Author: Chessfun
Date: 11:06:10 01/31/02
Sjeng. The week started badly as I collapsed at work on Tuesday only to wake up in hospital to be told my gall bladder was bad. So, after they removed it they then let me go home the same day.....modern health care?. I wasn't sure how much pain I was going to be in and whether I would be able to operate Sjeng. As it was, sitting and being able to have something to focuss my attention on during the weekend helped. Sat 26 Jan. Game 7. Sjeng v AvernoX 0-1 Seems Averno had done some homework on Sjeng's opening book. As black plays 7.....c5 a move I can't find in other opening book and then Sjeng proceeds to stay in book till move 20?. Coming out of book at almost -3.00. Averno stayed in book until move 25 and it's first move from book is in the following position. As noted by the kibitzed notations following; [D]r5k1/pp1r1pp1/5n1p/2P5/P1P1p3/4B3/4BPPP/5RK1 b - - 0 25 --- Game 554: Sjeng vs AvernoX --- Sjeng(C) whispers: d13 -2.84 Be2 Rd7 h4 Kf8 a4 Rc8 a5 Rc6 g4 Ke7 Kg2 Ke6 Rd1 n: 77984732 qp: 22% fh: 87% c-x: 588476 r-x: 417704 1-x: 39905 t-x: 509 egtb: 0 time: 116.61 nps: 669109 AvernoX(C) kibitzes: Depth:0 Ev:-0.01 Time:0.00 Nodes:30 PV: (0 knps) * EGTB: 0/0 Sjeng(C) whispers: d13 -2.78 a4 Re8 h4 Kf8 a5 Re6 g4 Ke7 Kg2 Rc6 Rb1 h5 gxh5 n: 104951851 qp: 23% fh: 87% c-x: 563810 r-x: 595175 1-x: 34442 t-x: 1107 egtb: 0 time: 161.10 nps: 651915 AvernoX(C) kibitzes: Depth:13 Ev:2.18 Time:183.00 Nodes:98700004 PV:a8e8 f1b1 e8e6 h2h4 e6a6 b1b4 g8h7 h4h5 a6e6 e3f4 e6c6 b4b5 * (539 knps) * EGTB: 0/0 Naturally the opening has already decided the outcome, although Sjeng did manage to make it hard for Averno at one point getting it's minus score down to -1.7 but was checkmated on move 89. After this game I was in a bit of panic as Gian-Carlo wasn't available. I looked at the two opening books I was using, normal.opn and nbook.bin. And it appears the standard normal.opn follows this line, as when I removed it and simply used nbook.bin Sjeng would not follow this line. Yet with normal.opn in place it almost always followed the line. I deleted the few lines in normal.opn that followed this line and although it would still prefer 4. Qc2 I never had time to check if this was caused by normal.opn or nbook.bin. I am curious to know what part of the book was at fault? and whether Averno's operator had set up this line, as naturally it was in his book. Sat 26 Jan. Game 8. Butcher v Sjeng 0-1 I was a little relieved not to have white as I wasn't certain that I had fixed the book problem as there was only a small amount of time between games 7-8. The game was fairly even out of book, the first move out was white's 12. Nd2. By move 23. Sjeng looked to be winning white's rook was stuck in the open and it appeared that at some point black would win the exchange. As it was white managed to hold on and although he went into a difficult ending still with that bad rook there may have been drawing chances. Sjeng played this ending well and managed to win a piece for two pawns. From there the ending was simple. Sat 26 Jan. Game 9. Sjeng v Isichess 0-1 I noticed that Isichess's programmer and operator made a post here about his program not being automated and the possibility of cheating. Force move etc, etc. I had noticed early in the game that IMO that was what was happening especially with recaptures. I never knew Isichess wasn't automated but what I saw caused me to check the variables of Isichess which stated he was using the blitzin interface, so naturally I found out it wasn't automated. Sjeng came out of book about even playing 9. f3 inplace of the normal looking 0-0. Then on move 11. Uncorked h4?. See diagram prior to 11. h4 [D]r3kb1r/pppq1ppp/1nn1p3/4Pb2/3P4/1BN2P2/PP2N1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 0 11 I was stunned as Sjeng had been pondering the normal looking Be3. As it was Sjeng lost a pawn in the opening and Isichess came up with the best moves. So Sjeng went into an ending a pawn down but the position looked far worse. Sjeng played the rook ending pretty well but missed the powerful 41....h3. (diagram) after which it was only a matter of time till black won. [D]8/P5R1/5p2/2p2p1p/5k1p/5P2/6PK/r7 b - - 0 41 Sun 27 Jan. Game 10. Qalat v Sjeng 0-1 Both programs were out of book early and it seemed Sjeng had a good position. Qalat it appeared errored with 11. e4, then followed that with another 13. Ng5? after which Sjeng always had the upperhand it appeared simply a matter of time and Qalat resigned on move 50. Position prior to move 13. Ng5. [D]r1b2rk1/ppq2ppp/2p2n2/4b3/2B1P3/2N2N2/PPQ2PPP/R3K2R w KQ - 0 13 Sun 27 Jan. Game 11. Sjeng v Esc 1/2-1/2 Black appeared to have the better opening however by move 11 the position was pretty equal. By move 14 Sjeng seemed to have the edge. Black seemed to error with 37...Qb4 (diagram prior to Qb4) [D]r5k1/pp3ppp/b1p5/P3Q3/2P1B2P/4P1P1/2R2PK1/4q3 b - - 0 37 White had a number of chances, however Esc managed to hold the position. After the exchange of queens it appeared white would have trouble trying to hold the ending against black's active rook For some reason Esc holding all the advantage repeated positions a number of times in what is a tough ending for white. Black offered a draw after move 79 although 2 pawns up the ending at this point appears drawn. Final position. [D]8/p7/p5kp/P1p1rp1p/7R/4PPP1/4K3/8 w - - 0 80 So Sjeng's final total was 5.5/11.0. Hard to say what would be expected, but the score seems fair. It was a fairly fun tournament, the chat in (64) was fairly light and there were some fun comments as always by Vincent ! :-) So I wish to thank all the organizers and Gian-Carlo for letting me run his program. I am only sorry I never spent the time to make a better opening book and a new normal.opn. Thanks. Sarah.
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