Computerchess (AI) in the Philippines
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Mark Paragua vs Palm Hiarcs 2.6 image from hiarcs.com
After @samostically's interesting article on Chess meets AI, I wonder if there are chess events in our country that involved computers. I remember a long time ago reading about GM Joey Antonio arranging a match against GnuChess, a freely downloadable computer chess program. However when I searched the net I couldn't find anything.
Anyway, I found one tournament where a computer program was allowed to join a tournament in the Philippines. The year was 2006, when computerchess was still in its advent and not the silicone monsters we know now. Inspite of Kasparov's loss to Deep Blue in 1997, computers have not dominated humans yet. But I digress, talking about the tournament, the participants were no slouch.
image from inquirer.net
The top seed was Mark Paragua, the hope of Philippine chess who as a prodigy earned the GM title at 20 years old, the youngest in the Philippines before Wesley So. He was also the first Filipino to reach the high rating of 2600+, a super grandmaster. Joining the tournament were the best and brightest of Philippine chess with the exception of the living legend, Eugene Torre.
image from hiarcs.com
A young Wesley So was also in the tournament.
The computer was Hiarcs, a program by Mark Uniacke from England. It has a rich history of winning computer chess tournaments. Running on a mere Palm 2.6 126 Mhz, a top tech gadget in 2006 but merely a toy compared to today's cellphones and Stockfish.
The result was sobering. Hiarcs won against the field and even defeated Mark Paragua. Granted he didn't play any anti-computerchess tricks so maybe that was his mistake. He played it like a human. Since then, no computers were allowed to participate in Philippine chess tournaments.
image from hiarcs.com
Let's look at the game:
Paragua M. (2617)
HIARCS 9.6 P. (2605)
2nd Congressman Pichay Invitational (7) 2006
- e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6 4. Qe3 Nf6 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. Bd2 O-O 7. O-O-O Re8
'8. Qg3 although this is still a book move and playable against humans, giving a free pawn to a computer in the opening is not a wise choice.
Nxe4 9. Nxe4 Rxe4 10. Bf4 Mark would later repeat the same sequence against Neelankantan, Narayanan in 2012 (1-0)
d6 11. Bd3 Re8 12. Nf3 Bd7 13. a3 Ba5 14. h4?
Stockfish recommends {14. Ng5 h6 15 Nxf7! Kxf7 16. Bxh6 Qf6 17. Bg5}
Qf6 15. Bg5 now Hiarcs is winning
Qe6 16. Kb1 Qg4 17. Qh2 Bb6 going after the f2 pawn, see how materialistic early computers were 😀
'18. Bf4 Bxf2 19. Rdf1 Bb6 20. Ng5 h6 21. Bd2 Ne5 22. Rf4 Qh5 23. g4 Bxg4 24. Qg2 hxg5 25. hxg5 0-1
The report from hiarcs.com site
More about computerchess vs GMs source: wikipedia
Rybka odd matches vs GMs
Hiarcs wins a GM tournament again in 2009
Komodo handicap matches vs GMs
Thank you for reading!
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