HITECH, AEGON
Gordon Goetsch
HITECH is performing well in the 1990 AEGON chess tournament, defeating
Grandmaster Bronstein and drawing Grandmaster Piket. The AEGON tournament
is being held in Holland. The tournament field is composed of 14 humans and
14 computers. The format is unusual in that every game played is between a
computer and human. The tournament has reached the half-way point as three
of the six rounds have been completed.
HITECH defeated Wagenaar in the first round, drew Grandmaster Piket in
the second round, and defeated Grandmaster Bronstein in the third round.
The victory over GM Bronstein is a milestone for computer chess since it
is the first victory by a computer over a former Challenger for the World
Championship. Bronstein played against Mikhail Botvinnik for the title in
1951 and drew the match 12-12. Under the championship rules the champion,
Botvinnik, retained the title.
Collectively, the humans hold a 25-17 lead over the computers. However,
for the first time in the tournament's history the computers have won a
round, taking the third round 8-6. The individual leader is Blokhuis (3-0),
with a three-way tie for second between HITECH, v.d. Vliet, and v.d. Berg
(at 2.5-0.5).
Jan Eric Larsson
> HITECH defeated Wagenaar in the first round, drew Grandmaster Piket in
>the second round, and defeated Grandmaster Bronstein in the third round.
>The victory over GM Bronstein is a milestone for computer chess since it
>is the first victory by a computer over a former Challenger for the World
>Championship.
Also, Bronstein is well known for a famous win over an early soviet
program running on an EVM-20 computer. It was a king's gambit and
involved a long combination, which Cray Blitz managed to duplicate
some years ago. So now, the computers have their revenge.
Jan Eric Larsson Jan...@Control.LTH.Se +46 46 108795
Department of Automatic Control
Lund Institute of Technology "We watched the thermocouples dance to the
Box 118, S-221 00 LUND, Sweden spirited tunes of a high frequency band."