ChessBase Magazine Online

Old URLs never die
04.08.2002 – ...they become porn sites. The The Seattle Chess Foundation was originally to be reached under, logically, www.seattlechessfoundation.com or .org. Then they changed the name to America's Foundation for Chess and the URL to www.af4c.org, allowing the original to expire. The original URL was snapped up by an aggressive adult site which now greets chess hungry surfers. Before you go investigating this snafu you should read a little more about it here.
 

Kramnik on Advanced Chess and Fritz
04.08.2002 – He tried it for the first time – and managed to beat three-time Advanced Chess champion Vishy Anand. "This form of chess is easier to play," says Vladimir Kramnik, "because you have to just find the right direction and the computer does the entire tactical work for you,"  The classical chess world champion also talks about his upcoming match against Fritz in this exclusive audio interview.
 

Checkers, not chess
04.08.2002 – From August 3rd-9th a computer checkers tournament will be played in the Four Queens hotel and casino in Las Vegas. The winner of this tournament will becomes "world computer tournament draughts champion" and challenges the world's strongest checkers player, Chinook. By the way Chinook is also a computer program. Full daily coverage is available here.
 

Forget chess – go for Go
03.08.2002 – Programming games like chess has been a "relative snap" and has "succumbed to the power of the processor", says this New York Times article. "Go is different. To date, no computer has been able to achieve a skill level beyond that of the casual player." You will need to register (free of charge) to read the original piece. We have also prepared a summary of the NYT article with some points of discussion. You can join the debate here...
 

Ancient European chess piece discovered
01.08.2002 – Chess was probably invented in the fifth century in northern India and came to Europe in the 12th century. At least that is what scientists have assumed. Now a team of British archaeologists has unearthed evidence in the ancient city of Butrint suggesting that Europeans were playing chess as early as the sixth century. More
 

Everything about the Karlsbad pawn structure
01.08.2002 – Tonight our GM trainer Dorian Rogozenko will give us a lesson on the "Karlsbad" pawn structure, looking at two typical plans with White – play in the center with e3-e4 or play on the queenside b4-b5 (minority attack). He I will also explain how Black should react to such plans, with lots of game examples from Botvinnik, Kasparov and others. The lecture will be held on the Playchess server on Thursday, August 1st, 19:00 GMT = 21:00 Berlin/Paris, 3 p.m. NY.
 

Human triumphs over Hiarcs 8 – just
01.08.2002 – In the end it was a flesh-and-blood player, Bernardo Roselli of Uruguay, who won first place in the Republica Chess Master in Argentina by the narrowest of margins – ahead of Hiarcs 8.0, which wrapped up second place with one of the best games of the tournament. "It played like a grandmaster", writes our reporter Roberto Alvarez in his final report from Argentina.
 

Fritz tops the computer lists – again!
31.07.2002 – The Swedish Chess Computer Association, an independent organisation, has published its July 30 rating list, based on a total of 87,452 games (!) played by 242 computers. Fritz leads the field. In the last 24 lists it has been on top 17 times. Of the 20 leading programs 16 (including the top seven) are distributed by ChessBase and can be bought in our online shop. Here's the latest SSDF list.
 

Ridiculous, cheeky, brilliant
30.07.2002 – The Swiss national team had already lost the battle, and it was up to Werner Hug to make the final result look a little more graceful. The former world junior champion went to work with circumspection and soon had a commanding advantage. Then came the shock: a "ridiculous, cheeky and brilliant" move (Hug), which took the Swiss veteran to the brink of defeat. You can replay the game here.
 

Hiarcs blitzes them all
30.07.2002 – One round before finish the Republica Chess Master in Argentina has three participants vying for first place. One is our computer program Hiarcs 8.0, which also entertained the Argentinian crowd with a remarkable blitz session. Playing with black in 70 games, and with only one minute for all moves (vs 6m + 3s for the human opponents) Hiarcs won all the games, with not a single defeat or draw. Report on rounds nine and ten.
 

'Blitzky' succumbs to Shredder
29.07.2002 – The Swiss national team is not doing so well. In the third game against our program Shredder the Internet chess specialist Florian Jenni (22, Elo 2525, handle: "Blitzky") played a few inaccurate moves and was defeated. The final game (against 1971 world junior champion Werner Hug) can be viewed at 20:15h (19:15 London, 18:15 GMT, 12:15 p.m. NY) on the Playchess server, with live commentary by GM Miso Cebalo.
 

Shredder digs into the Swiss National team
28.07.2002 – Our program Shredder has scored 1.5 points out of two games so far against the Swiss national team. The second encounter against Jannik Pelletier was a close call for the computer. The games start at 20:15 European time and are carried live on the Playchess server. Read all about this match and on the Biel Chess Festival in our illustrated report.