess program for chess.
>>
>>In 1948 the UNIVAC computer was advertised as the strongest computer in the
>>world. So strong, that it could play chess and gin rummy so perfectly that
>>no human opponent could beat it.
>>
>>In 1949 Claude Shannon described how to program a computer and a Ferranti
>>digital machine was programmed to solve mates in two moves.
>>
>>By 1956 experiments on a MANIAC I computer (11,000 operations a second) at
>>Los Alamos, using a 6x6 chessboard, was playing chess. This was the first
>>documented account of a running chess program.
>>
>>In 1957 a chess program was written by Bernstein for an IBM 704. This was
>>the first full-fledged game of chess by a computer.
>>
>>The first chess computer to play in a tournament was MacHack VI (PDP-6)
>>written at MIT by Greenblatt. The computer entered the 1966 Massachussets
>>Amateur championship, scoring 1 draw and 4 losses for a USCF rating of 1243.
>>
>>In 1966 a USSR chess program defeated a Stanford IBM 7090 program.
>>
>>In 1967 MacHACK VI became the first program to beat a human (rate 1510), at
>>the Massachussets State Championship.
>>
>>In 1968 International Master David Levy made a $3,000 bet that no chess
>>computer would beat him in 10 years. He won his bet.
>>
>>In 1970 the first all-computer championship was held in New York and won by
>>CHESS 3.0, a program written by Atkin and Gorlen at Northwestern University.
>>Six programs had entered.
>>
>>In 1971 the Institute of Control Science, Moscow, created KAISSA using a
>>British computer to play chess.
>>
>>In 1974 World Correspondence Champion Hans Berliner wrote his PhD
>>dissertation on "Chess Computers as Problem Solving."
>>
>>In 1974 KAISSA won the world computer chess championship held in Stockholm
>>with a perfect 4-0 score.
>>
>>In 1975 Grandmaster David Bronstein used the endgame database in KAISSA to
>>win an adjourned game in a tournament in Vilnius.
>>
>>In 1976 CHESS 4.5 won the Class B section of the Paul Masson tournament in
>>Northern California. The performance rating was 1950.
>>
>>In 1976 a computer program was used to make the chess pairings at the chess
>>olympiad in Haifa.
>>
>>In 1977 the first microcomputer chess playing machine, CHESS CHALLENGER, was
>>created. The International Computer Chess Association (ICCA) was formed.
>>
>>In 1977 CHESS 4.5 won the Minnesota Open winning 5 games and losing one. It
>>had a performance rating of 2271. Stenberg (1969) became the first Class A
>>player to lose to a computer.
>>
>>In 1977 SNEAKY PETE was the first chess computer to play in a U.S. Open,
>>held in Columbus, Ohio.
>>
>>In 1977 Michael Stean became the first grandmaster to lose to a computer; it
>>was a blitz game.
>>
>>In 1978 SARGON won the first tournament for microcomputers, held in San
>>Jose. David Levy collected his 10 year bet by defeating CHESS 4.7 in
>>Toronto. One of the games was a draw. This was the first time a computer
>>drew an international master.
>>
>>In 1980 CHAMPION SENSORY CHALLENGER won the first world microcomputer
>>championship, held in London.
>>
>>In 1981 CRAY BLITZ won the Mississipi State Championship with a perfect 5-0
>>score and a performance rating of 2258.
>>
>>In 1982 BELLE was confiscated by the State Department as it was heading to
>>the Soviet Union to participate in a computer chess tournament. The State
>>Department claimed it was a violation of a technology transfer law to ship a
>>high technology computer to a foreign country. BELLE later played in the
>>U.S. Oen speed championship and took 2nd place. By 1982 computer chess
>>companies were topping $100 million in sales.
>>
>>In 1983 Belle became the first computer to beat a master in tournament play
>>and the first computer to gain a master rating (2263).
>>
>>In 1983 the first microcomputer beat a master in tournament play.
>>
>>In 1984 a microcomputer won a tournament for the first time against
>>mainframes, held in Canada.
>>
>>In 1985 HITECH achieved a performace rating of 2530.
>>
>>In 1987 the U.S. Amateur Championship became the first national championship
>>to be directed by a computer program.
>>
>>In 1988 DEEP THOUGHT and Grandmaster Tony Miles shared first place in the
>>U.S. Open championship. DEEP THOUGHT had a 2745 performance rating.
>>
>>In 1988 HITECH won the Pennsylvania State Chess Championship after defeating
>>International Master Ed Formanek (2485). HITECH defeated Grandmaster Arnold
>>Denker in a match.
>>
>>In 1988 Grandmaster Bent Larsen became the first GM to lose to a computer in
>>a major tournament - the American Open.
>>
>>In 1989 DEEP THOUGHT won the world computer championship in Canada, with a
>>rating of 2600. DEEP THOUGHT defeated Grandmaster Robert Byrne in a match
>>game. DEEP THOUGHT can analyze 2 million positions a second. This year DEEP
>>THOUGHT played a 2 game match (under tournament conditions) in New York
>>against Garry Kasparov. Kasparov won the match 2-0. Afterwards he expressed
>>surprise at the lack of strong oposition from the computer.
>>
>>In 1990 Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov lost to MEPHISTO in a
>>simultaneous exhibition in Munich. MEPHISTO also beat grandmasters Robert
>>Huebner and David Bronstein. MEPHISTO won the German blitz championship and
>>earned an International Master norm by scoring 7-4 in the Dortmund Open.
>>
>>In 1994 WCHESS became the first computer to outperform grandmasters at the
>>Harvard Cup in Boston.
>>
>>In 1994 Kasparov lost to FRITZ3 in Munich in a blitz tournament. The program
>>also defeated Anand, Short, Gelfand, and Kramnik. Grandmaster Robert Huebner
>>refused to play it and lost on forfeit, the first time a GM has forfeited to
>>a computer. Although Kasparov lost to FRITZ3, he and FRITZ3 came equal first
>>in the tournament. In a playoff to determine the winner, Kasparov beat
>>FRITZ3, 3 games to 1. There where 17 grandmaster in the tournament.
>>
>>The highest rated computer in the world is DEEP BLUE, rated 2705.
>
>I did not know that Deep Blue has a rating.
>I think that the number of it's opponents is not big enough to give it a rating.
>
>Uri


That sounds like deep thought.  It had to produce a rating in that range
when it won the fredkin GM prize.



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