susan polgar Archives

Zurich Chess challenge was won by Fabiano Caruana ahead of Kramnik, Gelfand and Anand (23-Feb to 1-Mar).

DD (Door Darshan) is India’s national TV channel and the show will be aired on the following days:
1st Episode – 9th April 2013
2nd Episode – 10th April 2013
3rd Episode – 11th April 2013
4th Episode – 12th April 2013
(All episodes from 11pm – 11:30pm IST)

With all due respect to Mr Vijay, I am not sure who would want to watch a tournament footage more than a month after it is over?!
Fans either prefer to watch it live (or a day late maybe) or probably 50 years later for historical reasons!
Moreover, the air time is 11pm when half of them would be asleep. Just goes to show Chess is NOT important!

PS. Maybe if they post it on Youtube, the videos would get more viewers

Source : http://susanpolgar.blogspot.in/2013/04/zurich-chess-challenge-2013-on-dd-tv.html

Recently somebody posted a video of the WMCC held in 1985! (link at the bottom of the page)

This video is of the World Microcomputer Chess Championship (WMCC) held in the World Trade Center, Amsterdam, 1985! Overall 16 teams participated and it was won by Mephisto! In fact, Mephisto had 3 versions running in that tournament and they took the first 3 spots! (The programs were written in Assembly language!!!)

Mephisto was designed by Richard Lang (yup the same guy who later designed Chess Genius)
Mephisto was running on a 16-bit Motorola 68000 microprocessor (back in those days, my company Motorola made microprocessors! Now it is a “software company”, having outsourced the manufacturing unit to Flextronics)

On the rest day, the Dutch GM Gennadi Sosonko (2550) gave a 31 board simul including 10 computers! The simul lasted a whooping 8 hours and he scored 25.5 – 5.5

An interesting position

Blitz Monster Y – Turbostar K

Position after 61. Kc1

In this position, Turbostar played 61… Rb6? and the game ended in a draw after some moves.

Instead 61… Rxb7!! (Engines like Critter find this move and the winning line in a few seconds! ) 62. Rxb7 f2 63. Rb4+ Kf5

64. Rb5+ Ke6 (64… Kg6?? 65. h5+ and White wins) 65. Rb6+ Kf7 66. Rb7+ Kg6

and the Black pawn cannot be stopped from Queening.

Tournament Crosstable (Top 5)

Rank	Program	Country	Hardware	Score	Games	SOS	SoDOS	Title
1	Mephisto Amsterdam 1	GBR	68020 (32 bit, std. freq.)	8.0	8	29.0	29.00	Champ!
2	Mephisto Amsterdam 3	GBR	68000 (16 bit)	7.0	8	27.5	24.50
3	Mephisto Amsterdam 2	GBR	68000 (16 bit)	7.0	8	27.5	24.25
4	Princhess 6	SWE	6502 (8 bit)	4.5	8	35.0	12.50
5	Blitz Monster Y	USA	6502 (8 bit)	4.0	8	36.0	14.00