The Baron in Mainz

[Richard Pijl]

As promised I'm writing a few lines on the Chess960 WC in Mainz.
This year I did not bring my whole family, but just one of my daughters, Tessa, who is 9 years old. She can play a little chess, and was looking forward to come with me.

Before the tournament I was hoping to get into the top 5. I knew it would be hard, but no undoable. I saw a clear improvement in its strength and I also would be playing on my new machine, a dual Opteron 270 with 4Gb of memory.

This did make me reluctant to accept the common platform proposal that the organization uncorked at the players meeting at the day before the tournament. The organization realized that it was a very short notice and did not really push for it. As I brought my hardware to the site I was glad I did not bring the heavy box for nothing. It was agreed that next year's tournament would be played exclusively on sponsor hardware, provided that it would be decent hardware.

That evening a the Spike team lead some of the programmers to a nice restaurant to have dinner. This particular restaurant had its own little brewery and quite interesting ways of serving the beer too. Then we discovered that the beer did not really taste like we expected. After the meal we went back to the hotel, I brought my daughter to the room so she could go to bed and I went down to the bar where some of the other participants were already busy consuming their (regular) beer.

The next day, in the first round I was called back to reality. Naum who was playing on a single CPU of the provided notebook saw Baron charging forward, ate a pawn and struck back by winning the endgame. Alex already wrote a little on what happened during the game, but I must say my influence was very little. I just allowed a 4th time adaptation to a guy who was joining a tournament for the first time, and making all the mistakes we all make on our first time. He just happened to be unlucky to make them already the first game and in a won position. The Baron made the resign decision itself. As an operator there is only little you can do so it was not in my power to resign, offer draw or anything like that.
The reason why resign was turned on was also very simple: The tournament director does not allow resigning unless it is very clear that even the dumbest engine would not give away the win anymore. My philosophy here is that with a 10 second increment it would be unlikely to win on time, and if an engine is strong enough to bring the Baron is that much trouble that it would resign, it will not mess up.

The second game, against Anaconda, was also one with a story. Anaconda is by no means a newcomer to the computer chess scene, but it was the first time it joined in a Chess960 tournament. And it had a problem as well.
After Anaconda castled a-side, its score instantly dropped about 4 pawns. The Baron's score was more or less unchanged. A quick check of the pv did not reveal the cause of it. Both the castling rook and the king had moves in the pv, from their new squares so we continued the game. About 10 moves later, Kai (Skibbe) discovered that the move Kxa1 appeared in the pv. That is in itself not very special, but in this case his own bishop was still on that square. The logical conclusion was that somehow the bishop got deleted from Anaconda's internal board and it wanted to move the king to a1. The question was now whether to continue until Anaconda would play the illegal move (if it would ever play it), or to correct the situation by setting up the current position and continue from there. Consultation with the tournament director did not give an immediate decision after which I asked: 'Would it make a difference if I have not an objection against correcting the situation now?'. Apparantly it did, and Kai was allowed to correct it. Unfortunately for him the damage was already done. His bishop was firmly locked in and would not participate in the game.

At the start of the third game, IGM Levon Aronian and WIM Arianne Caoilli were visiting the tournament. Aronian had a strong opinion about the 1st move that should be played: 1.d4. The alternative that was preferred by many of the computers: 1.g4 could not get his approval. The Baron was one of the few that did play 1.d4 and according to Aronian the win after that (considering Patzer's reply 1..g5) was logical ...

With 2 points out of 3 games I started to believe in a good result again. And there came Loop ...
The Baron built a nice position, with Loop's king almost in the open. Unfortunately Loop's heavy artillery was close enough to keep the position closed and he slowly began to improve his position on the other side of the board. Baron remained too optimistic during the game and only wanted to recapture its invested pawn (and as a consequence having to trade the heavy artillery) when it was no longer possible. Loop did not make mistakes and won.

Tord already mentioned the fifth round between The Baron and Glaurung, so I can be brief about it.

That evening a larger group decided to go to a Greek restaurant that was visited during the previous tournament as well. Here we learned many interesting things. Like that there are basically two Norwegian languages (Tord showed a Norwegian banknote to prove it) and that wifes should not be allowed to read the map and/or give directions when going somewhere important by car. Some computer chess too. After the excellent meal and a big bowl of icecream some decided to order a taxi back to the hotel, the others decided to walk a half hour. This meant that the healthy group consumed 1 beer less in the bar that night.

The sixth round the Baron was almost overrun by Homer. Homer created a good position, but could not find the right continuation into the endgame. The position was closed. Homer chose to keep its bishops, while the Baron directed his knight duo on a pawn eating trip. Narrow escape.

The seventh round ParSOS sent out its queen on a premature attack. The Baron chased the queen back, and while it was at it, continued to go for the king's scalp. After about 12 moves the Baron already had a won position.

Last year the game against Jonny was a very bad one. This year, it basically played one very bad move: 11..Ra8 and Jonny launched a fierce king attack. I did not believe in Baron's survival, but much to my (and Johannes') surprise it did. When Jonny was also refusing to develop its knight on a1, and just aimlessly moved its rooks and queen around. Unfortunately, when the score started dropping, it did find the better plan and won the game anyway.

The last game was a game against an optimist, Tornado. Although being two pawns down for nothing that I could see, it still showed a positive score for itself. The Baron showed +3.5 for itself at that time.

With a score of 5 out of 9, and (again) the 9th place after applying tiebreakers I was not really satisfied with the result. I felt that the Baron should have been able to compete for the top 5. But when looking at the games it played I realize that it just didn't deserve it. Anyway, that evening we went to the same Greek restaurant with the core team (Tord, Daniel, Tony, Tessa and myself) with the addition of Oliver Uwira, the local guy and author of Kurt. There we ordered almost the same things as the day before except that a starter was ordered instead of icecream and we went back to the hotel by Taxi, where not ordering a beer from the bar lady in some cases means she will give you one for free.

Just like last year, if you do not look at the standings, the tournament was a success and I had a great time. Unfortunately some of last years participants could not come, a crazy Britisch Spaniard, a fast driving German, and a German with a picknick basket. I hope they will return next year, as well as seeing many new faces.

The next opportunity to meet in a friendly atmosphere is already close though. Standard chess, and longer time controls this time. The Open Dutch championships will be held on November 3-5 in Leiden. More details soon ...

Richard.

[Tony Thomas]

It seems after reading the reports of you, Tord and Aleskander that the tournament was a lot of fun as opposed to most of the tournament filled with point grubbers. It is possibly due to the fact that almost all of you do this as a hobby rather than as a profession. I hope to read great reports like this in future as well. It would be nice if someone can post some pictures.