Author: José Carlos
Date: 14:06:21 01/29/02
The second weekend of tournament started for me in a very good place. 3 points in six rounds was more than I expected, and I had played programs stronger than Averno except Celes and Tinker, which is more or less the same strength as my program. Round 7: Sjeng - Averno 0-1 This was a very important game. Sjeng is considered a bit stronger than Averno, and I had lost to it in CCT3. After a long and strange book line, Averno ended up in a won position, so the game was won by the book. Good result, but a pity there was no real fight. However, I was happy because I had some bad positions from book, specially vs PostModernist, so I was glad this time I was in the winning side. Round 8: Averno - Goliath 0-1 After an even book line, an old hole in my eval showed up. Averno sacced B+N for R+P and some attack, but the attack disappeared soon, and my program lost badly. Round 9: Comet - Averno 1/2 Comet operator didn't show up, so I suggested Uli to operate Comet himself. Nobody seemed to have any objection, so we played the game. I'm very happy that noone had objections, because the game was really exciting, and the chat with Uli very nice. Comet played somewhat handicapped because of a slow hardware (K6-2 450 IIRC) and maybe this gave Averno some extra chances. Averno had a nice attacking position, but played passively and Comet went over black king. When white was near killing black king, it offered the queens exchange, and Averno managed to get an interesting ending. I don't think it can be won, because with can check forever, but also black couldn't lose. The draw was a great result for me. Round 10: Averno - Crafty 1/2 I was unlucky again with pairing. In second round I faced Hiarcs, which shouldn't be there, and in round 10 I had to play Crafty, which had 2 forfeits. The same eval mistake as in the game vs Goliath happened here (B+N for R+P) but in this game Crafty captured a pawn in a2, and its knights were trapped, one defending each other. White couldn't capture them, but also they couldn't move. Averno was happy because it has a big penalty for the knights in such a situation, and slowly managed to create some threats with its pawns. When it seemed it could win (I'm not sure) it forced the promotion, but got a position that seemed impossible to win: [D]8/4k1p1/p1p1P2p/4RP1P/1nP3P1/1n3K2/8/8 w - - 0 42 Here Averno played 42. g5 hxg5 43. h6 gxh6 44. f6+ Kxf6 45. e7 43 Kg4 was interesting, though I don't know if white can win or not. Round 11: Warp - Averno 1-0 Again a strong opponent. Averno played a Caro-Kann and got messed in a position it didn't understand. I had connection problems in this game, for which I apologyze to Peter McKenzie. 5 points out of 11. Not bad for my program, and specially considering the strong opponents it played in the tournament. Just one complaint. Most of my opponents didn't kibitz any search info at all. I don't have any doubt about their honesty running their own programs without cheating at all, but it's a lot more fun when you can see what your opponent is thinking. Averno's kibitzing was enabled in all the games. I'd like all people did this so we all can have fun with the games. Thanks to all: ICC, Volker, players and people just watching and commenting. As usual, CCT was a great event. My congratulations to Amir and Thomas specially, and all the others in general. Also special congratulations to those who played their first tournament. I hope to see you all (and also the ones missing) in CCT5. José C.
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