Author: José Carlos
Date: 00:10:24 02/07/00
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On February 06, 2000 at 20:53:34, James Swafford wrote: >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!!! Thank you very much and good luck to you too. It was an interesting game, and right after ...Ne4 white could have played Re1 with an interesting position. José C. >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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