This was my first computer chess tournament, so it was very exciting. It was fun to finally meet and talk to the other authors.
Naum was playing on the laptop provided by organizers. It was using a single core of the Core Duo processor running at 1.6GHz. This was a 32-bit version using 100MB for hash table and 64MB for tablebases (all 4-pc and couple of the 5-pc). GUI used was Arena 1.1
Since Naum was seeded low, it had a strong opponent (The Baron) in round one running on a quad machine. This was the most nerve wracking game for me. I was inexpirienced and couple of times failed to see that Naum made its move. This caused a big difference between the clock in Arena and the actual clock, so Naum started running out of time. My attempts to correct the clock completely screwed-up the engine which got stuck in infinte think mode. Thanks to the unbelievable fair-play by Richard Pijl, I was allowed to force the engine to play the move. Problem was that clock was still incorrect and Naum was running out of time while having a completely winning position. I was allowed by rules to have one more attemp to adjust the clock. I managed to do so and enter the 'fixed time per move' mode, but forgot to include the operator time, so Naum was still quickly running out of time while the score was +5. I called the referee and asked for one more attempt to fix the clock, and since Richard agreed again to help me (even though he new he will lose because of it), I was able to finaly set the 3sec per move mode. Naum had only couple of seconds left on clock and +9 score. When I thought that I am going to lose on time, The Baron resigned. Unbeliveable. After only one round, I was already an emotional wreck and lost all my nerves
In the following rounds Naum was outplayed by Pharaon (running on the laptop) in the simple and harmless looking position, then won against the Xinix (running on a laptop), and lost to Ikarus (running on a dual). Against Ikarus it probably had a draw, but instead of defending, it tried to play active and blundered the pawn.
Then came the Spike (running on a quad) that I really wanted to play, since it was my only test partner in preparations for Mainz and Naum was probably slightly tuned against it. Naum played its best game of the tournament and won. This was probably my highlight of the day (other then passing T.Kosteniyk in the hall who smiled at me; at least this is how I want to remember it
On the second day Naum played very well and didn't lose a single game against very strong opponents. First came a solid win against Anaconda running on a laptop. Naum played its game against Jonny (running on a dual or quad - I don't remember) very badly and it looked like it's going to lose. But after some exchanges and couple of inaccuracies by Jonny, Naum managed to enter the drawn endgame. Highlight of that game is that GM Aronian came to watch the game and chat with us.
Then came another opponent I really wanted to play. I was paired to play my good friend Tord and his Glaurung running on a quad. I knew Naum has a chance, because I used some ideas from the latest Glaurung source in creating my own FRC version, so Tord deserves a credit for it. This games was the wildest and the most exciting game Naum played. First Glaurung lost a pawn and it looked good for Naum, then Glaurung striked back and won the exchange now having a rook supporting a dangerous passer while Naum was without rooks. But Naum's score was still not too bad (around -1), and it started the king walk toward its own passer, sacrificing two more pawns in the process. Suddenly, score started to get more and more positive and soon Naum's passer became unstopable. This game was played on the edge of the knife and could have easily gone the other way.
After that came the last round and cream on the cake in the form of playing the Shredder (running on dual 2.7GHz Opterons I think). Naum was too agressive and get into the slightly worse position, but with some tactical chances so the score was around -0.6 Shredder then started failing low and had a 5min think. After it finally played, all other moves very played very quickly, because Naum instantly saw the line leading to a perpetual check. We were both very happy with a draw.
It seems that hardware didn't play a huge role in this tournament, but it was still agreed that next year everyone uses the same machines provided by the organizers. This will make for even more exciting tournament. I also think that Chess960 games played in Mainz were much more exciting then the normal chess games played in other tournaments.
