Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 08:52:16 05/07/99
Go up one level in this thread
On May 07, 1999 at 09:39:37, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On May 07, 1999 at 08:59:26, James T. Walker wrote: > >>On May 07, 1999 at 02:34:02, jose hernandez wrote: >> >>> >>>Anybody know, what is the first program in the world that won a Master or IM >>>master in game under tournament controls. >>> >>>And how many moves to resign ? >> >>I'm not sure but my guess is it was "Belle" by Ken Thompson. I believe Belle >>was the first to reach "USCF Master" level of 2200. >>Jim Walker > >To the best of my knowledge, it was Cray Blitz. It beat USCF Master Joe >Sentef (2260) in the Mississippi Closed championship in 1981. The game was >published with CB analysis in Chess Life a month or two after that tournament. > >Belle was the first program to reach 2200+ and was awarded the 'life master' >certificate in October of 1983 if I recall correctly. I could probably dig up >the game if needed. It was 'interesting' with lots of swindle opportunities >near the end to enter a KB+2rook pawns, with the _wrong_ bishop. Fortunately >Cray Blitz had that knowledge even in 1981. Ken reported that Belle didn't >understand it and couldn't find the correct move in tournament time controls. >(this was a 40/2 event).. I should add that I assumed a bit of context not actually present. In the 1970's, "matches" were _not_ rated if one opponent was a computer. (this was a USCF rule, no doubt intended to prevent the obvious rating abuses that could happen.) The first _tournament_ win over a master was, according to chess life in a 1981 issue, Cray Blitz's win over Joe Sentef. As at least one other poster pointed out, David Levy lost one game of a potential 6-game match in 1977 vs chess 4.x. He drew the first round, won the next 2, and only needed 1 win or two draws from the next three games to win. He therefore tried a tactical slugfest in game 4 and got shredded. He returned to his normal style and won game 5 and the match handily. Cray Blitz played 5 rounds in the Mississippi State Closed championship in 1981 and won all 5 rounds. It's provisional USCF rating after this tournament plus some games played by an older version (non-cray) was 2258/17 if I recall. It was reasonably strong and did well in ACM computer chess events from that point forward. Hardly news today. But was remarkable in the late 70's/early 80's... There were probably other 'unofficial' losses as well. IE I recall one exhibition we did where we beat a master in 1978, running on a dual processor Univac machine. But as always, it wasn't rated and was not considered as an 'official' game by USCF. Bob
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