Author: JNoomen
Date: 11:37:31 03/01/06
Hi all, Today I played a game with my Fidelity Champion Challenger - a good old dedicated unit of the 1980's - against Gadget. Now what on earth is 'Gadget' I hear you ask? Well, it is a PC program in basic, written by a friend of mine. On a fast Pentium it can make 5 through 7 plies in a 20 minute countdown game. Gadget has played once in the Dutch Open tournament, where it scored 1 point out of 11 games. My friend joked in the Dutch computer chess magazine, after an unexpected win, that his main goal 'scoring 0 out of 11' was already not possible anymore :-). Anyway, Gadget is a simple program, doesn't know Q-search and all the nice stuff todays progs are equipped with. From time to time I let my old dedicated machines play a game against Gadget to see who is best. Sofar Gadget is not scoring badly: 4-2 against Mephisto III, around 3-3 against Fidelity Sensory 9 and a 5-3 lead against the Conchess Ambassador. Before I forget: please don't ask me whether Gadget is going to be available, it is not! My friend tried to convince the ChessBase people that his unique program should be available for the masses, but alas: no reply..... So tonight Gadget had its first meeting with the Champion Sensory Challenger of Fidelity. I love the old Spracklen Fidelity programs and it was my first game with it. As I didn't know yet how to give it the white pieces, we decided Gadget was going to play on the white side. Here is the game: Gadget PIV 2.4 GHz - Fidelity Champion Challenger ------------------------------------------------- 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 c6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Bd3 dxc4 7. Bxc4 b5 8. Bd3 a6 9. e4 c5 10. e5 cxd4 11. Nxb5 axb5 12. exf6 Ah, a very topical line, even in 2006! Gadget's last move threw the Champion out of book, after which it went for a 2 minute think. To my big surprise and horror it came up with a real lemon: 12... Qxf6?? Yuck! That's going to lose the queen in a couple of moves.... And indeed after some hesitation (Black still has the troublesome Bb4+ that has to be calculated) Gadget indeed found the winning move. 13. Bg5! I vaguely considered to put my brandnew Champion on e-Bay right away, when to my astonishment it found a way out! You don't believe it? You can't imagine that black can save its queen? No, really? Take a look.... After only 30 seconds thought the Champion came with the hammer blow: 13... Qa7?!?!?!? Ugh! I don't think you have found that one, have you!? Instead of losing the queen the Champ makes an illegal move to put it to safety. Bravo! Of course I stopped the game, laughing and laughing out loud. Poor Gadget didn't accept the reply, so we rated the game 1-0. Now my question is of course: do other Champion Challengers repeat this move, or is my version a bit rusty!? Replies from the great collectors at CCC are highly welcome! Jeroen
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