$16,000 up for grabs in computer-assisted play

Freestyling – between Formula One and Advanced Chess

Before the 3rd PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament on June 16-18

The only, but important change in the 3rd Freestyle Tournament concerns thinking time: instead of 45 minutes basic time and 5 seconds increment per move each or team, this time the participants get 60 minutes and 15 seconds. This change turned out necessary and useful in order to lessen the time pressure on the centaurs (that’s the term for the combination human/machine) in their duels with the standalone engines. We expect that the change will benefit the quality of the game.

As reported earlier, the main round of the 2nd Freestyle tournament in March was won by a pure engine player named Varkey, who sensationally took 7,5 out of 8 with his Rybka chess engine. Most of the 30 title holders, among them some prominent players, had failed to qualify for the finals. In the end it was the sponsor of the Hydra project, Zorchamp from the United Arab Emirates, who took the overall tournament victory.

CCGM Arno Nickel, alias Ciron [Foto; Hans-Walter Schmitt]

So, who or what stands behind the player handles? One of the participants, the Berlin Correspondence Grandmaster Arno Nickel alias Ciron, took a peek behind the curtains of secrecy that usually surrounds these events. Arno thinks Freestyling is a great new field for experiments, located somewhere between Advanced Chess on the one hand and some sort of Formula One chess sport on the other.

The kick of playing

Usually losers don’t show much enthusiasm after a tournament. But this is different in a Freestyle tournament. Apparently the biggest kick is got out of just playing in it! It is like a virus, affecting everyone, who ever throws himself into such a battle. “Please, do it again!” is the main message of participants after the event. “We did not have a chance, but we enjoyed it tremendously”. It is about being able to use a chess engine in a tournament game of chess, not worrying about making a fool of oneselves, putting up a fight against the strongest opponent. This is a new form of chess sport for the 21st century.

We are still in a stage of experimenting, looking for the right forms of tournaments, thinking times and playing rules. Perhaps it is this aspect – together with the high prize fund of course – the appeal of the pioneering spirit that attracts more and more players. Which direction Freestyling develops will depend on these present experiments. In the 1st PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament 2005 the pendulum swung in favour of the Advanced Chess players, and three Fide grandmasters made it to the semi-finals. In the second tournament this year we saw the engines dominating, with operators not intervening at all during the game (like the winner Vigi Varkey) or playing the role of a co-ordinator and a critical user of various engines according. That is what we must assume for this year’s Freestyle Champion Zorchamp, who did not rely completely on the massively parallel hardware configuration of Hydra, which is widely considered to be the world’s strongest chess computer. Zorchamp, who for many years now has been a well-known figure on playchess.com, and is well respected for his excellent knowledge and skills in computer chess (which includes creating his own opening books), played as a centaur.

Final standing of the 2nd PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament

Dual machines and 64 bit programs

This year, because of the faster rate of play, powerful hardware became even more important than in 2005. At least in the finals we may assume that the most players used one or more dual machines. The most successful engine of the 2nd PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament, Rybka, has a 64 bit version, which on a 64-bit system is about 30-40 percent faster than the regular 32 bit version. Vigi Varkey won the main tournament using the 32 bit version, but “upgraded” his Rybka for the finals to a 64 bit version. In the end it did not help him, as his opponents was well prepared for the Indian programmer, who lives in London. Instead the two other Rybka engines, Relic and King Crusher, had the edge in the finals.

Behind Relic, who had to win the tie-breaks in order to qualify but then surprisingly took the third place in the finals, stands Darren DiAlfonso from New Jersey (USA), a programmer (but not for chess). Björn Osterman from Sweden, playing with the handle King Crusher, is an experienced chess engine expert with far more than 10,000 games on the chess server.

A look into the “black box”

As the player’s handles on the server do not tell you very much about the configuration, people are curious to get some information about runner-up Rajlich. After 15 games the author of the Rybka program was the only participant who remained undefeated in the tournament. This was not because Rajlich used a special version of his program, but because it had the the strongest chess team: two International Masters, Vasik Rajlich and Iweta Radziewicz, and one top grandmaster, Michal Krasenkov. You need only read Krasenkov’s comments and analysis to the game Zorchamp-Rajlich in the download links below to understand that the Rajlich Team operated quite professionally and managed most successful to avoid excessively risky play. In the end just a few working victories helped the team to win second place and $4,000 dollars. Our comments in an earlier article, stating that not even one grandmaster made it up to the finals has to be corrected, after we get to know about Vasik Rajlich’s team: at least one under-cover grandmaster succeeded...

The other half of "Rajlich": IM Iweta Radzievicz of Poland

We have another annotated game, presented from International Master Dennis Breder alias Klosterfrau. Analysing his unlucky loss to Relic in the last round he describes how difficult it has been in this tournament for Advanced Chess players to proper convert advantages and avoid time trouble. This loss cost the first league player from the Godesberger SK $2,000, as he failed to make third place. Dennis Breder, too, did not play alone, but enjoyed support from Jana Samorukova. If you compare the openings of the Advanced Chess players and the pure engine players, you might come to the same conclusion, that there are many differences in the choice of the concrete lines. Just take a look to the original game Rajlich-Klosterfrau 1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 c6 3.c4 e6 4.e3 f5 and - 5.g4!?).

All records with respect to the size of a team were broken by the Czech team Equidistance. Four players and six computers stood behind this name: Patrik Schoupal, Miroslav Kvicala, Jan Macura and Frantisek Nepustil, all have international ratings (and two are active correspondence players). But it is hardly surprising that such a complicated co-ordination bears brings with it the great danger of permanent time trouble. That was not mitigated by a detailed opening book, containing many special variations, as e.g. in the Sicilian Morra Gambit. The team of Patrik Schoupal did already show its strength qualifying to the finals. Schoupal predicts that not more than one standalone engine will qualify for the finals in the 3rd PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament, that due to the longer thinking time. If he should be right this would perfectly fit to the idea of freestyling, as it lives from human participation as opposed to pure computer events.

Last but not least, here is some information about my own team Ciron. I played together with a good friend who covers some areas and has some special skills. Silvo Lahtela is an excellent blitz and rapid player who under the handle Randori regularly plays on the Playchess server, with an Elo between 2400 und 2600. Until now he had nothing to do with computer chess or correspondence chess, which are my domains. During the period of preparation for the tournament we had a strict division of labour. Nevertheless we also did suffer from time trouble in some games, and we are still looking for the ideal form of co-operation.

Links

We bring you two databases for download:

• All 587 games of the 2nd PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament (in ChessBase/Fritz format)
• 64 selected games from this event (five annotated games included). Readers should please suggest up to 3 Freestyle games for brilliancy prizes and send an e-mail to redaktion@computerschach.de until May 31. If you prefer one of the games, which are not in the smaller database, that is also okay. The results of the readers choice will be published some days before the start of the 3rd PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament on June 16-18.

3rd PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament

In a normal chess tournament there are very strict rules about what you can do or not do during a game. Certainly enlisting outside help – from a human or a computer – is one of the more serious transgressions. In Freestyle Chess everything is allowed. The players are expected to work in teams or with computers. There are no restrictions. Use Fritz or Deep Shredder, consult openings books or chess Informants, call Anand or Karpov and ask for help, if you know them well enough.

Prize fund

The total prize fund is US $16,000 and has been provided by the PAL Group in the United Arab Emirates, the company that is behind the Hydra chess project. The prize money is divided as follows:

1st prize: US $8,000 2nd prize: US $4,000 3rd prize: US $2,000 4th to 8th prize: Software and books 9th to 16th prize: Software and books

There are special bonus prizes (e.g. for the most beautiful games) that will be distributed during the tournament. Details will be provided when the number and make-up of the participants is known.

Registration

The entry fee for the PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament is 10 Euro (= US $12.00). This is paid when you register for the tournament. Late entries can pay an increased fee of 30 Euro in Playchess "ducats" (electronic money) on the day of the main tournament.

There is no entry fee for GMs and IMs with bona fide Playchess accounts. These players need to provide proof of their identity before the tournament starts. A title account on Playchess (with a King or Queen symbol) is sufficient, since it has been validated by ChessBase. Otherwise you will be asked to fax a copy of your passport or ID card to the organisers.

To register for the Freestyle Tournament you need to fill out a registry form (the link is given below), giving your name, address and Playchess handle. Some days before the tournament starts you will receive an email with further details.

• Registration for the tournament

Schedule of PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament

All times given in the following schedule are in Central European Summer Time (CEST), which is used in most European countries, e.g. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, etc. CEST is GMT + two hours. For instance 14:00h (or 2 p.m.) CEST is 12:00h GMT and translates to 13:00h London, 8 a.m. New York and 4 p.m. Moscow. Click on the times given in the schedule below to convert to your local time.

Important note: you will need to log in with your correct handle not later than ten minutes before the start of each round. Anyone who is not present in the chess server room at this time can not be guarantied to participate in this round.

Main Tournament – eight round Swiss

Time controls are 60 minutes for all the moves plus a 15 second increment per move. The event is a classical Swiss. The top eight players will qualify for the finals. If tie-breaks are needed these will be played on Saturday, June 24, 2006, at 14:00h CEST.

Participants in the main tournament must be in the playing hall ten minutes before the start of each round.

Finale – Round robin tournament ("all play all")

Time controls are 60 minutes for all the moves plus a 15 second increment per move. Each player plays one game against every other player. If tie-breaks are needed these will be played on the same day, after the regular games have finished.

Participants in the finale must be in the playing hall ten minutes before the start of each round.

The winner of the finals gets the first prize of US $8,000 and the title of "Third PAL/CSS Freestyle Chess Champion". The runner-up gets $4,000, the third place gets $2,000. There will be special software prizes for the places 4-8. Registration for the tournament

Reports on previous Freestyle Tournaments