Author: Albert Silver
Date: 05:25:12 07/13/04
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A hearty congratulations on the result, and thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Albert
>
>Let me first thank those who sent their support during the tournament or posted
>their greetings after it. It is well appreciated.
>
>Time to say some random things about Junior, the event, and computer chess.
>
>Having the Championship at home was different, in some expected and some
>unexpected ways. I'm pretty used to these events by now, and I found that when
>away from home, isolated from family, work and current tasks, they are an
>about-right balance between the hectic and the relaxed. This time, with the
>tournament hall a half-hour drive from home, it was almost more than I could
>handle. I need a rest.
>
>The organization was a pleasant surprise. Playing conditions were superb. There
>were far more plugs and connections than necessary. Technical support was very
>competent. Commentary by Boris Alterman was first class.
>
>Nevertheless, there were some disappointments: PR work was not evident. The
>media were simply not there. Some media coverage would have attracted the
>crowds. As it was, the nearby auditorium they reserved for spill-over crowds (my
>daughter counted the seats: 320!) remained unoccupied.
>
>The traditional closing banquet was waived this time, in favour of speeches and
>glasses of wine. A pity. The opening promise by David Levy for social events did
>not materialize.
>
>The starting point for Junior in this tournament was Graz, from which I returned
> with a sense of failure, realizing that I have failed to progress beyond J8
>levels. Still, that was almost good enough to win, so there was hope.
>
>I had quite a few major things mapped out to be tried. Most of them were
>abandoned after a week or two of work showed they were not productive.
>
>In the midst of this open brain surgery we decided to pull out something to play
>in CCT6. It proved to be quite entertaining, but hardly ready for big time.
>
>Meanwhile Shay adopted a testing strategy that proved particularly unflattering
>to the new Junior, indicating it had slipped by a 100 or so rating points. I was
>skeptical about that, but decided to continue on the current path, trusting good
>results to follow. That proved exceptionally difficult. As a matter of fact,
>until weeks before the championship it was not clear that we were not heading
>for a rude embarrassment. What changed this was that at some point Boris started
>telling us that he liked what he saw.
>
>Going into the first round, against Jonny, it seemed we have after all achieved
>nothing. Deep Junior was in imminent danger of losing for several moves, grossly
>misevaluating and apparently blind to tactics. However, it did manage to pull
>together the position and successfully negotiated a draw.
>
>After that game I threw away a feature I always knew was dubious to get the
>DeepJuniorEY version, which played the bulk of the tournament, and performed
>very well. In the last day we threw in the EM version, which was apparently
>superior, based on inadequate testing. That was a gamble, but the idea was to
>try it out in the last two rounds before the expected playoff. EM did not fail,
>but there was no playoff for it to play ...
>
>Book work is tremendously important in these tournaments. It sometimes seems as
>if Boris is in charge, while I and Shay are delegated to the role of
>technicians. The symbiosis between Boris and Junior has grown and matured since
>the early days, when they hardly understood each other. That was the state of
>things at Paderborn '99, when Boris brilliantly planned a Sicilian line into
>which Fritz blindly followed. He "forgot" to tell Junior about it, who failed to
>understand what was expected of him, started playing elsewhere, and lost.
>
>The games between Junior, Fritz and Shredder were all sharp tactical draws. In
>Shredder-Fritz there were even some vaguely ridiculous fireworks just to force
>the obvious draw. Falcon-Shredder was similar, and probably the most spectacular
>game of the tournament, with some even more spectacular unplayed variations. The
>top programs now make you feel that going out of the opening they can see
>virtually till the end. Frightening thought.
>
>Junior and Shredder were obviously in top form for this championship. Shredder
>always gives the impression of near perfection, so it's very hard for me to
>judge whether it has made progress. Fritz, on the other hand, has clearly not
>gone in the right direction. After Graz, where it played in superb consistent
>style, it seemed to have lost its footing to the wobbly performance that ruined
>some of its previous tournaments.
>
>Among the newcomers, the performance is mixed. Quite clearly, Jonny is the one
>who made the most progress. The promise of Sjeng, on the other hand, will have
>to wait for next year. Falcon has made progress, but lacks the consistency and
>solidity to convert it to results.
>
>Among the rest, Diep deserves mention. It had a good result, and there is
>obvious talent invested there, but the inconsistency that always characterized
>it was apparent in this tournament too. There is a FAQ in computer chess of
>whether it helps if the programmer is a good chess player. My answer (strictly
>IMO) is probably unexpected: It hurts. When you are a good player, you tend to
>think about the problem in all the wrong ways. Anyway one thing that is clear to
>me is that you have to be a very good programmer. No shortcuts there.
>
>Amir
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