Author: James Swafford
Date: 17:53:34 02/06/00
Just some personal notes from my first ever tournament. First of all, let me say that this was a ***LOT*** of fun. Can't wait to do it again! I've been prepping Galahad for some GA experiments, so current versions aren't that strong (they've been "dumbed down," containing only a few eval terms). I decided to dig out v.177, which I seemed to remember being fairly stable. v.177 was done before I started experimenting without bitmaps, too. I dug out v.177 to test the night before the tournament was to start, and to my horror it crashed constantly. Then I remembered that there were bugs with my pondering and i/o that I hadn't fixed in that version. Determined not to have to use a weaker version, I set out to fix it. I stayed up for hours and hours, and thought I had it right. Until a couple hours before the tournament. At 11:00 of tournament day, 1 hr before the first game, I realized that if I turned off pv output the program wouldn't crash. So against Diep, I had no idea what the program was thinking - but at least it was playing! The first game started really well. Even Vincent thought I had him beat. Actually, I did have him beat. But Diep is a tough program, and poor Galahad used too much time in the beginning. As time wore on, Galahad thought less and less during each move, and r=3 begins to wreak horrible consequences at ply=7 or 8. Diep began to outsearch, and soon it was obvious that I was beat. What a rollercoaster of a game! Vincent was great throughout, though, and picked on his own program as much as mine. The second game was against TSCP. Should be an easy win. :-) Problem was, TSCP was modified to use 60 seconds a move, not just search to 4 or 5 ply! Galahad did win, but it didn't crush TSCP. I was *so* glad Galahad won that one - it would've been kind of embarassing otherwise. :-)) Third game - against Amateur. Not much to say about that one. Pretty even game throughout, very drawish. And it did end in a draw. I was happy with that, since I've always considered Amateur to be a superior program (and still do). I think poor Amateur had a bad tourney. Will was great. Fourth game - GNUChess. I was counting on a tough match, but knew I had a chance. GNU was on slightly faster hardware, too, but played some crazy opening and never caught up. It was obvious in that game that I would win. It was a lot of fun, though, trading insults with McRiley. After one of Galahad's more conservative moves, he said "what's the matter - getting scared?" I replied "Just scared of taking too long to kill you!" So Galahad finished round 4 at 2.5. Not bad!!! I was a little worried, though, because Bruce's baby had a bad run thus far, and would be out for blood! Never got mine, thank goodness. Rounds 5 and 6 sucked. Both losses. Round 5 was against Nimzo, which is definitely to be expected. Galahad had a drawn position, but just couldn't hold it. At least it was a good fight. Man that would've been something to get half a point off of Nimzo, though. Round 6 was against EXChess, which also looked drawish. Dan and I were looking for a draw towards the end, but EXchess proved too much. Dan's really done some nice work with that program! Sunday. An hour before round 7 - against Tinker. I went to start up my computer, to play a couple games myself before showtime. My computer wouldn't start! No lights, nothing. Just a faint buzzing from the power supply. DAMN!!! I scrambled to throw in another power supply, but I had to steal it from my proxy computer. 20 minutes before gametime- my AMD 400 was finally up!!! BUT NO MODEM!!! I ripped the modem from the proxy, frantically trying to get the machine up in time. I would've done it, if my Win98 CD wasn't at work! (I'm a computer tech - I keep all kinds of software and tools at work.) I couldn't install the modem in time. At noon, I resigned myself to playing on a piece of crap P166 with 24mb. :-(( A couple of moves in, I realized I could go manual. Brian Richardson (Tinker) agreed, along with the TD, to give me ten more minutes to set up. I lost some major time, but I got the machine up and played on to a draw. Not what I wanted, but at least I didn't forfeit!!! Round 8 - manual against Averno. Was pretty interesting for a while - Averno traded two knights for a rook and pawn. Unfortunately for Averno, the two pieces are usually better. Galahad systematically took over the game. For the first and only time in the tournament, Galahad saw a mate in the tablebases (42 moves out). A few moves before the inevitable promotion and mate, Averno resigned. The operator was a good guy and a good sport. Good luck to Averno's programmer in future events!!! All in all, a thrilling roller coaster of a tournament. Congratulations to Bob, and to everyone else thank you. And watch out for Insomniac!!! Next tourney in July??? :-)))) -- James
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