(more)  "Man versus Machine"  Contests    

 Bilbao, Spain; (ESP).  October 06-09, 2004. 

In a small, very beautiful resort town in northern Spain, a very unique event was recently held.  (November 29th, 2004.) 

Three of the best (human) players in the world, Perpetual Top-Ten player, GM Veselin Topalov ... {former} FIDE World Champion, GM Ruslan Ponomariov, (from the Ukraine);  ...  and young gun, GM Sergey Karjakin; gathered to play three of the best chess-playing computers in the world. (Fritz, Hydra, and Deep Junior.) 

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The humans got slaughtered ... only one player (Karjakin) even managed to make a win. This despite some very deep preparation by the carbon-based life-forms. So what happened? 

I have analyzed the games in depth, I have done so slowly and with great deliberation, (to avoid jumping to conclusions). The human players simply made more mistakes than their silicon-based counterparts ... especially at the key junctures of the games. 

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You should definitely check out the  ChessBase  story  ... it is extremely well-done. There are links to many of the best sites, and nearly everything else that you need to know about the event. (A cross-table, pictures, etc.)  

Men get hammered by machines 

11.01.2005  It was billed as "one of the more spectacular chess events in 2005, a first ever Man vs Machine chess shoot-out". Two GMs and two FMs against the strongest programs available: Fritz, Shredder, Junior and Chessmaster. The result was a disastrous 14.5-1.5  defeat for the humans. 

GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov  takes on the  Accoona Toobar 

22.06.2005  On Tuesday FIDE world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov played an exciting game against the Accoona Toolbar, driven by a Fritz 9 prototype, in the ABC Times Square studios. With three hundred spectators and a dozen television cameras Kasim played a daring attacking game. 

Read the ChessBase  report  on this event.   The LCC/TWIC  report.  

  Man vs. Machine ... GM Michael Adams versus THE HYDRA  

In June of 2005, GM M. Adams will take on the beast, Hydra ... I predict the human will get hammered. 
(I first penned these comments in the early part of May, although I did not post them right away.)  

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Wednesday;  June 22nd, 2005:  As of this writing, Adams lost game one, and drew game two. 
A total of six games will be played. Most on-line servers are carrying this event, be sure to visit the "Hydra" site. 

Monday;  June 27th, 2005:  As I predicted, Adams got killed ... but the final score was much worse than even I thought!! In the end, it is too much to expect anyone to beat the machines.  [more]   Will anyone else be brave enough to try? Where is Garry?? 

--->  Be sure to go over my annotations for Game Six of this wild match.  

Michael Adams mauled by a machine 

24.06.2005  Currently the chess machine Hydra, consisting for 32 processors enhanced by special FPGA chess hardware and running at 200 million moves per second, is giving Britain's top GM Michael Adams a rough time. After half of their six-game match the score is 2.5:0.5 for the machine, which is located in Abu Dhabi.  

What has the future in store? 

  II (#2.) People vs. Computers World Chess Team Match  

 (Bilbao, Spain.) November 20th through Nov. 23rd, 2005. 

Once more, the quaint little town in NW Spain is host and acting as the venue for a "Man-vs-machine" match. 
(See the box at the top of this page.) 

Three humans and former World Champions, (A. Khalifman, R. Ponomariov and R. Kasimdzhanov.); are playing three really tough computer opponents. (Hydra, Deep Junior on a dual-core AMD machine, and {the currently new} Fritz 9.)  

It should make for interesting chess, but I predict that the machines will crush the humans. 

  [ ChessBase: Round One, Round Two, Round Three, Round Four. ]     
  [ The TWIC report, report #2. ]     [ The official website. ]   

The final score was 8-4, of course in favor of the computers. Naturally, this is an overwhelming victory for the machines, but it could have been a LOT worse! (I am glad that the humans managed to draw all three games the last day.)  I personally don't think that humans should play computers anymore ... at least not unaided. The big difference between computers and machines is that a computer MIGHT play a position poorly, it MIGHT get into a bad endgame. BUT ... a computer never gets tired and NEVER makes the big mistake. (Nor does a computer allow a human to slide if he/she should make a small tactical inaccuracy.) The games were definitely interesting.  

Hats off to the three musketeers, they fought a losing battle all the way, but were extremely gallant about the whole affair! 

 Radjabov vs. Deep Junior 

12-2006  The junior super-talent, GM Teimour Radjabov, played Deep Junior. (He got mugged.)  [story]