The Match Van Wely vs Rebel Century 4.0
Centre Céramique Maastricht, The Netherlands February 19-22, 2002
J. van Reek and J.W.H.M. Uiterwijk
General information
A match of four games was played between International Grandmaster Loek van Wely and REBEL CENTURY 4.0. The time control was forty moves in two hours, followed by twenty moves in one hour and thirty seconds per move after move sixty. Ed Schröder carried out the moves on a 1600 MHz Athlon with 512 Mb internal memory. The match was organised by Chess Events Maastricht, and supported by Geurt Gijssen as international arbiter, Daniel Brorens as webmaster of www.chessevents.nl and Jan van Reek as semi-life commentator. The website had 12,000 visitors. The opening move of the first game was played by Veronica Dirksen, council woman of Maastricht. The final score became 2-2 with four wins for White. Below we present the four games with comments.
Maastricht, February 19, 2002
Van Wely lost the endgame since he took too much risk.
Maastricht, February 20, 2002
Van Wely was very successful with his anti-computer move: REBEL made three mistakes in a row.
Maastricht, February 21, 2002
REBEL played incredibly forceful. Strong pressure was built up on the kingside. When Van Wely underestimated the attack, tactics decided the game.
Maastricht, February 22, 2002
Van Wely managed to level the match. The crucial position occurred in the endgame. REBEL chose for counteraction instead of consolidation and lost.
Conclusion
The match was very exciting with four wins for White. REBEL CENTURY played much better than last year against IGM John van der Wiel (Van Reek and Uiterwijk, 2001), because
1) the new version has improved significantly; a test showed its ability to apply blockade;
2) the computer calculated nearly twice as fast.
Van Wely had prepared himself with the program for a week. “The program will beat me, if I play normally”, was his conclusion. The first two games were plagued by anti-computer and anti-grandmaster notions. REBEL scored a sensational victory in the third game. A strong grandmaster was beaten by a straightforward attack for the first time in classical chess. Van Wely levelled the match in the fourth game, when REBEL failed to apply the prophylactic strategy of consolidation. The match showed that a knowledge-rich program cannot be crushed. REBEL CENTURY 4.0 appeared to play at a level higher than 2600 is a conservative estimation.
Reference
Reek, J. van and Uiterwijk, J.W.H.M. (2001). The Match Van der Wiel vs. REBEL CENTURY 3.0. ICGA Journal, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 38-42.