Ben Mittman

Computer chess at ACM 79: the tournament and the man vs. man and machine match

ACM 79 in Detroit marked the tenth consecutive year that the ACM has hosted the North American Computer Chess Championsh ip . This year, the tournament saw continued improvement in the level of play by all participants and a return to the top of the pack by the current world c h a m p i o n p rog ram, CHESS 4.9. CHESS 4.9, the work of David Slate and Larry Atkin of Northwestern University and David Cahlander of Control Data Corporation, has now won eight of the ten ACM tournamen t s . U p s e t las t yea r by Ken Thompson s BELLE, CHESS 4.9 went into the tournament a slight underdog but won its first three games and then drew with BELLE in the final round to finish with 31/2 points. The latter was forced to a draw by CHAOS, the bridesmaid of many past tournaments, and finished second with 3 points. Tom Truscotts DUCHESS also finished with 3 points but lost second place to BELLE on tie breaking points. (Table I on the next page lists the history of the ten ACM tournaments.) In attendance at the tournament as guests of ACM were Professor John McCarthy of Stanford University, George Koltanowski, former president of the United States Chess Federation and the worlds most famous blindfold chess player, and Dr. Max Euwe of Holland, former president of F IDE (the worlds chess governing organization) and former World Champion from 1935-1937. Dav id Levy, I n t e rna t i ona l Mas te r

Results of the fourth annual U.S. computer chess tournament

CHESS 4.0, a completely rewritten version of Northwestern Universitys computer chess program, won its fourth consecutive title in the Fourth U.S. Computer Chess Championship sponsored by the ACM at ACM-73 in Atlanta, Georgia last August. CHESS 4.0 was written by David Slate and Larry Atkin, systems programmers at Northwesterns Vogelback Computing Center, with the help of Keith Gorlen, now with the U.S. Public Health Service. It ended the tournament with three wins and one draw (against the Dartmouth chess program) for a total of 3 1/2 points in the four-round Swiss-style turnament.

Computer chess: Master level play in 1981?

Two papers will be presented and a general discussion period will then follow. The panel members are all members of the ACM Computer Chess Committee. The first paper, which appears elsewhere in the Proceedings, is the work of Tony Marsland. It is entitled “A survey of enhancements to the alpha-beta algorithm.” The paper reviews move ordering and search reduction techniques which improve the effectiveness of the alpha-beta algorithm when used in a chess program. A critical review of these search modifications is provided, and a recursive formula to estimate the search time is proposed, one which reflects the characteristics of the strongly ordered trees produced through improved use of the alpha-beta algorithm.