Human-computer chess matches
Encyclopedia
This article documents the progress of significant human-computer chess matches.
Chess computers
were first able to beat strong chess
players in the late 1980s. Their most famous success was the victory of Deep Blue over then World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov
in 1997, but there was some controversy over whether the match conditions favored the computer.
In 2002–2003 three human-computer matches were drawn. But whereas Deep Blue was a specialized machine, these were chess programs running on commercially available computers.
After convincing victories in two matches in 2005 and 2006, it appears that chess programs can now defeat even the strongest chess players.
made a famous bet that no chess computer would be able to beat him within ten years. He won his bet in 1978 by beating Chess 4.7
(the strongest computer at the time), but acknowledged then that it would not be long before he would be surpassed.
. The Aegon
insurance company hosted the tournaments. An equal number of humans and computers played a 6 round swiss tournament with all games between humans and computers. The early tournaments were mostly local players and anti-computer tactics
specialists. Later tournaments included masters and grandmasters. In the early tournaments, humans won more games. In the later tournaments, computers won more games.
100 players played in the 1997 tournament. Computers won 151 ½ points. Humans won 148 ½ points. Yona Kosashvili
scored highest for the humans at 6 points out of 6 games. Kallisto scored highest for the computers at 4 ½ points.
shared first place with Tony Miles
in the Software Toolworks Championship, ahead of a former world champion Mikhail Tal
and several grandmasters including Samuel Reshevsky
, Walter Browne, Ernst Gruenfeld and Mikhail Gurevich
. It also defeated grandmaster Bent Larsen
, making it the first computer to beat a grandmaster in a tournament. Its rating
for performance in this tournament of 2745 (USCF scale).
In 1989, Levy was defeated by the computer Deep Thought
in an exhibition match.
Deep Thought, however, was still considerably below World Championship Level, as the then reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov
demonstrated in two convincing wins in 1989.
rapid chess tournament in 1994. It defeated and eliminated world champion Kasparov, but lost to Viswanathan Anand
in the next round. This was the first time a computer had defeated the world champion in an official game, albeit at rapid time controls.
two of the remaining five games of the match, for a convincing 4–2 match victory.
was made about this famous match-up entitled Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
. In that film Kasparov casually says, "I have to tell you that, you know, game two was not just a single loss of a game. It was a loss of the match, because I couldn't recover."
It should be noted however, that in game 6, Kasparov blundered very early into the game. Kasparov cites tiredness and unhappiness with the IBM team's conduct at the time as the main reason.
Kasparov claimed that several factors weighed against him in this match. In particular, he was denied access to Deep Blue's recent games, in contrast to the computer's team that could study hundreds of Kasparov's.
After the loss Kasparov said that he sometimes saw deep intelligence and creativity in the machine's moves, suggesting that during the second game, human chess players, in contravention of the rules, intervened. IBM denied that it cheated, saying the only human intervention occurred between games. The rules provided for the developers to modify the program between games, an opportunity they said they used to shore up weaknesses in the computer's play revealed during the course of the match. Kasparov requested printouts of the machine's log files but IBM refused, although the company later published the logs on the Internet. Kasparov demanded a rematch, but IBM refused and dismantled Deep Blue.
Kasparov maintains that he was told the match was to be a scientific project but that it soon became apparent that IBM wanted to beat him and nothing more.
defeated Viswanathan Anand
who at the time was ranked second in the world, by a score of 5–3. However most of those games were not played at normal time controls. Out of the eight games, four were blitz
games (five minutes plus five seconds Fischer delay (see time control
) for each move) these Rebel won 3–1. Then two were semi-blitz games (fifteen minutes for each side) which Rebel won as well (1½–½). Finally two games were played as regular tournament games (forty moves in two hours, one hour sudden death) here it was Anand who won ½–1½. At least in fast games computers played better than humans but at classical time controls — at which a player's rating is determined — the advantage was not so clear.
(who had succeeded Kasparov as Classical World Chess Champion) and Deep Fritz competed in the eight-game Brains in Bahrain
match, which ended in a 4–4 draw.
Kramnik was given several advantages in his match against Fritz when compared to most other Man vs. Machine matches, such as the one Kasparov lost against Deep Blue in 1997. The code of Fritz was frozen some time before the first match and Kramnik was given a copy of Fritz to practice with for several months. Another difference was that in games lasting more than 56 moves, Kramnik was allowed to adjourn until the following day, during which time he could use his copy of Fritz to aid him in his overnight analysis of the position.
Kramnik won games 2 and 3 by "conventional" anti-computer tactics
— play conservatively for a long-term advantage the computer is not able to see in its game tree search. Fritz, however, won game 5 after a severe blunder by Kramnik. Game 6 was described by the tournament commentators as "spectacular." Kramnik, in a better position in the early middlegame, tried a piece sacrifice to achieve a strong tactical attack, a strategy known to be highly risky against computers who are at their strongest defending against such attacks. True to form, Fritz found a watertight defense and Kramnik's attack petered out leaving him in a bad position. Kramnik resigned the game, believing the position lost. However, post-game human and computer analysis has shown that the Fritz program was unlikely to have been able to force a win and Kramnik effectively sacrificed a drawn position. The final two games were draws. Given the circumstances, most commentators still rate Kramnik the stronger player in the match.
. The engine evaluated three million positions per second. After one win each and three draws, it was all up to the final game. The final game of the match was televised on ESPN2 and was watched by an estimated 200–300 million people. After reaching a decent position Kasparov offered a draw, which was soon accepted by the Deep Junior team. Asked why he offered the draw, Kasparov said he feared making a blunder. Originally planned as an annual event, the match was not repeated.
(which was said to have an estimated rating of 2807), using a virtual board, 3D glasses and a speech recognition
system. After two draws and one win apiece, the X3D Man-Machine match ended in a draw. Kasparov received $175,000 for the result and took home the golden trophy. Kasparov continued to criticize the blunder in the second game that cost him a crucial point. He felt that he had outplayed the machine overall and played well. "I only made one mistake but unfortunately that one mistake lost the game."
tournaments in Bilbao
, the Basque
region of Spain
. A second name for the tournaments is the People vs. Computers World Team Matches.
, Veselin Topalov
and Sergey Karjakin
played against computers Hydra
, Fritz
8, and Deep Junior
. Ponomariov and Topalov were FIDE world chess champions. Sergey Karjakin at 12 was the youngest Grandmaster
. The computers won 8.5 to 3.5. The humans won one game, Karjakin, the youngest and lowest rated player, defeated Deep Junior.
, Ruslan Ponomariov
and Rustam Kasimdzhanov
played against computers Hydra, Junior and Fritz. The computers won 8 to 4.
, a dedicated chess computer with custom hardware and sixty-four processors (meaning one whole processor calculated moves for a given square ) and also winner of the 14th IPCCC in 2005, crushed seventh-ranked Michael Adams 5½–½ in a six-game match. While Adams was criticized for preparing less well than Kasparov and Kramnik had, some commentators saw this as heralding the end of human-computer matches.
, Germany
from November 25 to December 5, 2006, losing 0–4–2 to the machine, with two losses and four draws. He received 500,000 Euro
s for playing and would have received another 500,000 Euros had he won the match. Deep Fritz version 10 ran on a computer containing two Intel Xeon
CPUs (a Xeon DC 5160 3 GHz processor with a 1333 MHz FSB and a 4MB L2 Cache) and was able to evaluate eight million positions per second. Kramnik received a copy of the program in mid-October for testing, but the final version included an updated opening book
. Except for limited updates to the opening book, the program was not allowed to be changed during the course of the match. The endgame tablebase
s used by the program were restricted to five pieces even though a complete six-piece tablebase is widely available. While Deep Fritz was in its opening book Kramnik is allowed to see Fritz’s display. The Fritz display contains opening book moves, number of games, Elo performance, score from grandmaster games and the move weighting.
In the first five games Kramnik steered the game into a typical "anti-computer" positional contest. On November 25, the first game ended in a draw at the 47th move. A number of commentators believe Kramnik missed a win. Two days later, the second game resulted in a victory for Deep Fritz, when Kramnik made what might be called the "blunder of the century" according to Susan Polgar
, when he failed to defend against a threatened mate-in-one in an even position. (see also Deep Fritz v. Vladimir Kramnik blunder). The third, fourth and fifth games in the match ended in draws.
In the final game, in an attempt to draw the match, Kramnik played the more aggressive Sicilian Defence
and was crushed., losing the match 4–2.
There was speculation that interest in human-computer chess competition would plummet as a result of the 2006 Kramnik–Deep Fritz match. According to McGill University computer science professor Monty Newborn, for example, "the science is done".
has played some odds matches
against grandmasters. Jaan Ehlvest
first lost a pawn-odds match, then later lost a match when given time, color, opening, and endgame advantages. Roman Dzindzichashvili
then drew a match when given pawn and move odds.
In September 2008, Rybka played an odds match against Vadim Milov
, its strongest opponent yet in an odds match. (Milov at the time had an Elo rating
of 2705, 28th in the world). The result was a narrow victory to Milov: He had won 1½–½ when given pawn-and-move, and 2½–1½ (1 win, 3 draws) when given exchange odds but playing black. In two standard games (Milov had white, no odds), Rybka won 1½–½.
, reached the grandmaster level. The mobile phone won a category 6 tournament with a performance rating 2898. The chess engine Hiarcs
13 runs inside Pocket Fritz
4 on the mobile phone HTC Touch HD
. Pocket Fritz 4 won the Copa Mercosur tournament in Buenos Aires, Argentina with 9 wins and 1 draw on August 4–14, 2009. Pocket Fritz 4 searches less than 20,000 positions per second. This is in contrast to supercomputers such as Deep Blue that searched 200 million positions per second. Pocket Fritz 4’s higher performance comes from being smarter and not from faster computers.
Chess computers
Computer chess
Computer chess is computer architecture encompassing hardware and software capable of playing chess autonomously without human guidance. Computer chess acts as solo entertainment , as aids to chess analysis, for computer chess competitions, and as research to provide insights into human...
were first able to beat strong chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
players in the late 1980s. Their most famous success was the victory of Deep Blue over then World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
in 1997, but there was some controversy over whether the match conditions favored the computer.
In 2002–2003 three human-computer matches were drawn. But whereas Deep Blue was a specialized machine, these were chess programs running on commercially available computers.
After convincing victories in two matches in 2005 and 2006, it appears that chess programs can now defeat even the strongest chess players.
David Levy's bet (1978)
For a long time in the 1970s and 1980s it remained an open question whether any Chess program would ever be able to defeat the expertise of top humans. In 1968, International Master David LevyDavid Levy (chess player)
David Neil Laurence Levy , is a Scottish International Master of chess, a businessman noted for his involvement with computer chess and artificial intelligence, and the founder of the Computer Olympiads and the Mind Sports Olympiads. He has written more than 40 books on chess and computers.- Life...
made a famous bet that no chess computer would be able to beat him within ten years. He won his bet in 1978 by beating Chess 4.7
Chess (Northwestern University)
Chess was a pioneering chess program from the 1970s, authored by Larry Atkin and David Slate at Northwestern University. Chess ran on Control Data Corporation's line of supercomputers. It dominated the first computer chess tournaments, such as the World Computer Chess Championship and ACM's North...
(the strongest computer at the time), but acknowledged then that it would not be long before he would be surpassed.
The Aegon Man-Machine Tournaments (1986–1997)
The 12 Aegon Man-Machine Tournaments were held annually from 1986 to 1997. The Dutch Computer Chess Federation (CSVN) organized the Aegon Man-Machine Tournaments in The Hague, NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. The Aegon
AEGON
Aegon N.V. is one of the world’s largest life insurance and pension groups, and a strong provider of investment products. Aegon's head office is in The Hague, Netherlands...
insurance company hosted the tournaments. An equal number of humans and computers played a 6 round swiss tournament with all games between humans and computers. The early tournaments were mostly local players and anti-computer tactics
Anti-computer tactics
Anti-computer tactics are a style of play used by humans to beat strong computer opponents at various games, especially in board games such as chess and Arimaa. It involves playing conservatively for a long-term advantage the computer is not able to see in its game tree search...
specialists. Later tournaments included masters and grandmasters. In the early tournaments, humans won more games. In the later tournaments, computers won more games.
100 players played in the 1997 tournament. Computers won 151 ½ points. Humans won 148 ½ points. Yona Kosashvili
Yona Kosashvili
Dr. Yona Kosashvili is a Georgian-born chess Grandmaster and physician, who now lives in Canada.He was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, moved to Israel as a child, and now lives in Toronto, Canada....
scored highest for the humans at 6 points out of 6 games. Kallisto scored highest for the computers at 4 ½ points.
Deep Thought (1989)
In 1988, Deep ThoughtDeep Thought (chess computer)
Deep Thought was a computer designed to play chess. Deep Thought was initially developed at Carnegie Mellon University and later at IBM. It was second in the line of chess computers developed by Feng-hsiung Hsu, starting with ChipTest and culminating in Deep Blue...
shared first place with Tony Miles
Tony Miles
Anthony John Miles was an English chess Grandmaster.- Early achievements in chess :Miles was born in Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham...
in the Software Toolworks Championship, ahead of a former world champion Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal was a Soviet–Latvian chess player, a Grandmaster, and the eighth World Chess Champion.Widely regarded as a creative genius, and the best attacking player of all time, he played a daring, combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability....
and several grandmasters including Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...
, Walter Browne, Ernst Gruenfeld and Mikhail Gurevich
Mikhail Gurevich (chess player)
Mikhail Naumovich Gurevich is a Soviet chess player. He lived in Belgium from 1991 to 2005 and since then resides in Turkey....
. It also defeated grandmaster Bent Larsen
Bent Larsen
Jørgen Bent Larsen was a Danish chess Grandmaster and author. Larsen was known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play and he was the first western player to pose a serious challenge to the Soviet Union's dominance of chess...
, making it the first computer to beat a grandmaster in a tournament. Its rating
Elo rating system
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in two-player games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-born American physics professor....
for performance in this tournament of 2745 (USCF scale).
In 1989, Levy was defeated by the computer Deep Thought
Deep Thought (chess computer)
Deep Thought was a computer designed to play chess. Deep Thought was initially developed at Carnegie Mellon University and later at IBM. It was second in the line of chess computers developed by Feng-hsiung Hsu, starting with ChipTest and culminating in Deep Blue...
in an exhibition match.
Deep Thought, however, was still considerably below World Championship Level, as the then reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
demonstrated in two convincing wins in 1989.
Chess Genius (1994)
The "Chess Genius" program was entered into a Professional Chess AssociationProfessional Chess Association
The Professional Chess Association , which existed between 1993 and 1996, was a rival organisation to FIDE, the international chess organization...
rapid chess tournament in 1994. It defeated and eliminated world champion Kasparov, but lost to Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand
V. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world....
in the next round. This was the first time a computer had defeated the world champion in an official game, albeit at rapid time controls.
1996
Kasparov played a six game match against IBM's Deep Blue in 1996. Kasparov lost the first game (Deep Blue – Kasparov, 1996, Game 1), the first time a reigning world champion had lost to a computer using regular time controls. However, Kasparov regrouped to win three and drawDraw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
two of the remaining five games of the match, for a convincing 4–2 match victory.
1997
In May 1997, an updated version of Deep Blue defeated Kasparov 3½–2½ in a highly publicised six-game match. He won the first, lost the second, and drew the next three. The match was even after five games but Kasparov was crushed in Game 6. This was the first time a computer had ever defeated a world champion in match play. A documentary filmDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
was made about this famous match-up entitled Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine is a 2003 documentary film by Vikram Jayanti about the match between Garry Kasparov, the highest rated chess player in history and the World Champion for 15 years , and Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer created by IBM...
. In that film Kasparov casually says, "I have to tell you that, you know, game two was not just a single loss of a game. It was a loss of the match, because I couldn't recover."
It should be noted however, that in game 6, Kasparov blundered very early into the game. Kasparov cites tiredness and unhappiness with the IBM team's conduct at the time as the main reason.
Kasparov claimed that several factors weighed against him in this match. In particular, he was denied access to Deep Blue's recent games, in contrast to the computer's team that could study hundreds of Kasparov's.
After the loss Kasparov said that he sometimes saw deep intelligence and creativity in the machine's moves, suggesting that during the second game, human chess players, in contravention of the rules, intervened. IBM denied that it cheated, saying the only human intervention occurred between games. The rules provided for the developers to modify the program between games, an opportunity they said they used to shore up weaknesses in the computer's play revealed during the course of the match. Kasparov requested printouts of the machine's log files but IBM refused, although the company later published the logs on the Internet. Kasparov demanded a rematch, but IBM refused and dismantled Deep Blue.
Kasparov maintains that he was told the match was to be a scientific project but that it soon became apparent that IBM wanted to beat him and nothing more.
Anand – REBEL (1998)
With increasing processing power, Chess programs running on regular workstations began to rival top flight players. In 1998, Rebel 10REBEL (chess)
REBEL was a world champion chess program developed by Ed Schröder. Development of REBEL started in 1980 on a TRS-80, and it was ported many times to dedicated hardware and the fastest microprocessors of the day:...
defeated Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand
V. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world....
who at the time was ranked second in the world, by a score of 5–3. However most of those games were not played at normal time controls. Out of the eight games, four were blitz
Blitz chess
Fast chess, also known as blitz chess, lightning chess, sudden death, speed chess, bullet chess and rapid chess, is a type of chess game in which each side is given less time to make their moves than under the normal tournament time controls of 60 to 180 minutes per player.-Overview:The different...
games (five minutes plus five seconds Fischer delay (see time control
Time control
A time control is a mechanism in the tournament play of almost all two-player board games so that each round of the match can finish in a timely way and the tournament can proceed. Time controls are typically enforced by means of a game clock...
) for each move) these Rebel won 3–1. Then two were semi-blitz games (fifteen minutes for each side) which Rebel won as well (1½–½). Finally two games were played as regular tournament games (forty moves in two hours, one hour sudden death) here it was Anand who won ½–1½. At least in fast games computers played better than humans but at classical time controls — at which a player's rating is determined — the advantage was not so clear.
Kramnik – Deep Fritz (2002)
In October 2002, Vladimir KramnikVladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007...
(who had succeeded Kasparov as Classical World Chess Champion) and Deep Fritz competed in the eight-game Brains in Bahrain
Brains in Bahrain
Brains in Bahrain was an eight-game chess match between World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik and the computer program Deep Fritz 7, held in October 2002. The match ended in a tie 4-4, with two wins for each participant and four draws.-Outcome of games:...
match, which ended in a 4–4 draw.
Kramnik was given several advantages in his match against Fritz when compared to most other Man vs. Machine matches, such as the one Kasparov lost against Deep Blue in 1997. The code of Fritz was frozen some time before the first match and Kramnik was given a copy of Fritz to practice with for several months. Another difference was that in games lasting more than 56 moves, Kramnik was allowed to adjourn until the following day, during which time he could use his copy of Fritz to aid him in his overnight analysis of the position.
Kramnik won games 2 and 3 by "conventional" anti-computer tactics
Anti-computer tactics
Anti-computer tactics are a style of play used by humans to beat strong computer opponents at various games, especially in board games such as chess and Arimaa. It involves playing conservatively for a long-term advantage the computer is not able to see in its game tree search...
— play conservatively for a long-term advantage the computer is not able to see in its game tree search. Fritz, however, won game 5 after a severe blunder by Kramnik. Game 6 was described by the tournament commentators as "spectacular." Kramnik, in a better position in the early middlegame, tried a piece sacrifice to achieve a strong tactical attack, a strategy known to be highly risky against computers who are at their strongest defending against such attacks. True to form, Fritz found a watertight defense and Kramnik's attack petered out leaving him in a bad position. Kramnik resigned the game, believing the position lost. However, post-game human and computer analysis has shown that the Fritz program was unlikely to have been able to force a win and Kramnik effectively sacrificed a drawn position. The final two games were draws. Given the circumstances, most commentators still rate Kramnik the stronger player in the match.
Kasparov – Deep Junior (2003)
In January 2003, Kasparov engaged in a six game classical time control match with a $1 million prize fund which was billed as the FIDE "Man vs. Machine" World Championship, against Deep JuniorDeep Junior
Junior is a computer chess program authored by the Israeli programmers Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky. Grandmaster Boris Alterman assisted, in particular with the opening book...
. The engine evaluated three million positions per second. After one win each and three draws, it was all up to the final game. The final game of the match was televised on ESPN2 and was watched by an estimated 200–300 million people. After reaching a decent position Kasparov offered a draw, which was soon accepted by the Deep Junior team. Asked why he offered the draw, Kasparov said he feared making a blunder. Originally planned as an annual event, the match was not repeated.
Kasparov – X3D Fritz (2003)
In November 2003, Kasparov engaged in a four-game match against the computer program X3D FritzX3D Fritz
X3D Fritz was a version of the Fritz chess program, which in November 2003 played a four-game Human-computer chess match against world number one Grandmaster Garry Kasparov...
(which was said to have an estimated rating of 2807), using a virtual board, 3D glasses and a speech recognition
Speech recognition
Speech recognition converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker—as is the case for most desktop recognition software...
system. After two draws and one win apiece, the X3D Man-Machine match ended in a draw. Kasparov received $175,000 for the result and took home the golden trophy. Kasparov continued to criticize the blunder in the second game that cost him a crucial point. He felt that he had outplayed the machine overall and played well. "I only made one mistake but unfortunately that one mistake lost the game."
Man vs Machine World Team Championship
The Man vs Machine World Team Championships were two chessChess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
tournaments in Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...
, the Basque
Basque Country (autonomous community)
The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
region of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. A second name for the tournaments is the People vs. Computers World Team Matches.
2004
In October 2004, Ruslan PonomariovRuslan Ponomariov
Ruslan Olegovich Ponomariov is a Ukrainian chess player and former FIDE World Champion.-Early career:Ponomariov was born in Horlivka in Ukraine. In 1994 he placed third in the World Under-12 Championship at the age of ten. In 1996 he won the European Under-18 Championship at the age of just...
, Veselin Topalov
Veselin Topalov
Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster. He currently has the sixth highest rating in the world, and was the challenger facing world champion Viswanathan Anand in the World Chess Championship 2010, losing the match 6½–5½....
and Sergey Karjakin
Sergey Karjakin
Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was a chess prodigy and holds the record for both the youngest International Master, eleven years and eleven months, and grandmaster in history, at the age of twelve years and seven months...
played against computers Hydra
Hydra (chess)
Hydra was a chess machine, designed by a team with Dr. Christian "Chrilly" Donninger, Dr. Ulf Lorenz, GM Christopher Lutz and Muhammad Nasir Ali. Since 2006 the development team consised only of Donninger and Lutz. Hydra was under the patronage of the PAL Group and Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al...
, Fritz
Fritz
Fritz originated as a German nickname for Friedrich, or Frederick , as well as for similar names including Fridolin...
8, and Deep Junior
Deep Junior
Junior is a computer chess program authored by the Israeli programmers Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky. Grandmaster Boris Alterman assisted, in particular with the opening book...
. Ponomariov and Topalov were FIDE world chess champions. Sergey Karjakin at 12 was the youngest Grandmaster
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
. The computers won 8.5 to 3.5. The humans won one game, Karjakin, the youngest and lowest rated player, defeated Deep Junior.
- Ponomariov – Hydra 0–1
- Fritz – Karjakin 1–0
- Deep Junior – Topalov 1/2–1/2
- Karjakin – Deep Junior 1–0
- Ponomariov – Fritz 1/2–1/2
- Topalov – Hydra 1/2–1/2
- Deep Junior – Ponomariov 1/2–1/2
- Hydra – Karjakin 1–0
- Fritz – Topalov 1–0
- Hydra – Ponomariov 1–0
- Karjakin – Fritz 0–1
- Topalov – Deep Junior 1/2–1/2
2005
In November 2005, 3 former FIDE world chess champions, Alexander KhalifmanAlexander Khalifman
Alexander Valeryevich Khalifman is a Soviet and Russian chess Grandmaster of Jewish descent; he is also a former FIDE champion.When Khalifman was 6 years old, he was taught chess by his father....
, Ruslan Ponomariov
Ruslan Ponomariov
Ruslan Olegovich Ponomariov is a Ukrainian chess player and former FIDE World Champion.-Early career:Ponomariov was born in Horlivka in Ukraine. In 1994 he placed third in the World Under-12 Championship at the age of ten. In 1996 he won the European Under-18 Championship at the age of just...
and Rustam Kasimdzhanov
Rustam Kasimdzhanov
Rustam Kasimdzhanov is an Uzbekistani chess Grandmaster, best known for winning the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004. He was born in Tashkent, in the former Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic...
played against computers Hydra, Junior and Fritz. The computers won 8 to 4.
- Ponomariov – Junior 0–1
- Hydra – Kasimdzhanov 1–0
- Fritz – Khalifman 1–0
- Ponomariov – Fritz 1–0
- Kasimdzhanov – Junior 1/2–1/2
- Khalifman – Hydra 1/2–1/2
- Hydra – Ponomariov 1–0
- Fritz – Kasimdzhanov 1/2–1/2
- Junior – Khalifman 1–0
- Ponomariov – Junior 1/2–1/2
- Kasimdzhanov – Hydra 1/2–1/2
- Khalifman – Fritz 1/2–1/2
Hydra – Adams (2005)
In 2005, HydraHydra (chess)
Hydra was a chess machine, designed by a team with Dr. Christian "Chrilly" Donninger, Dr. Ulf Lorenz, GM Christopher Lutz and Muhammad Nasir Ali. Since 2006 the development team consised only of Donninger and Lutz. Hydra was under the patronage of the PAL Group and Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al...
, a dedicated chess computer with custom hardware and sixty-four processors (meaning one whole processor calculated moves for a given square ) and also winner of the 14th IPCCC in 2005, crushed seventh-ranked Michael Adams 5½–½ in a six-game match. While Adams was criticized for preparing less well than Kasparov and Kramnik had, some commentators saw this as heralding the end of human-computer matches.
Kramnik – Deep Fritz (2006)
Kramnik, then still the World Champion, played a six-game match against the computer program Deep Fritz in BonnBonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
from November 25 to December 5, 2006, losing 0–4–2 to the machine, with two losses and four draws. He received 500,000 Euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
s for playing and would have received another 500,000 Euros had he won the match. Deep Fritz version 10 ran on a computer containing two Intel Xeon
Xeon
The Xeon is a brand of multiprocessing- or multi-socket-capable x86 microprocessors from Intel Corporation targeted at the non-consumer server, workstation and embedded system markets.-Overview:...
CPUs (a Xeon DC 5160 3 GHz processor with a 1333 MHz FSB and a 4MB L2 Cache) and was able to evaluate eight million positions per second. Kramnik received a copy of the program in mid-October for testing, but the final version included an updated opening book
Opening book
Chess opening book refers either to a book on chess openings, or to a database of chess openings used by chess programs.-Literature:Opening books, which discuss chess openings, are by far the most common type of literature on Chess play...
. Except for limited updates to the opening book, the program was not allowed to be changed during the course of the match. The endgame tablebase
Endgame tablebase
An endgame tablebase is a computerized database that contains precalculated exhaustive analysis of a chess endgame position. It is typically used by a computer chess engine during play, or by a human or computer that is retrospectively analysing a game that has already been played.The tablebase...
s used by the program were restricted to five pieces even though a complete six-piece tablebase is widely available. While Deep Fritz was in its opening book Kramnik is allowed to see Fritz’s display. The Fritz display contains opening book moves, number of games, Elo performance, score from grandmaster games and the move weighting.
In the first five games Kramnik steered the game into a typical "anti-computer" positional contest. On November 25, the first game ended in a draw at the 47th move. A number of commentators believe Kramnik missed a win. Two days later, the second game resulted in a victory for Deep Fritz, when Kramnik made what might be called the "blunder of the century" according to Susan Polgar
Susan Polgar
Susan Polgar is a Hungarian-American chess Grandmaster...
, when he failed to defend against a threatened mate-in-one in an even position. (see also Deep Fritz v. Vladimir Kramnik blunder). The third, fourth and fifth games in the match ended in draws.
In the final game, in an attempt to draw the match, Kramnik played the more aggressive Sicilian Defence
Sicilian Defence
The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the moves:The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4...
and was crushed., losing the match 4–2.
There was speculation that interest in human-computer chess competition would plummet as a result of the 2006 Kramnik–Deep Fritz match. According to McGill University computer science professor Monty Newborn, for example, "the science is done".
Rybka odds matches
Since 2007 RybkaRybka
Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. , Rybka is one of the top-rated engines on chess engine rating lists and has won many computer chess tournaments...
has played some odds matches
Chess handicap
A handicap in chess is a way to enable a weaker player to have a chance of winning against a stronger one. There are many kinds of such handicaps, such as material odds, extra moves A handicap (or "odds") in chess is a way to enable a weaker player to have a chance of winning against a stronger...
against grandmasters. Jaan Ehlvest
Jaan Ehlvest
Jaan Ehlvest Jaan Ehlvest Jaan Ehlvest (born 14 October 1962 is a chess player, who was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1987 and was named Estonian sportsman of the year in 1987 and 1989...
first lost a pawn-odds match, then later lost a match when given time, color, opening, and endgame advantages. Roman Dzindzichashvili
Roman Dzindzichashvili
Roman Yakovlevich Dzindzichashvili is a chess Grandmaster .-Life and career:Born in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR into a family of Georgian Jews, he won the Junior Championship of the Soviet Union in 1962 and the University Championships in 1966 and 1968. In 1970, he earned the title of International...
then drew a match when given pawn and move odds.
In September 2008, Rybka played an odds match against Vadim Milov
Vadim Milov
Vadim Milov is a Russian–born Israeli–Swiss Grandmaster of chess.Following the collapse of the USSR he moved to Israel, before finally settling in Switzerland in 1996....
, its strongest opponent yet in an odds match. (Milov at the time had an Elo rating
Elo rating system
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in two-player games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-born American physics professor....
of 2705, 28th in the world). The result was a narrow victory to Milov: He had won 1½–½ when given pawn-and-move, and 2½–1½ (1 win, 3 draws) when given exchange odds but playing black. In two standard games (Milov had white, no odds), Rybka won 1½–½.
Pocket Fritz 4 (2009)
Chess engines continue to improve. In 2009 a chess engine running on slower hardware, a mobile phoneMobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
, reached the grandmaster level. The mobile phone won a category 6 tournament with a performance rating 2898. The chess engine Hiarcs
HIARCS
HIARCS is a commercial computer chess program developed by Mark Uniacke. Its name is an acronym stands for higher intelligence auto response chess system.-Overview:...
13 runs inside Pocket Fritz
Pocket Fritz
Pocket Fritz, which is currently at version 4, is a chess playing program for Pocket PC personal digital assistants . Pocket Fritz 4 uses HIARCS as the chess engine. Pocket Fritz 2 used a port of the Shredder chess engine....
4 on the mobile phone HTC Touch HD
HTC Touch HD
The HTC Touch HD, also known as the HTC T828X or its codename the HTC Blackstone, is a Windows Mobile 6.1 -powered luxury Pocket PC designed and manufactured by HTC...
. Pocket Fritz 4 won the Copa Mercosur tournament in Buenos Aires, Argentina with 9 wins and 1 draw on August 4–14, 2009. Pocket Fritz 4 searches less than 20,000 positions per second. This is in contrast to supercomputers such as Deep Blue that searched 200 million positions per second. Pocket Fritz 4’s higher performance comes from being smarter and not from faster computers.