Author: Amir Ban
Date: 15:35:55 08/29/98
Hi! I'm back from the dead ... sea. I posted all the games of the match here elsewhere. They are actually taken from the ICC liblist of Junior50, and you can see them there too. I'll be following this up with some comments on our view of the match. Of course, the two long games are the ones that receive the most attention. We would have been happy to play more of those, but there's the small detail of time constraints, since we were pretty sure that dragging this out for more than 3 days is not possible. So we settled on a format of 2 long games and 4 games at active time controls (30 minutes). We wanted the match to be "serious". The message we got from the Rebel-Anand match is that the public is not very interested in blitz games and does not attach much importance to them (we agree: we stopped entering Junior in blitz events three years ago). We did in fact play quite a few blitz games on Friday afternoon, but did not transmit them on ICC and consider them "unofficial". Yudasin is a familiar opponent. We've played with him several times in the past, including a 2-game active exhibition match which he won 1.5-0.5. They have never however played a long game, and Junior has never beaten him (one loss, the other draws). He's extremely strong. What's more, I think that psychologically he's better equipped for playing against a computer than almost any other player I've seen yet. I think the best two games of the match are the two last ones: Game 5 is an impressive win by Junior, that got the GM's frank admittal that he underestimated the computer's endgame understanding, and was positionally outplayed. Game 6 is I think a great win by the GM that left us wondering what happened, specially as it all started by him clearly blundering away the d-pawn, and we were getting ready to score a point for us. The moves leading up to his 31.Ra3 are extremely impressive. Must thank warmly the Hyatt hotel for making this so comfortable. This is a Grand Hotel with a capital G. I'm quite sure it was named in honor of crafty's author. Amir
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.