Complete Chess in Maastricht
Report by Eric van Reem
Last week, the Chess Events Maastricht Foundation organised a Complete
Chess Match between the Dutch Women Grandmasters Zhaoqin Peng (Elo 2402)
and Tea Lanchava
(Elo 2389). Peng has won the Dutch women championship six times in a row, Lanchava
has been the runner-up several times. They played four games in Maastricht,
The Netherlands from 31 January – 3 February 2006. Both players were
allowed to use a Pentium 4 3GHz computer with ChessBase software during the
encounters. After two defeats in the first games, Peng fought back in the shuffle
games to equalize the match 2-2.

Tea Lanchava receiving instructions for the computer assisted match

Peng Zhaoqin gets her lesson with Mega 2006 as well
The match started off with two games of Complete Classic Chess. The prescribed
opening was the gambit 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3. Nf3. The players continued with
Complete Random Chess in the other two games. This means that the initial position
of the pieces was decided by chance. Rules were developed by Count Van Zuylen
van Nijevelt and Baron Van der Hoeven in the 19th century.

The setup for the Complete Chess computer-assisted match
The match Peng – Lanchava
Since the Chess Event Maastricht Foundation is also organising a gambit match
between the ex-correspondence chess world champions Timmerman and Umansky,
main organiser Jan van Reek thought that it would be a nice and original idea
to play a sharp gambit in the Complete Chess match this year. Peng and Lanchava
had to deal with this opening with the white and black pieces on the first
two matchdays. Peng had a slightly better position until the 38th move in the
first game, but she made a few inaccurate moves. Lanchava checked a few variants
on her computer and chose the right path to glory. After 57 moves and 4.5 hours
of play Peng had to resign.
In the second game the ladies played the Scoth Gambit, in which Lanchava played
a new move: 8.Bg5. After the game she said that she did not want to follow
the game Zvjaginsev-Motylev from 2000, in which white played 8.Ba3. Peng was
not very happy with her answer 8...Bg4. “I think that c6 would have been
better for black, at least I have some more opportunities to get some active
play. Now I had more difficulties.” Lanchava played some very accurate
moves and reached a good position. Peng wanted to win the game but pushed too
hard. On move 40 she blundered: “My engine showed a big plus score, but
I had not enough time to check all the variations”. She obviously did
not check the piece sacrifice deep enough with her computer, because it soon
became clear that Lanchava could easily stop the passed pawn. After five hours,
Peng had to resign the second game.

Peng going down to Lanchava in the Complete Classic Chess games
The third game in the match started with the moves: 1.e4 Nhg6. No, this is
not an error, because the ladies had to play two random chess games in their
match! Arbiter Geurt Gijssen had determined the position on Monday during the
opening dinner with the players and organisation in the excellent Asian restaurant
“Ginger. The position that came out of Gijssen´s envelopes:
Peng needed to win the third game, because she lost the first two games in
this match. She controlled the game, played some very accurate moves in the
opening and was able to keep the initiative until the end of the game. After
the game Peng said that she was very pleased with the moves 7. g3! and 9.b4!
“I think that the move 5...Qa6?! was a mistake, because she loses a tempo.”
Later in the game, Lanchava blundered with 25...d5? “Oh, my god”,
Lanchava said after the game, “what a stupid computer move. I followed
the advice of the computer in this position, but 25...d5 loses the game immediately.
I should have played 25...g6 first.” After winning the exchange, the
Dutch number one still had a few technical difficulties to solve, but won the
game in the end. She played the endgame without computer assistance. “I
have learned this week that the computer is not always right!“ After
four hours of play, Lanchava resigned.

Working with the computer in the Complete Chess Match
Zhaoqin Peng has some experience with an exciting variant of shuffle chess:
“About ten years ago I played a few Chess960 games with Bobby Fischer
in Budapest. Svetozar Gligoric took me to Budapest, where I met Fischer. He
did not want to play classical chess, only Chess960. We just played a few blitz
games and I managed to win a few games.”
In the last game, Peng used a lot of time for her first 15 moves, trying to
find the right strategy. “It is very important to think intensively about
the first 10-15 moves. I think that Tea made a mistake on the first move! I
have studied the starting position and I believe that 1.f3 is the best move.”
Lanchava had problems finding a good plan, played a disastrous move after a
long think (17.Na4??) and lost the game after 46 moves.

Tea Lancava with match arbiter Geurt Gijssen
Looking back at six matches in Maastricht:
The match Peng-Lanchava probably was the last in a series of unique matches
in Maastricht. The Chess Events Maastricht Foundation has organised three man-against-machine
matches and three Complete Chess Matches from 2001-2006. A remarkable fact:
in the three Complete Chess Matches (12 games), only three games ended in a
draw, despite the use of chess software and fast computers.
After the match Deep Blue-Kasparov in 1997, the chess world was in a state
of shock. The computer could even beat the best player of the world in match,
so why organising more man-against-machine matches? Aegon, sponsor of many
famous man-against machine tournaments in The Netherlands, immediately stopped
their support after the Deep Blue match. As Prof. van den Herik stated in his
opening speech last before the first game of the Peng-Lanchava match last week,
Deep Blue was running on a supercomputer, but the next challenge would be to
see if a world class player could also be beaten by a chess program that was
running on a home-computer.
The Chess Events Maastricht Foundation picked up that idea and started a series
of matches in 2001. The idea behind the organisation, founded on 14 March 2000
by Jan van Reek, Daniel Brorens and Maarten van Gils, was to get the city back
on the chess map again, since no high-class chess events had been organised
in one of the most beautiful cities of The Netherlands since 1946!
Dutch GM John van der Wiel, who had played successfully against computers
in the famous Aegon tournaments in the nineties, was beaten 3,5-2,5 by the
Dutch program Rebel, programmed by Ed Schröder in the first match in Maastricht.
Until that match, van der Wiel had never lost a game against a computer in
an official tournament or match. His score against the computer was a stunning
24,5-3,5 at that time. ”This defeat must have had the same effect on
van der Wiel as it had on Kasparov after his loss against Deep Blue”,
van den Herik said in his speech. Unfortunately, the 62 year-old Maarten van
Gils died a few months after the first match. However, the foundation decided
to go on with a new president: Dr. Ir. Jos Uiterwijk, a renowned computer expert
from the University Maastricht.
In 2002, a much stronger GM was invited to Maastricht: Dutch champion Loek
van Wely, who played four games against an improved Rebel Century version.
That match ended 2-2. There were no draws in that match and all games were
won with the white pieces. Jan van Reek, one of the founders of the Foundation
said: “ One of the best ever man against machine games was played in
that match: the third game, won by Rebel, is a modern classic.”
In 2003, the Russian GM Evgeny Bareev played four games against the English
program Hiarcs, written by Mark Uniacke. That match ended 2-2 as well, all
games were drawn. “I was very impressed by the way Bareev played in that
match”, Daniel Brorens, treasurer of Foundation, said. “He never
had any difficulties to equalize or to get a slightly better position against
the machine. We were very proud that we could get such a high-class player
to Maastricht.”

Maastricht, Holland, where the Complete Chess expriments are staged
In 2004, the Foundation changed ist strategy and the first Complete Chess
Match was organised. The young talents Daniel Stellwagen from The Netherlands
and David Baramidze from Germany played an exciting match. Stellwagen lost
the first game, in which he blundered, but won the match in the end: 2,5-1,5.
One year later, in May 2005, prodigy Stellwagen was invited again and he played
four games against Loek van Wely. Another innovative element was added by the
organisers that year: the players had to play two shuffle chess games, but
still with computer assistance. Stellwagen won the prestigious match: 3-1.
Future projects of the Chess Events Maastricht Foundation
Since it has become more and more difficult to attract sponsors for matches
in Maastricht and chess events in general, the Chess Events Maastricht Foundation
has decided to stop organising matches. However, the foundation will continue
to organise correspondence chess matches on the website and wants to support
other chess events in the Maastricht region. This summer, the local club MSV-VSM
will organise a blitz night, and the tourney will be supported by the Foundation.
Jan van Reek: “Well, it is possible that we will change our mind again
and organise a match in a few years. It depends how the chess world in itself
developes, and if we can get some sponsorship. The problem is that the situation
in the chess world is still messy. It is not clear for many outsiders who is
the real world champion nowadays, and after this Deep Blue desaster in 1997,
many people and sponsors did not take chess seriously anymore. We wanted to
show in Maastricht that chess is still interesting by using computers and we
are also open for new variants like shuffle chess. Our main goal was to put
Maastricht back on the chess map again and with our matches, Maastricht has
become a lot of attention in the chess world. From that point of view, it has
been a succesfull period. We have seen fantastic matches here in Maastricht
and I hope that many people had fun watching the games”, Jan van Reek
concluded.
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