Author: Mike Byrne
Date: 20:04:12 05/24/02
The first " Frank J. Byrne Memorial Computer Chess Challenge " begins today. In remembrance of my late father who personally owned one the first IBM XT machines over 20 years ago - a machine that I grew up on. My dad was a writer and he was one of the first to get into "desktop publishing" - way before it was even called "desktop publishing". The Programs: World's Best Commercial Computer Chess Program -- Chess Tiger 14 by Christophe Theron Vs World's Best Freely Available Non-Commercial Computer Chess Program - Crafty 18.15 (Non-SMP) by Robert Hyatt Hardware: Dell Dual P4 1700Mhz Xeon w.512MB ram Settings: Each program will be assigned to one CPU. Since each program will have it's own CPU - pondering will be on. Crafty non-SMP edition will be used. Hash tables will be set at 96MB EGTB Cache will be set at 30MB Chess Tiger factory settings will be used - except for NSEW=1 as suggested by Theron is his posts here. Chesspartner 5.1 will serve as the interface using the beta ERT program. Crafty will be using non-standard evaluation settings, piece settings, and extension settings, and as well as a non standard "lazy exit" (evaluate.c) code and time setting (time.c) code. Should Crafty do well, these non-standard setting and code will be released to the public. Should Crafty not do well - they will be filed into a virtual circular file. All of these settings I used experimentally over the last 5-7 years with varying degrees of success. For the match, the settings being are ones that I believe will have the best chance of success. Crafty's book is also a handcrafted item that has evolved over the years. The book is pretty good- every once a while it pops out with bad opening. The Match: Like the days of yore - it is the first program to win 10 games - and they must have a margin of victory of 2 games. A winning score could be 10-8 or 21-19 it all depends on how the games go. Draws do not count - it just wins that count. Time Controls: 40/120 - no sudden death - every 40 moves is another 2 hours for both sides. I am expecting/hoping to complete about 5 games a week. There will be no more than one game completed in a day - better to analyze the games in between and to foster a little interest on a daily basis. Ianticpate it will take a month or more to completethsi challenge I will post the games in process as time permits under the heading "Frank J. Byrne Memorial Computer Chess Challenge" Good luck to the programs! Yours truly in chess, Mike Byrne
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