Deep Junior Triumphs in the World Computer Chess Championship

I came across this link just by chance at CNET News.com, the technology news web site in the "Resource center from News.com sponsors" section. IBM may have given up on "Deep Blue" computer chess sponsorship but Intel seems to have taken up the void left by IBM.

"Like a pit crew attending to a Formula 1 race car, an Intel application engineering team worked closely with Deep Junior developers Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky before the competition—as well as between matches—to optimize Deep Junior performance on a next-generation Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor 5100 series-based platform (codenamed Woodcrest) to help secure the win."

ChessBase.com has an article on the tournament here: Shay Bushinsky: How Deep Junior Conquered Turin

To read more from Intel about the technology used to power "Deep Junior" click on the following link for a PDF article: Deep Junior Triumphs in the World Computer Chess Championship

Chess Improvement Plan - Part Two: Taking Inventory

The Complete Chess Course by Fred Reinfeld. My very first chess book - which I purchased around 1969 or 1970 (as detailed in my post My Early Days with Chess). My original edition long since fell apart - quite literally - all the pages came loose as the glue in the binding cracked. For some reason I kept "Book One - The Basic Rules of Chess" - I still have that chapter stapled together. The rest of the book was eventually discarded. For nostalgia's sake, I went ahead and purchased the current Doubleday edition from Amazon. (The cover jacket illustrated here is the one I remember - which an Internet image search kindly revealed.)

I don't believe I ever got beyond book five or six. But I am enjoying reading it again - amazingly I still remember some of the example games - rather remarkable considering I last read the book in the 1970's! I'm comfortable with the old "descriptive notation" the book uses (1. P-K4 P-QB4 etc.) but it would be nice to have an algebraic edition.

I'm sure they're better books available today - but there is still a lot of good stuff here.

The Next Big Match - Fischer vs. Karpov !!!

Don't count on this ever really happening... but the report is that Fischer will play Gothic Chess against Karpov for $10 million. What is Gothic Chess? It is a chess variant with a 10x8 board and two new pieces! Check it out (sorry about the pun) at the official site www.gothicchess.com and at The Chess Variant Pages article "Gothic Chess - Ed Trice's improvement to Capabalanca's chess, played on a 10x8 board with the Archbishop and Chancellor as new pieces."

Vladimir Kramnik becomes the Unified World Chess Champion!

Quite an exciting finish! I was backing Topalov the Bulgarian. Topalov is more my style. An attacker - even if it means losing some games - or in this case the World Championship. But it is better for Chess that Kramnik won - it puts to rest a lot of potential controversy over the forfeit win that was given to Topalov when Kramnik refused to play game 5. And Kramnik did, when all is said and done, out-play Topalov. For more on the deciding final game see Susan Polgar's commentary.

October 9th is National Chess Day

Today is National Chess Day by "Presidential Proclamation". With the World Chess Championship down to the wire (see Kramnik Strikes Back) now is a good time to get yourself - and your family and friends - playing the game.

Poor Rook, however, has not been playing chess much of late. I suffered some minor injuries in a fall off of the backporch stairs. But the worst is behind me and I look forward to getting back in the groove playing chess and in updating this blog with more chess items of interest and progress updates on my chess improvement plan.