Reports by Eric van Reem
Day 1 - Lanchava wins first game with the black pieces.
The first game of the Complete Chess Match between the best Dutch female players, Zhaoqin Peng and Tea Lanchava ended in a victory with the black pieces for the lower rated Lanchava. Peng had a slightly better position until the 38th move, but she made a few inaccurate moves in time trouble and suddenly the black bishop pair controlled the board. Lanchava checked a few variants on her computer and chose the right path to glory. After 57 moves and 4,5 hours of play Peng had to resign.
Opening
This year, special guest Prof. Dr. H.J. (Jaap) van den Herik opened the match between the best Dutch female players Zhaoqin Peng and Tea Lanchava. Van den Herik is a professor in computer science at the Universiteit Maastricht. Since 1983 he has been the editor-in-chief of the ICGA Journal and he has been the tournament director of several world computer chess championships. In his opening speech, the 58-year old chess enthusiast talked about the role of women in computer chess and about the role of chess computers in the chess world in general. “After the match Deep Blue-Kasparov, back in 1997, the chess world was in shock and for a couple of years no more man against machine matches were organised”, van den Herik explained. “But we should not forget that Deep Blue played on a supercomputer. So, the next challenge for programmers was to find out if you could write a strong program that could beat strong grandmasters using a normal PC.
In 2001 the Dutch program Rebel was able to beat GM John van der Wiel 3,5-2,5, which was a shock for the Dutchman, who had a fantastic 24-3 score against computers. Rebel was the first chess programm that was able to win a game against the renowned “computer killer” van der Wiel. After two more man against machine matches, Van Wely-Rebel in 2002 and Bareev-Hiarcs in 2003, which both ended 2-2, a new idea was introduced in Maastricht: Complete Chess. The game of Complete Chess makes a virtue out of the reality of chess playing computers. Each human player is equipped with a PC, which he can consult at will during the game. The player enters variations for the computer to analyse, but also spends time pondering the position himself, while the computer is checking the crucial variations. The human is always in charge and has the final decision on which move to make. The difference with Advanced Chess is the use of the classical time control, which improves the level of the games.
In the first two games the ladies will start with the classical opening position. They are completely free to choose the opening though, because the first moves are: 1.e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. Nf3. Since the Chess Event Maastricht Foundation is also organising a gambit match between the ex-correspondence chess world champions Timmerman and Umansky, main organiser Jan van Reek thought that it would be a nice and original idea to play a sharp gambit in the Complete Chess match this year. Peng and Lanchava have to deal with this opening with the white and black pieces on the first two matchdays, but on Thursday and Friday the players will play two shuffle chess games with this odd position: K-R-Q-B-R-N-B-N.
Soft-and hardware
The organisers installed the latest versions of the well-known programs Fritz, Shredder, Hiarcs and Junior on the Pentium 4, 3 Ghz computers, provided by the University Maastricht. The players are also allowed to use the gigantic Megabase 2006 with more than 3 million games and endgame tablebases, which will be of no use in the shuffle chess games!
Day 2 - Don´t always believe the computer!
Tea Lanchava won the second game in the Complete Chess Match against Dutch grandmaster Zhoaqin Peng. She now leads 2-0 in this short match in Maastricht. The ladies played the Scotch Gambit, in which the Georgian born Lanchava played a new move: 8.Bg5. After the game she said that she did not want to follow the game Zvjaginsev-Motylev from 2000, in which white played 8.Ba3. Peng was not very happy with the answer 8...Bg4. “I think that c6 would have been better for black, at least I have some more opportunities to get some active play. Now I had more difficulties.” Lanchava played some very accurate moves and reached a good position. Peng wanted to win the game and pushed too hard. On move 40 she blundered: “My engine showed a big plus score, but I had not enough time to check all the variations” She obviously did not check the sacrifice well enough with her computer, because it soon became clear that Lanchava could easily stop the passed pawn. After five hours Peng had to resign the second game.
Peng is not the first player who loses track in the hybrid of possibilities, it is possible to blunder with computers. Daniel Stellwagen blundered in his first game against David Baramidze in the first Complete Chess Match in 2004, last year Loek van Wely made some dramatic mistakes in his first Complete Chess game which cost him the game. So we can learn a lesson from these Complete Chess Matches: don´t always believe the computer!
Scotch Gambit
In the second game the Scotch Gambit was played. The Scotch Gambit was the most-played variation in the Scotch game during its heyday. The Scotch game was taken up up by John Cochrane (1798-1878) who recommended its use by the London Chess Club in a famous correspondence match against Edinburgh Chess Club 1824-1828. Although Cochrane came from an old Scottish family he led the London team. He persuaded his team to play the Scotch gambit, but when London had obtained a fine position Cochrane left for India. Although the Londoners failed to carry the attack, the Scotch Gambit became fashionable for more than 15 years, and other lively attacking openings were developed. In the year 2000 the Russian grandmasters Zvjaginsev and Motylev played this old opening, which ended in a draw. In that game Zvjaginsev played 9. Ba3, but Lanchava tried the new move 9. Bg5. She is a classical 1.d4 player, so it was definitely not easy for Lanchava to play an open game. Good for her: she could look up some games in the Mega 2006.
The most popular openings in the 19th century were gambits, starting with 1. e4 e5. The word gambit is derived from the Italina gambetta, a wrestling term for tripping up the heels, and was first used in chess sense by Ruy Lopez in 1561. Most, but not all, named gambits are offered by white. Only the Queen´s and King´s gambits were examined seriously before the 19th century. Analyses of the Allgaier and Muzio gambit appeared in 1819 and 1821 respectively. Another well-known gambit is the Evans gambit and still is a powerful weapon in the hands of attacking players. Gambits remained interesting for correspondence chess, due to their lively nature. But even in the age of computer chess it is possible to play gambits. The computer chess opening book specialist Erdogan Günes, who wrote the opening book for the computer chess world champion Zappa, even invented his own gambit which he calles the Döner Gambit. It is a dangerous opening, even for computers. It is a Blackmar-Diemer like opening, extensively analysed by Günes.
Day 3 - Peng wins first shuffle chess game.
The third game in the match started with the moves: 1.e4 Nhg6. No, this is not an error, because the ladies had to play two random chess games in their match! The players had some time to prepare, because arbiter Geurt Gijssen already had determined the position with a simple system on Monday during the opening dinner with the players and organisation in the excellent Asian restaurant “Ginger”. The 71-year old had prepared some hand-written pieces of paper on which he had written the name of the pieces and squares. The position that came out of Geurt Gijssen´s envelopes: K R Q B R N B N.
This position looks like a variation of King's Corner Chess: like Chess960, the pieces on the 1st and 8th row are randomized, but with the king in the right hand corner: the King´s corner. The difference with the above mentioned position is that the King is placed on Queen´s corner (a1 and a8), so we might call this new variant Queen´s Corner Chess! Peng needed to win this third game, because she lost the first two games in this match. She controlled the game, played some very accurate moves in the opening and was able to keep the initiative until the end of the game. After the game Peng said that she was very pleased with the moves 7. g3! and 9.b4! “I think that the move 5...Qa6?! already was a mistake, because she loses a tempo.” Later in the game, Lanchava blundered with 25...d5? “Oh, my god”, Lanchava said after the game, “what a stupid computer move. I followed the advice of Fritz in this position, but 25...d5 loses the game immediately. I should have played 25...g6 first.” After winning the exchange, the Dutch number one still had a few technical difficulties to solve, but convincingly won the game in the end. She played the endgame without computer assistance. “I have learned this week that the computer is not alwasy right!“ After four hours of play, Lanchava resigned.
Zhaoqin Peng has some experience with an exciting variant of shuffle chess: “About ten years ago I played a few Chess960 games with Bobby Fischer in Budapest. Svetozar Gligoric took me to Budapest, where I met Fischer. He did not want to play classical chess, only Chess960. We just played a few blitz games, I even managed to win a few, and I liked it a lot. I also played some shuffle chess games on ICC. This year I would love to come to Mainz to play the Chess960 open tournament.”
Random Chess
Here is a short history of randomized chess, for the ones who missed the first Complete Chess random games between the Dutch top players Loek van Wely and Daniel Stellwagen last year. With their random chess games, the players follow in the footsteps of Maarten van ´t Kruijs. He won Amsterdam 1851, the first Dutch chess tournament and Amsterdam 1852, the first random chess event ever played. In 1878 he won the sixth Dutch Championship. Count van Zuylen van Nyevelt had suggested random chess way back in 1792. His nephew Baron van der Hoeven reworked the idea for Amsterdam 1852. More information about van ´t Kruijs van be found on www.endgame.nl/kruis.htm. By the way, 1.e3 is called the “Van´t Kruijs opening!”
Randomized Chess was designed to discount knowledge of the openings. The pawns are placed as in the array and behind them the pieces are placed in unorthodox fashion. Commonly a symmetrical arrangement is made as follows: white places any piece on a1, black places a similar piece on a8, Black selects a piece for b8,which White matches on b1, and so on. Each player must have a light and a dark bishop. Thus, 2880 arrays are possible. In Fischer Random Chess or Chess960, only 960 positions are possible, because the King has to stand between the rooks to be able to play the most dynamic move in chess: castling. Last year not many computer chess programs were able to castle, but after the first Chess960 computer chess world championship, in August 2005 in Mainz, things have dramatically changed. No less than 19 programs participated in the championship and after the tournament many amateur and professional chess engines offered the possibility of castling in their programs to the rapidly growing community of random chess and Chess960 lovers.
Other kinds of random chess
Other kinds of shuffle chess exist, too. For example, the King plus a set of seven random other pieces are placed on the back rank. This allows for bizarre combinations, like three queens or three knights, but also allows for some dull situations like four bishops. Another game is called Pre-Chess and was written up in Chess Life, November 1978, by Pal Benko and Burt Hochberg. When the clock was started, white's first move was to place his king, and black would follow suit. Then, the queen, the rooks, and the four minors. The advantage of this game is that black can choose to imbalance the game from the very outset. The disadvantage is that the "good" structures may be fairly well defined. If you are interested in random chess and other chess variants take a look at www.chessvariants.com.
Day 4 - Peng fights back to equalize match with Lanchava.
Zhaoqin Peng won the last game in the Complete Chess Match against Tea Lanchava. She won the last shuffle chess game with the black pieces and managed to equalize the score in the match: 2-2. A terrific comeback by the Dutch champion, because she lost the first two games this week. However, she proved to be a good shuffle chess player and a great fighter, because she convincingly won the two shuffle chess games on Thursday and Friday. Peng used a lot of time for her first 15 moves, trying to find the right strategy. “It is very important to think intensively about the first 10-15 moves. I think that Tea made a mistake on the first move. I have studied the starting position and I believe that 1.f3 is the best move.” Lanchava had problems finding a good plan, played a disastrous move after a long think (17.Na4??) and eventually lost the game after 46 moves. “I think that you should play shuffle chess without a computer”, Lanchava said after the game. “It is very difficult to ignore the chess engines, though.”
Looking back at six matches in Maastricht:
The match Peng – Lanchava is the last in a series of matches in Maastricht. The Chess Events Maastricht Foundation has organised three man-against-machine matches and three Complete Chess Matches from 2001-2006. In the three Complete Chess Matches (12 games), only three games ended in a draw, despite the use of chess software and fast computers. After the match Deep Blue-Kasparov in 1997, the chess world was in a state of shock. The computer could even beat the best player of the world in match, so why organising more man-against-machine matches? Aegon, sponsor of many man-against machine tournaments in The Netherlands, immediately stopped their support after the Deep Blue match. As Prof. van den Herik stated in his opening speech last Tuesday, Deep Blue was running on a supercomputer, but the next challenge would be to see if a world class player could also be beaten by a chess program that was running on a home-computer.
Chess Events Maastricht picked up the idea and started a series of matches. In 2001, Dutch GM John van der Wiel, who had played successfully against computers in the famous Aegon tournaments in the nineties, was beaten 3,5-2,5 by the Dutch program Rebel, programmed by Ed Schröder. Until that match, van der Wiel had never lost a game against a computer in an official tournament or match. His score against the computer was a stunning 24-3 at that time. ”This defeat must have had the same effect on van der Wiel as it had on Kasparov after his loss against Deep Blue”, van den Herik said in his speech. One year later a much stronger GM was invited to Maastricht: Dutch champion Loek van Wely, who played four games against an improved version of Rebel. That match ended 2-2. There were no draws in that match and all games were won with the white pieces. Jan van Reek, one of the founders of the Foundation said: “ One of the best ever man against machine games was played in that match: the third game, that was won by Rebel, is a modern classic.”
In 2003, the Russian GM Evgeny Bareev played four games against the English program Hiarcs, written by Mark Uniacke. That match ended 2-2 as well and all games were drawn. “I was very impressed by the way Bareev played in this match”, Daniel Brorens, treasurer from the Foundation, said. “He never had any difficulties to equalize or to get a slightly better position against the machine. We were very proud that we could get such a high-class player to Maastricht.”
In 2004, the Foundation changed ist strategy and the first Complete Chess Match was organised. The young talents Daniel Stellwagen from The Netherlands and David Baramidze from Germany played an exciting match. Stellwagen lost the first game, in which he blundered, but managed to win the match in the end: 2,5-1,5. One year later, prodigy Stellwagen was invited again and he played four games against Loek van Wely. Another innovative element was added by the organisers that year: the players had to play two shuffle chess games, but still with computer assistance. Stellwagen won the prestigious match: 3-1. This year, two ladies were invited to one of the most beautiful cities of The Netherlands: Tea Lanchava won the first two games this week, but Zhaoqin Peng won the shuffle chess games: 2-2.
Future projects of the Chess Events Maastricht Foundation
Since it has become more and more difficult to attract sponsors for matches in Maastricht and chess events in general, the Chess Events Maastricht Foundation has decided to stop organising matches. However, the foundation will continue to organise correspondence chess matches on the website and wants to support other chess events in the Maastricht region. This summer, the local club MSV-VSM will organise a blitz night, and the tourney will be supported by the Foundation. Jan van Reek: “Well, it is possible that we will change our mind again and start organising a match in three or four years again. It depends how the chess world in itself developes, and if we can get some sponsorship. The problem is that the chess world is still a mess. It is still not clear for many outsiders who is the real world champion, and after this Deep Blue desaster, many people did not take chess seriously anymore. We wanted to show in Maastricht that chess is still interesting by using computers and we are also open for new variants like shuffle chess. Anyway, our main goal was to put Maastricht back on the chess map again and with our matches. Maastricht has become a lot of attention in the chess world. From that point of view, it has been a succesfull period. We have seen fantastic matches here in Maastricht and I hope that many people had fun watching the games”, Jan van Reek concluded.