3-Hirn History: Winning a lost position against another computer

[Ingo Althoefer]

In 3-Hirn two different chess computers are coordinated by a human player:
If the computers propose different moves the coordinator makes the final
choice between these proposals. The coordinator also organizes timing and
permanent brain of the machines.

After my move from Bielefeld to Jena ( in autumn 1994 ) my first activity
in 3-Hirn chess was to participate in the Clodra chess tournament of Rainer
Serfling. These "Rainer Serfling"-tournaments have very mixed entries. In 1994
there were four different types of participants:

(i) 3 human players with ratings between 1800 and 2200;
(ii) 3 amateur chess programs ( Schach 3.0, Diogenes, Isichess );
(iii) 5 professional chess programs ( Genius 3, CM 4000, Mephisto Genius
68030, Rebel 6, Greif ), operated by persons who had bought these
programs;
(iv) 1 3-Hirn;

Greif "by" Michael Ehrig was a very special entry. Only after the tournament
it turned out that it was an illegal (modified) copy of the Shareware program
Nimzo 2 of Chrilly Donninger.

The tournament was played in one big room. Some of the participants ( those
using their own heads: the human players and me ) were disturbed by some of
the owners of the commercial entries who made a noise as if the tournament
were a purely computer competition...

7 rounds CH-system were played in 4 days, with timing mode 40/2h, 20/1h,
rest/30min.

In the third round 3-Hirn got a very bad position against Schach 3.0.
Probably most of the ordinary chess computers would have lost this game.
However, starting with the choice of 30.h3 and 35.h4 I found a "secret" path
to counterplay. After Black's wrong retreat 42.Ng8 the win for White would
have been managed by any average strength chess program.

Date: 17 November 1994
White: 3-Hirn ( Mephisto Lyon 68030, Chessmachine The King, Ingo Althoefer )
Black: Schach 3.0 ( program, written by Matthias Engelbach and Tom Kraitmayer,
running on a 486 with 66 MHz )

1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.d3 d6 6.Nf3 Nf6 7.0-0 0-0 8.Bg5 Be6
9.Qd2 Qb6 10.Rab1 Qa6 11.a3 b5 12.Ra1 Qb6 13.Bxf6 Bxf6 14.Nd5 Bxd5 15.exd5
Nb8 16.c3 a5 17.Rfe1 Qb7 18.d4 c4 19.Qh6 Nd7 20.Ng5 Bxg5 21.Qxg5 Nf6 22.Re3
Qd7 23.Rae1 Rfe8 24.Qh6 Ra7 25.Qf4 Kg7 26.R3e2 Qb7 27.Qf3 b4 28.a4 Qd7 29.Ra1
Rb7 30.h3 Reb8 31.Ree1 bxc3 32.bxc3 Rb2 33.Bf1 Rc8 34.Bg2 Qb7 35.h4 Qd7 36.
Bf1 Rc7 37.Re2 Rxe2 38.Bxe2 Qe8 39.Bf1 Qb8 40.g4 Qb2 41.Re1 Qa3 42.g5 Ng8 ?
43.h5 Qxa4 44.h6+ Kf8 45.Rb1 Rc8 46.Bh3 Ra8 47.Qe2 Ke8 48.Kh2 Rd8 49.f4 Kf8
50.f5 gxf5 51.Bxf5 Qa3 52.Qxc4 f6 53.Be6 a4 54.Qc7 Ke8 55.Rb8 Qa2+ 56.Kg3
Qf2+ 57.Kxf2 Kf8 58.Rxd8 mate 1-0

White 88 minutes Black 143 minutes

Ingo Althoefer.