WCCC in Japan - Hans's Diary

[Hans van der Zijden]

26-9
Round 3 against Pandix Breakthrough. "Why the extension Breakthrough?", I ask Pandix programmer Gyula Horvath. "Bekos mai program plaiz much better". Yeah, yeah, show me. The draw against Shredder must have been a fluke. But Pandix is playing such good moves, that Rybka predicts 85% of them. As a result Rybka has 50 minutes more time. Then the score dropped all of a sudden till Rybka sees no more than a draw. Pandix however thinks he is up by 1.5 pawn. The score doesn't change till the end of the game, so Rybka was right. I was a bit disappointed about the draw until I heard that Rybka was the only program to score at least something with black. A great achievement.

Amir Ban has a bad cold. He is sneezing all day. I suggest to draw straws. Whoever picks the shortest, has to sit next to Amir during tomorrow's excursion. And since it is my idea, I won't have to draw.

The next round we meet with coremonster Jonnie. It is running on a 800-cores Cluster from Johannes' university. Rybka is out of book about 4 moves earlier, but has a position where the opponent cannot play for a win. Things are looking good for white and then Rybka can't find a hole in Jonny's defense. A lot of strange moves follow without progression
before Jonny goes very wrong. Score goes up from 1.1 to 39.8 in only 3 moves.

Pandix plays with black against the only program with a 100% score. Rondo plays till far in the endgame without getting a significant advantage. Finally it reaches a won position, but then the 50-move rule kicks in. Well done Pandix. Three programs go in the lead now as Shredder joined the top. Also my thanks goes out to two schoolclasses visiting the playing area. They were allowed to ask the programmers a lot of questions, and since the Rondo programmer was sitting the closest, they might just have disturbed him enough.

In the hotel I meet with Johan to have dinner and we team up with Amir Ban and David Levy who had the same idea. So quickly I get punished for my "drawing straws" joke. I am sitting next to Amir. I hope I will not be too sick for the next part of my diary.

[Harvey Williamson]

useful link http://ticc.uvt.nl/icga/cg2010results/T ... sults.html

[IA]

Results Round 4


Regards.

[Hans van der Zijden]

27-9
Excursion day should have been one day earlier, because it was way too hot all of a sudden. We are divided into three groups.

The first sight to see is so nearby, that we can walk to it. It is the Kanazawa castle. A more than 400 year old building. Most parts looked brand new because it is in the proces of being renovated for an event they host in 2014. The guide apologized for it not being ready in time for our visit. Japanese are so friendly.

Right next to it is Kenroku-en park. It actually consists of 6 different parks. Very beautiful. Then it is back to the venue for lunch.

Two buses are waiting to bring us to the next sight. We are split up according to the country you are from. First the Germans are being called forward, and they are asked to move to bus 1. I couldn't resist yelling, "All other countries in bus 2". I hereby apologize to all Germans reading this. I would have said the same if they started with the Dutch.

Next stop a small museum with technology from 250 years ago. A doll bringing you tea and returning to the place they started after you put down the cup again. An acrobatdoll doing backflips going down stairs, wooden puzzles... Lots of things and time was way too short. We hadn't finished our wooden sudoku yet. I quickly made a picture to solve it later in the hotel. In my haste I think I forgot my lenscover there.

One more busride brings us to the Ninja temple. A little castle disguised as a temple, because for some strange reason only one castle was allowed back then. It has many passages looking like closetdoors, hidden stairs etc. to fight off the enemy. Five minutes from there is a shoppingstreet, trying not to look like one. No signs at all. Wooden bars in front of the window, making it hard to see what was sold inside. Sometimes it was still not clear when you stepped inside. They conveniently placed someone there, asking tourists to fill out a questionaire about the visit to Kanazawa. I gladly accepted to make time pass.

Last stop a big hotel where they arranged a buffet and some performers. They were little better than the ones from the opening. The buffet was a bit of a disappointment for me. Food that needed to be warm was not warm enough and most dishes contained stuff I don't like or it didn't say what was inside and I didn't want to risk me spitting the food back on my plate again. Since I ate too much in the breakfastroom, it was probably better this way. I walked back to the hotel early, after an exhausting, interesting day, hopefully not missing a grand finale, but I will hear all about that in the morning.

[Harvey Williamson]

Round 5
1 Rondo - Rybka ½ - ½
2 Shredder - Jonny ½ - ½
3 Deep Junior - PandixBreakthrough ½ - ½
4 Darmenios - Fridolin 1 - 0
5 Thinker - Hector for Chess 1 - 0

[IA]

Round 6
1 Hector for Chess - Rybka 0 - 1
2 Fridolin - Thinker 0 - 1
3 PandixBreakthrough - Darmenios 1 - 0
4 Jonny - Deep Junior 1 - 0
5 Rondo - Shredder 1 - 0

Round 7
1 Rybka - Fridolin 1 - 0
2 PandixBreakthrough - Hector for Chess 1 - 0
3 Jonny - Thinker 0 - 1
4 Rondo - Darmenios 1 - 0
5 Shredder - Deep Junior 1 - 0

Cross Table Round 7:


Match data in .pgn format:
http://ticc.uvt.nl/icga/cg2010results/WCCC2010.pgn

Regards.

[Hans van der Zijden]

28-9
Only one round for Rybka today, but an important one. Rondo on 132 -cores at least (programmer said the exact amount was a secret), stays in book quite a few moves longer. In a sicilian with opposite castling, whites attack looks more dangerous and Rybka has no choice but to defend passively. The evaluation goes up to 0.28, but only 3 moves later (move 31) Rybka sees a position it cannot lose. All evaluations from that point are 0.00. Rondo takes about 30 moves more to agree with Rybka.

All other favorites also draw, so still a three way tie for first place. Junior could have joined, but Pandix once again proved to be difficult to beat.

I used the free afternoon to get a well deserved Thai massage and some extra sleep. So much extra sleep that I didn't bother going out for dinner. I will catch up tomorrow at breakfast.

The Japanese are in many ways superior to the west. Take the restrooms. The toilet has functions I have never seen before. Cold water flows into the pot when you sit down. Don't ask me why. When you are ready you can choose for water to be sprayed directly to your *******. Or for women it can spray a little bit more to the front. The seat and the
cover go down slowly, so they hardly make a noise. The mirror is heated so you have a clear view of yourself after a shower. There are razors, shavinggel, toothbrushes, toothpaste etc. Now if only the toiletpaper wouldn't be so thin that holes appear if you only look at it, then I would give it 5 stars.

Outside you will not see any trashcans. But still the streets stay clean. Japanese people don't throw things on the street. The trafficlights for pedestrians play a birdsound whenever the light is green. Great if you are blind. In Japan they drive on the left side. Cyclists know, as in most parts of the world, that this is very dangerous, so they cycle on the pavement.

Busy day tomorrow, two rounds and the speedchess tournament.



29-9
Took a shower and wanted to make a picture of the clean mirror I wrote about yesterday. When I saw my naked reflection through the camera I realised this was not going to be easy. I am not a shy person, but I am not in the habit of making people sick in the stomach. Eventually, with the aid of the flash, I found a reasonable solution.

I played against Hector for Chess (he probably als has Hector for draughts and Hector for Tic Tac Toe) in the morning and Fridolin in the afternoon. Both programs still had 0 points and this day didn't change that. I made an official protest against them. They are obviously clones of my 1700 elo program Gadget, that would also have scored 0 points. Main contender for the title Rondo, also won both games, and chances for a playoff are rising.

In between rounds we had more proof of the "driving on the left side is dangerous" argument. A little van rammed a bus. Just minor damage, but still.

All competitors signed up for the speedchess tournament, which meant we had to have the organizers permission to stay after closingtime, because of the many rounds. I practised a speedchessgame against Rondo (draw) and Fridolin (win), to see if the chosen timecontrol would work. I played without the Cluster, so that gave me great confidence.

I hoped we would start off with a weak opponent. Because of the lag, the timecontrol with the Cluster might not work very well. But we got Rondo right away. The timecontrol worked fine, the Cluster didn't. Late in the game in winning position the connection failed. We realised too late we should change to normal Rybka 4 on my laptop, and lost on time. In almost all other 8 games the Cluster connection stopped working. In 2 games I had to play with my laptop from the beginning (Junior and Hector). So it came as quite a surprise that Rybka won the speedchess tournament with 8 out of 9, 1.5 ahead of Jonny on second place. Tricky game was the one against Thinker. Connection failed soon after the opening, with a score of .30 in favour of Thinker.

[Harvey Williamson]

Round 8
1 Deep Junior - Rybka 0 - 1
2 Darmenios - Shredder 0 - 1
3 Thinker - Rondo 1 - 0
4 Hector for Chess - Jonny 0 - 1
5 Fridolin - PandixBreakthrough ½ - ½

[Harvey Williamson]

Hans will email me his photo's soon but in the meantime there are some nice ones here http://www.csvn.nl/index.php?option=com ... 28&lang=en

[Hans van der Zijden]

30-9
After eating eggs, sausages and bacon for 6 days, I finally decided to eat more healthy. Cerial with yoghurt, kiwi and a salad with sweetcorn, tomato, pasta and dressing. It was delicious.

Yesterday Harry Nefkens told his daughter I could solve the cube very fast. Finally a beautiful girl pretends to be really interested in what I can do, and I left the cube in my hotelroom. I promised to bring it with me the next day, but of course she doesn't show up. O well, there is always friday and saturday. She can't avoid me forever.

One very exciting round is coming up. Its Thinker - Rondo now and Rondo - Junior tomorrow. Rybka has black against Junior now and white against Shredder tomorrow. Rybka needs to win both, because Rondo
could well win both its games too.

Thinker has a good opening and Rybka comes out of the opening even. Then Rondo get a little bit the upper hand. Rybka seems to get a little advantage as well, but scores keeps dropping back to zero. Rondo crashed. I have a look and Thinker is half a pawn better. Rybka outshuffles Junior and has an advantage of 0.40. But 19 moves long there is no progression. Then again Junior or Amir can't handle all that shuffling, and advantage rises again. Also Thinker seems to have a decisive advantage. Moments later Rondo admits defeat and Rybka starts to show matescores that are probably tablebase based (mate in 45). Fifteen moves later it is down to mate in 38? Either Junior is an incredible defender or Rybka also shuffles matescores.

It is a clear bug in the Cluster version, which makes Rybka (and me) look silly. Vas doesn't give high priority to this, because Rybka wins anyway and there are more important things to be programmed.

I have the afternoon off, which I use for my interview with tournament director Jaap van den Herik. A wonderful man. I had difficulty coming up with some nice questions, but I am glad I had only 5. Ask Jaap one question and he talks for 10 minutes. At the end of the interview I had enough material to fill 2 issues of "Computerschaak".

Johan and I finished the day with some italian food.

[Harvey Williamson]

If you read through Hans's diary again - you will see there are now some pictures to go with each day.

[Harvey Williamson]

I asked David Levy why the coverage of the events is not better and why the website is not updated regularly. He said they do not have anyone available who has the time. As someone posted on one of the forums if they can afford an excursion day surely someone can take the time to tell the world the results. It should not be people like Hans who have to tell the World the results. You pay 500 Euro's to enter and another 2000+ for flights and Hotels - surely live broadcasts and at least regular updates on the website would be a minimum expectation.

[Anson Williams]

Is it possible for someone to post a fen of each board position for round 9?

Thanks!

Board 1: Rybka - Shredder
[fen]4R3/8/2kr2p1/1p1n4/3BK3/1P4P1/5P2/8 b - - 0 55[/fen]

[Harvey Williamson]

Round 9 White Black Result
1 Rybka - Shredder 1 - 0
2 Deep Junior - Rondo ½ - ½
3 Darmenios - Jonny 0 - 1
4 Thinker - PandixBreakthrough ½ - ½
5 Hector for Chess - Fridolin ½ - ½

Rank Program Origin Hardware Score SB Points Place
1 Rybka Poland 200 Nehalem EP Westmere, 2.93-3.6 GHz 8 1 (Gold)
2 Rondo USA Beckton 7560 32 Core 6.5 23.5 2 (Silver)
3 Thinker USA Quad Core Intel I7 (4 Cores) 6.5 22 3 (Bronze)
4 Shredder Germany 12 Core Intel Xeon 6 4
5 Jonny Germany 8x100 Core 5.5 5
6 PandixBreakthrough Hungary Xeon 4 Core (4 Cores in use) 5 6
7 Deep Junior Israel 12 Core Intel Westmere 4 7
8 Darmenios Poland Xeon 4 Core (1 Core in use) 2 8
9 Fridolin Germany Xeon 4 Core (1 Core in use) 1 9
10 Hector for Chess Hungary Xeon 4 Core (1 Core in use) 0.5 10

[Dark Horse]

Thinker only got a Bronze!