CHESS
Victor F
Raymond Keene
Kafka's Josef K inhabits a nightmare city. It is situated in an ominous, frustrat- ing landscape, prefiguring a modern computer-dominated bureaucracy, where all the machines with the vital information go down suddenly, simultaneously and irrevocably. The nightmare for players of chess and other mind games, is not, howev- er, that the computers will go down, but something considerably more chilling.
Last week, David Levy's ingenious brainchild, the 1st Computer Olympiad, sponsored by the Taiwanese hardware' company ACER, was held at London's Park Lane Hotel. Eighty-six programs from around the world competed for medals in games as diverse as Chess, Connect 4, Go, Backgammon and Bridge. In his concluding address, Professor George Steiner issued a grisly warning, namely, that with the march of computers, humans might be supplanted as the best players of some games, while other games would be solved and exhausted by compu- ters. Thus, such games would be peremp- torily abolished as a source of human delight and intellectual challenge.
No sooner had Professor Steiner con- cluded his discourse than David Levy announced that the Olympiad's Connect 4 tournament was not only the first, but also the last which would ever be held. The winner, a Dutch programme called 'Vic- tor', programmed by Professor Jaap van den Herik of Limburg University, had solved the game! Coincidentally, perhaps, 'Victor' is Dr Frankenstein's first name in the Mary Shelley novel.
Commercial chess computers already outclass most human opponents, while the best are challenging Masters and Grand- masters. At the NatWest Bank British Speed Chess Championship, held at Leeds in June, a Fidelity machine defeated sever- al illuminati of British chess, including former British champions William Hart- ston and George Botterill, plus strong International Master Nigel Davies. The machine also took a high prize in the competition, though it gallantly renounced its monetary reward for so doing.
There is, however, still hope. Chess is, in any event, an almost infinitely deeper game than Connect 4, or indeed Draughts, and it is unlikely that computers will ever actually solve it. The advent of machines may, in fact, challenge and educate hu- mans to raise their own chess standards. If the following utterly extraordinary game is anything to go by, we may be due for a chess golden age, as the machines improve and humans elevate their game to defeal their own creations. The winner was the Chief Arbiter at the ACER Computer Olympics, and I am grateful to him for conveying to me, not only his own thoughts on the game, but also some variations 'seen' by his computer opponent.
Deep Thought — Mike Valvo:Kines Gambit; Played by Computer Mail, December 1988 to March 1989.
1 e4 e5 2 f4 d5 3 exd5 c6 4 Nc3 exf4 5 Nf3 Bd6 6 d4 Ne7 7 dxc6 Nbxc6 8 d5 Nb4 9 Bc4 0-0 10 a3 b5!
11 Bb3 Up to here the position is known to theory, but at this point DT tries an improve- ment on 11 Bxb5 which has been proved weak. DT rejected 11 Nxb5 on account of . . Nbxd5 12 Bxd5 Nxd5 13 c4 Re8+ 14 Kfl Bc5 15 Qxd5 Bf5 with a murderous attack. 11. . Na6 12
Nxb5 Qa5+ 13 Nc3 Nc5 14 Ba2 An ambitious move which seeks to cling to the extra pawn on d5 while simultaneously threatening b4 to fork Black's queen and knight. Safer would have been 14 0-0 Nxb3 15 cxb3 even though. . Bb7 regains the pawn. 14. .. Ba6 Giving up a piece to prevent White from castling. 15 b4 Qc7 16 bxe5 If instead 16 b5 Bxb5 17 Nxb5 Qa5+ . At this point, DT looked 19 single moves deep into Black's sacrifice but could not refute it. Howe'. er, DT was also unable to find anything better than taking the piece. 16. . . Rfe8 17 Ne2 Qxc5 18 c4 Nxd5 19 Qd4 If 19 Qxd5 Rxe2+ 20 Kdl Qxd5+ 21 cxd5 Rxg2 with the plan of. . . g514' 19... Qxd4 20 Nxd4 Bc5 21 Kd2 White has several alternatives here to break the pins but most fail to. . . Re4. 21 . . Ne3 22 Kc3 Rac8 23 Bb2 Nxg2 24 Rafl Rcd8 25 Rhgl Re3+ 26 Kd215 27 Rxf3 If 27 Rxg2? either 27 . . . Rxe2+ or
27 . . . fxe2. 27 . . . Rxf3 28 Rxg2 Rh3 Not
28 . . Bxa3? 29 Kc2. 29 Kcl g6 Preventing.anY Rxg7+ tricks. 30 a4 Bb7 31 Rf2 Ba8 White is virtual zugzwang. If instead, 31 ... Be4 32 Bbl Bxbl 33 Kxbl Rd3 34 Kc2 Rxd4 35 Nxd4 Bxd4 36 Bxd4 Rxd4 37 Kc3 and White has chances with the passed 'c' pawn. 32 Bb 1 Rb8 33 B02 Rd3 34 RN Rd211 This brilliant move breaks the back of White's resistance. 35 Kxd2 Rx112-F 36 Nc2 Rxa2 37 Nc3 Rb2 38 R16 Kg7 39 Rn It 39 Ra6 Bb6 40 a5 Bgt and Black wins. 39. . • r5 '113, Nd5 Bxd5 41 cxd5 Rb3 42 h4 Kf6 43 Rel Rh3 Re6+ Kf7 45 a5 Rxh4 46 Rc6 Bb4+ 47 Nx134 Rxb4 48 Re+ Kf6 White resigns. If 49 Rxh'.., Rd4+ 50 Ke3 Rxd5 51 Rxa7 Kg5 and Black's pawns promote, while the black rook will station Itself on the 'a' file behind White's passed pawn to terminate its progress.
Valvo said of this game: 'The slow time rate paradoxically benefited the human player much more than the computer. The computer thinks like a flashlight in the dark. What it sees, it sees perfectly. What it does not see it cannot even make a poor guess at. The positional sacrifice of a piece in this game underscores this point. The only chance humans have against these tactical monsters is long-term positional
ideas. Tactical fire-fights generally are mistakes.'
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