ChessBase 17 - Mega package - Edition 2024
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Only a few experienced human freestylers, among them three International Masters, succeeded in qualifying. But they were upstaged by a real computer monster – the UCI-engine Rybka 2.3.1 running on 32 processors, operated by Sujay Jagannathan alias "Mission control", who is lives in England.
About 20 FIDE titleholders and many high-end computer systems, which means four and even eight processor systems, guaranteed a strong competition. Yet, once again none of the grandmasters manage at least 5.5 points out of eight games, which was practically speaking the barrier for qualification (provided you also had a good progressive score). Czech GM Petr Hába and Georgian GM Baadur Jobava were for a long time close to the top group, but at the very end they lacked the crucial half point. Also Britain’s GM Tony Kosten, who lives in France, and Ukrain GM Yuri Solodovnichenko did not show enough punch to reach the goal.
The rate of play was 60min + 15sec. About half of the participants took the opportunity to let their engine play automatically, which is probably a new record. That, however, caused also – to TD Martin Fischer's chagrin – additional technical problems, mostly due to different client versions being used, either at the start of the game, when one side was unable to make a move, or later on, when a player got disconnected.
The tournament went on without too long breaks, but Martin had to decide on some results, when several tries to restart a game simply failed. A side-effect were long discussions in the chat or by e-mail. For this reason the organizers are now considering forcing people to manually execute their moves. There are a number of incidental advantages to this rule. For instance participants can avoid a loss of time in case of obvious or forced moves. The only "disadvantage" is that the particpant must remain in front of the computer during the game, instead of letting the engines play completely unattended. But that would seem reasonable in a $16,000 chess tournament.
Regarding the big number of engine-only players it does not surprise us to find five of them among the qualifiers. Just have a look on the following table in order check, who is a keen centaur (*) and who is an engine-only player.
No. | Participant | Ti. | Rtn | Name | Nat. | + | = | – | Pts | TB | Perf. |
1. | Mission control | 2481 | Jagannathan | ENG | 5 | 3 | 0 | 6.5 | 33.0 | 2840 | |
2. | Flyingfatman | 2587 | Carlin | ENG | 4 | 4 | 0 | 6.0 | 29.5 | 2746 | |
3. | Rentner2 * | IM | 2614 | Blauert | 4 | 4 | 0 | 6.0 | 29.0 | 2724 | |
4. | Kreuzfahrtschiff * | 2590 | Kruse | 4 | 4 | 0 | 6.0 | 27.5 | 2677 | ||
5. | Cato the Younger * | 2620 | Chen Yingheng | ENG | 4 | 4 | 0 | 6.0 | 26.0 | 2706 | |
6. | Ultra-d | 2700 | Evans | ENG | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5.5 | 26.0 | 2697 | |
7. | Klosterfrau * | IM | 2606 | Breder | 3 | 5 | 0 | 5.5 | 24.5 | 2566 | |
8. | Rajlich * | IM | 2742 | Rajlich, V. | HUN | 3 | 5 | 0 | 5.5 | 24.0 | 2685 |
9. | PvP | 2716 | Kakirdakis | GRE | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5.5 | 23.5 | 2670 | |
10. | New Man | 2630 | Osterman | SWE | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5.5 | 23.0 | 2628 |
The winners are of course the British – four finalists out of 11 participants! – and the Germans, as they got through three centaurs. To be more precise we have to add that IM Dennis Breder alias Klosterfrau this time could not afford time for more than two centaur games. BUT that will of course completely different in the final. The losers of the 6th Freestyle Main Tournament are, if I am right, for the first time the US players, as none of the 15 transatlantic participants could qualify. The Americans are usually the second strongest group behind the Germans.
As to the Freestyle rating, in the fourth column we sometimes used the rating a player had achieved with his former nickname: Mission control = formerly Hercules01 and Moto Guzzi, Kreuzfahrtschiff = formerly Dummkoller, PvP = formerly Nebula, New Man = formerly Kingcrusher. These figures were used for the pairings but not for the Elo evaluation.
In this tournament Mission Control took its opponents by surprise with a 32 processor system, which meant about 21 plys on average. Sujay Jagannathan, the man behind, was already known before to some insiders. Only later I found out that he had already played with his monster hardware in the previous Freestyle Tournament, as Hercules01, where he also qualified for the final, but came second last. I asked him, what was different this time, and this is, what he wrote in an e-mail:
“I ran on AMD dual core socket F CPUs 8216 2.6 x 32, which I have upgraded to 3 GHz x 32 now. Better preparation on book and less engine bugs compared to the last PAL final, where day one was a total disaster with two endgame bugs and opponents getting disconnected and restarting the whole game, which resulted in another loss, as the engine played a red book move. Last but not the least luck also plays its part.”
Thanks, Sujay! Somebody in the chat said that his father was director of a mathematical institute and was granting him access to such powerful hardware. Surely he will tell us much more after the final, where many people will follow Mission Control’s games in order to see if, for the first time, an engine-only player will become Freestyle Champion. Of course it will be much harder for Suj this time, as everybody will be preparing for him.
The surprise factor is a very important thing in the main tournament. When I, Ciron, met Mission Control in the fifth round (I had 3.5 out of 4) I didn’t know anything about my opponent and was completely confused, because I couldn’t properly identify him as an engine or a centaur. There was simply no information in the players list, though it should be there. I will not go into details of why this might have happened, but people should understand that such a situation, which cannot occur in a round-robin tournament like the final, is rather confusing, especially when you had already played six hours before this happens. By the way, El-Shaddai alias Nolan Denson (place 25), experienced the same problem as me.
You might argue that freestyle means anything goes… And indeed, whenever such things happen people start discussions about what is allowed and what is not allowed in freestyle. Someone reported “hacker” attacks from his opponent, trying to disconnect him…
After the final some questions on the future of freestyle chess will be put into the focus, especially our plans for a tournament with longer time controls. The freestyle poll on CSS online shows that many players are interested in such a contest, mainly because it might offer better chances for human participation. The poll also shows some of the other questions in discussion. Probably we will opt for a tournament with 90min + 30sec rate of play. This allows to play 4-5 games on a weekend: 1st game Friday, 2nd + 3rd games on Saturday, 4the (+ 5th) games on Sunday. We could play a Swiss tournament on two weekends (9 or 10 rounds), this time without an additional final. If desired, we can continue with the freestyle events in intervals: next tournament with 60 min + 15sec rate of play and then again 90min + 30sec. So everybody can choose what he likes most.
Here is the rest of the final table and at the end you will find the download for the games:
11. |
Rino-1 |
Stibi |
4 |
3 |
1 |
5.5 |
22.0 |
2707 |
||||
12. |
Revelator |
2591 |
Knowles |
USA |
3 |
4 |
1 |
5.0 |
28.0 |
2647 |
||
13. |
Ciron |
2622 |
Nickel |
4 |
2 |
2 |
5.0 |
26.5 |
2630 |
|||
14. |
OpenFormula |
2587 |
Osterman |
SWE |
3 |
4 |
1 |
5.0 |
24.5 |
2612 |
||
15. |
Rodo |
2691 |
Gallo |
ITA |
2 |
6 |
0 |
5.0 |
24.0 |
2598 |
||
16. |
Petr Hába |
GM |
2505 |
Haba |
CZE |
2 |
6 |
0 |
5.0 |
23.5 |
2706 |
|
17. |
The Wizard |
Bennett |
ENG |
2 |
6 |
0 |
5.0 |
23.0 |
2690 |
|||
18. |
MjLvMj |
Indoc |
IND |
2 |
6 |
0 |
5.0 |
23.0 |
2664 |
|||
19. |
Oligarckh |
GM |
2686 |
Jobava |
GEO |
2 |
6 |
0 |
5.0 |
23.0 |
2612 |
|
20. |
Lasker#77 |
Bigler |
SUI |
2 |
6 |
0 |
5.0 |
22.5 |
2666 |
|||
21. |
Bychamp_II |
2574 |
Monteiro |
BRA |
4 |
2 |
2 |
5.0 |
22.5 |
2648 |
||
22. |
Fredi_z |
2544 |
Zöllner |
AUT |
3 |
4 |
1 |
5.0 |
21.5 |
2626 |
||
23. |
Krampak |
Torroella |
ESP |
4 |
2 |
2 |
5.0 |
18.0 |
2553 |
|||
24. |
Equidistance |
2591 |
Schoupal |
CZE |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4.5 |
24.0 |
2580 |
||
25. |
EL-SHADDAI |
2654 |
Denson |
USA |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4.5 |
24.0 |
2560 |
||
26. |
Averell |
2597 |
Eckhardt |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4.5 |
23.5 |
2586 |
|||
27. |
Tatar |
2612 |
Baron |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4.5 |
23.5 |
2572 |
|||
28. |
Braincooler |
2403 |
Osterman |
SWE |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
23.0 |
2657 |
||
29. |
Alansacount |
2604 |
Sassler |
USA |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
22.5 |
2536 |
||
30. |
Sebi-chess |
2568 |
Böhme |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4.5 |
22.5 |
2535 |
|||
31. |
Engineer |
GM |
2595 |
Solodovnichenko |
UKR |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
22.5 |
2475 |
|
32. |
PAKman |
2582 |
Pruitt |
USA |
1 |
7 |
0 |
4.5 |
21.5 |
2581 |
||
33. |
Bogdansyg |
IM |
2302 |
Sygulski |
POL |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
21.0 |
2650 |
|
34. |
WindPower |
2484 |
Wind |
MAS |
1 |
7 |
0 |
4.5 |
21.0 |
2616 |
||
35. |
Rybusia |
IM |
2531 |
Rajlich, I. |
HUN |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
21.0 |
2564 |
|
36. |
GoLdEn-BoY |
2703 |
Soney |
USA |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
21.0 |
2562 |
||
37. |
Tony Kosten |
GM |
2571 |
Kosten |
FRA |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4.5 |
20.5 |
2559 |
|
38. |
Sonofluck |
2447 |
Davalos |
MEX |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
20.0 |
2649 |
||
39. |
Gorleb |
2442 |
Pillen |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
20.0 |
2644 |
|||
40. |
LazyBone |
2500 |
Fuller |
USA |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
20.0 |
2572 |
||
41. |
Sergey_M |
2604 |
Marinowsky |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
20.0 |
2408 |
|||
42. |
Xakru |
2769 |
Dufek |
CZE |
1 |
7 |
0 |
4.5 |
19.5 |
|||
43. |
Ggg |
GM |
2148 |
Grigore |
ROM |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4.5 |
19.5 |
2585 |
|
44. |
TheOrigin |
2541 |
Baigi |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
19.5 |
2507 |
|||
45. |
Karadeniz Aslani |
2549 |
Turgut |
USA |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4.5 |
19.5 |
2460 |
||
46. |
Alexisco |
2485 |
Koskoros |
GRE |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
19.0 |
2643 |
||
47. |
Bestteam |
Moreira |
POR |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
18.5 |
2467 |
|||
48. |
Akhtar |
2488 |
Hashmi |
UAE |
4 |
1 |
2 |
4.5 |
18.5 |
2405 |
||
49. |
Auryn |
2541 |
Gallo |
ITA |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4.5 |
18.0 |
2435 |
||
50. |
Footbolo |
2389 |
Costa Serra |
ESP |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4.5 |
17.5 |
2525 |
||
51. |
Pawntobewild |
2525 |
Gray |
AUS |
3 |
3 |
2 |
4.5 |
17.0 |
2365 |
||
52. |
Demian |
2157 |
Greweling |
4 |
1 |
3 |
4.5 |
13.0 |
2441 |
|||
53. |
Kitsune |
Doane |
USA |
2 |
4 |
2 |
4.0 |
21.5 |
2579 |
|||
54. |
ZackS |
2635 |
Zackary |
USA |
2 |
4 |
2 |
4.0 |
20.0 |
2475 |
||
55. |
Heffalump |
2551 |
Rades |
2 |
4 |
2 |
4.0 |
19.5 |
2444 |
|||
56. |
TRAKA |
2548 |
Weber |
2 |
4 |
2 |
4.0 |
18.0 |
2424 |
|||
57. |
Qirco |
2460 |
Kerimi |
SUI |
3 |
2 |
3 |
4.0 |
16.5 |
2563 |
||
58. |
Wytiko |
2313 |
Luppi |
Ita |
4 |
0 |
4 |
4.0 |
16.0 |
2523 |
||
59. |
Jimliew |
IM |
2167 |
Liew |
Mal |
1 |
6 |
1 |
4.0 |
16.0 |
2521 |
|
60. |
Hoshad |
2502 |
Dabbaghyan |
SWE |
2 |
4 |
2 |
4.0 |
16.0 |
2396 |
||
61. |
Kapaun |
2247 |
Nettelbeck |
2 |
4 |
2 |
4.0 |
14.5 |
2461 |
|||
62. |
Lukulus |
2668 |
Lüttke |
3 |
2 |
3 |
4.0 |
14.5 |
2333 |
|||
63. |
Amadeus Chess |
2509 |
Bauer |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
20.5 |
2472 |
|||
64. |
MASLAKKOSTIA |
IM |
2480 |
Maslak |
RUS |
1 |
5 |
2 |
3.5 |
18.5 |
2480 |
|
65. |
Kidambi |
IM |
Kidambi |
IND |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
18.0 |
2483 |
||
66. |
Supermichi |
2481 |
Enderle |
3 |
1 |
4 |
3.5 |
18.0 |
2441 |
|||
67. |
Poweronoff |
2625 |
Märtens |
0 |
7 |
1 |
3.5 |
17.5 |
2362 |
|||
68. |
Knilch hi |
2502 |
Wellmann |
1 |
5 |
2 |
3.5 |
17.0 |
2357 |
|||
69. |
Don Juan |
Calero Cardador |
ESP |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
16.5 |
2467 |
|||
70. |
Noritano |
2585 |
Gutsche |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
16.5 |
2348 |
|||
71. |
John Higgins |
2279 |
Zatko |
SVK |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
15.5 |
2516 |
||
72. |
Gomez |
2320 |
Gomez |
USA |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
15.5 |
2478 |
||
73. |
ChessChryssy |
2485 |
Ludwig |
2 |
3 |
2 |
3.5 |
15.5 |
2414 |
|||
74. |
AlterEgo |
2465 |
Vuckovic |
SCG |
1 |
5 |
2 |
3.5 |
15.0 |
2429 |
||
75. |
Mk1264 |
Kolss |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
15.0 |
2408 |
||||
76. |
Croberson |
2330 |
Roberson |
USA |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
15.0 |
2388 |
||
77. |
Mberggren |
2397 |
Berggren |
SWE |
3 |
1 |
4 |
3.5 |
14.5 |
2407 |
||
78. |
Dom_ |
IM |
2457 |
Pedzich |
POL |
3 |
1 |
4 |
3.5 |
14.5 |
2373 |
|
79. |
Siciliane5 |
Jegels |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
14.0 |
2348 |
||||
80. |
Badbishop1 |
Dixon |
USA |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
14.0 |
2428 |
|||
81. |
Alfilferoz |
IM |
Alvarez |
ARG |
1 |
5 |
2 |
3.5 |
13.5 |
2416 |
||
82. |
Mateen |
Hashmi |
UAE |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
13.0 |
2362 |
|||
83. |
Intagrand |
2649 |
Williams |
ENG |
2 |
2 |
3 |
3.0 |
19.5 |
2380 |
||
84. |
WoDra |
2525 |
Draeger |
0 |
6 |
2 |
3.0 |
14.5 |
2262 |
|||
85. |
Pandini |
2373 |
Delport |
0 |
6 |
2 |
3.0 |
13.0 |
2428 |
|||
86. |
CumnorChessClub |
2162 |
Plant |
ENG |
2 |
2 |
4 |
3.0 |
11.5 |
2321 |
||
87. |
TommyM39 |
Mahling |
1 |
4 |
3 |
3.0 |
11.5 |
2262 |
||||
88. |
Big MC |
Söhnlein |
1 |
4 |
3 |
3.0 |
10.0 |
2452 |
||||
89. |
Toothlessbishop |
Fabri |
ENG |
1 |
3 |
4 |
2.5 |
16.5 |
2414 |
|||
90. |
Walden |
IM |
2560 |
Noble |
NZL |
0 |
5 |
3 |
2.5 |
15.0 |
||
91. |
Brain-damage |
2360 |
Chaplin |
ENG |
1 |
3 |
4 |
2.5 |
11.0 |
2208 |
||
92. |
Simplicissimus |
2464 |
Bruening |
2 |
1 |
5 |
2.5 |
11.0 |
2128 |
|||
93. |
LUBüWy |
2317 |
Bürgin |
2 |
1 |
5 |
2.5 |
10.5 |
2199 |
|||
94. |
Albitexm |
Oggero |
ITA |
0 |
5 |
3 |
2.5 |
10.0 |
2221 |
|||
95. |
Fireonline |
1 |
3 |
4 |
2.5 |
10.0 |
2216 |
|||||
96. |
RybkaKiller |
2371 |
Singh Jai Prakash |
Ind |
0 |
5 |
3 |
2.5 |
8.5 |
2160 |
||
97. |
Dudi |
2036 |
Schloegl |
ENG |
2 |
1 |
5 |
2.5 |
6.5 |
2188 |
||
98. |
Otto der erste |
2175 |
Zielasko |
2 |
1 |
5 |
2.5 |
5.5 |
2060 |
|||
99. |
Katzenmaier |
2549 |
Kleinert |
2 |
0 |
6 |
2.0 |
14.0 |
2170 |
|||
100. |
Chichirivichi |
Cohen-Revivo |
ISR |
1 |
2 |
5 |
2.0 |
12.5 |
2221 |
|||
101. |
Shallow Yellow |
Kolss |
SWE |
1 |
2 |
5 |
2.0 |
10.5 |
2280 |
|||
102. |
Ibermax |
Richards | ENG |
1 |
1 |
6 |
1.5 |
11.5 |
||||
103. |
Angelo Dundee |
Akat | TUR |
1 |
1 |
6 |
1.5 |
11.0 |
||||
104. |
Formula-Open |
Abdelrahim |
USA |
0 |
3 |
5 |
1.5 |
9.5 |
||||
105. |
Pepekan |
IM |
2068 |
Candela |
ESP |
1 |
1 |
6 |
1.5 |
8.0 |
2033 |
|
106. |
Dragonfg7 |
IM |
Canda |
USA |
1 |
1 |
6 |
1.5 |
8.0 |
|||
107. |
El_cuco_tuyo |
Ortiz |
USA |
1 |
0 |
7 |
1.0 |
8.0 |
||||
108. |
Lord Vader |
Lopatka |
POL |
0 |
1 |
7 |
0.5 |
4.0 |
1896 |
|||
109. |
Littleprince |
Prüfer |
0 |
1 |
7 |
0.5 |
4.0 |
|||||
110. |
HydraAssasin |
2449 |
Naar |
KOL |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0.5 |
0.5 |
0 |
||
111. |
Pantani |
GM |
Jaracz |
POL |
0 |
0 |
8 |
0 |
0 |
|||
112. |
Sinaigarak |
Karagianis |
USA |
0 |
0 |
8 |
0 |
0 |
Freestyle Chess –Teaching an Engine how to Fly 28.04.2007 – The 5th PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament on Playchess.com is already history and the 6th issue is coming soon: Main event June 1-3, Final June 22-24. Freestyle Chess allows players to form a team and use any software and hardware they like. The main sponsor, the PAL Group in Abu Dhabi (UAE), has provided a $16,000 dollar prize fund for each online tournament. CC GM Arno Nickel reports. |
|
Fifth Freestyle Tournament Final this weekend 22.03.2007 – The 5th PAL/CSS Freestyle Main Tournament, staged on the Playchess server, ended in a dead heat of 17 players. None of the 131 participants from 32 countries, including 20 titled players, managed to achieve six points in eight games, which is the magic barrier for qualification. The final, with ten players, will be held as a round robin tournament this weekend. Come and watch. |
$16,000
Freestyle tournament starts on March 2nd |
The
Freestyle Champion is Xakru, dammit! |
||
Fall
of the Favourites in PAL/CSS Freestyle |
||
Rajlich
Team won the third Freestyle tournament |
||
Freestyle
Tournament final begins today |
||
Who
will be the next Freestyle Champion |
||
Brilliancy
in computer assisted chess |
||
$16,000
Freestyle tournament begins on Friday |
||
$16,000
up for grabs in computer-assisted play |
||
Zor-Champ
wins Freestyle Tournament |
||
Freestyle
tournament: Finals this weekend |
||
Freestyle
tournament: Vvarkey wins with 7.5/8 |
||
Freestyle
tournament: advice from an expert |
||
The
$16,000 open-to-all chess tournament |
||
Dark
horse ZackS wins Freestyle Chess Tournament |
||
Scintillating
chess in the PAL-CSS Freestyle tournament |
||
Hydra
misses the quarter-finals of Freestyle tournament |
||
Eleven
qualify for main Freestyle Tournament |
||
The
$20,000 free-for-all chess tournament |
||
Freestyle
tournament for $20,000 |
||
Anyone
– or anything – can play! |
||
Freestyle
Blitz Tournament August 7 |