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Rybka Proves It Is Still The Best

Congratulations to Rybka's creator, IM Vasik Rajlich, for raising the bar on the competition.
Rybka's creator, IM Vasik Rajlich

Rybka finished first in the 16th ICGA World Computer Chess Championship held in Beijing, China with a score of 8/9 with no losses. For much of the tournament Hiarcs was keeping pace with Rybka but when the two engines played, Rybka was victorious. The other key game for Rybka was against  Junior (2006 World Computer Chess Champion.) In this game Rybka seems to be aiming for a Kan or Taimanov Sicilian with the early a6 move. Junior responds with an early c3 and the game quickly becomes of interest to all players who enjoy the Kan, Paulsen, or Taimanov Sicilians.  Below is a list of all the past champions, followed by the 2008 results and the Junior vs. Rybka game. For more information on the World Computer Chess Championships please visit http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/icga/ and http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/icga/event.php?id=37

   History of the World Computer Chess Championship

Event # Year Location Winner
1 1974 Stockholm Kaissa
2 1977 Toronto Chess 4.6
3 1980 Linz Belle
4 1983 New York, NY Cray Blitz
5 1986 Cologne Cray Blitz
6 1989 Edmonton, Canada Deep Thought
7 1992 Madrid, Spain ChessMachine (Gideon)
8 1995 Hong Kong Fritz
9 1999 Paderborn, Germany Shredder
10 2002 Maastricht, Netherlands Deep Junior
11 2003 Graz, Austria Shredder
12 2004 Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel Deep Junior
13 2005 Reykjavík, Iceland Zappa
14 2006 Torino, Italy Junior
15 2007 Amsterdam, The Netherlands Rybka
16 2008 Beijing, China Rybka

 

Results of the 2008 World Computer Chess Championship

Rank Program Origin Hardware Score Games SOS SoDOS
1 Rybka flag USA Cluster, 40 cores 8.0 9 37.0 31.25
2 Hiarcs flag GBR Intel Skulltrail, 8 x 4Ghz 7.0 9 38.0 26.00
3 Junior flag ISR Intel Dunnington, 12 x 2.67Ghz 6.0 9 39.0 22.00
4 Cluster Toga flag DEU Cluster, 24 cores 5.5 9 39.5 19.75
5 Shredder flag DEU Intel Core 2, 8 x 3.16Ghz 4.5 9 40.5 14.75
6 Falcon flag ISR Intel Core 2, 2 x 2.1Ghz 4.0 9 41.0 13.00
7 Jonny flag DEU Cluster, 16 cores 4.0 9 41.0 10.25
8 Sjeng flag BEL Intel Core 2, 4 x 2.8Ghz 3.5 9 41.5 10.50
9 The Baron flag NLD AMD Opteron 270, 4 x 2Ghz 2.5 9 42.5 7.50
10 Mobile Chess flag CHN Nokia 6120c 0.0 9 45.0 0.00
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1
0
1 Rybka   1 = = 1 1 1 1 1 1
2 Hiarcs 0   1 = 1 1 1 1 = 1
3 Junior = 0   1 = = 1 = 1 1
4 Cluster Toga = = 0   = 0 1 1 1 1
5 Shredder 0 0 = =   1 = = = 1
6 Falcon 0 0 = 1 0   = 0 1 1
7 Jonny 0 0 0 0 = =   1 1 1
8 Sjeng 0 0 = 0 = 1 0   = 1
9 The Baron 0 = 0 0 = 0 0 =   1
10 Mobile Chess 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

[Site “Beijing, China”]
[Date “2008.10.04”]
[Round “10”]
[White “Junior”]
[Black “Rybka”]
[Result “1/2-1/2”]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 a6 3. c3 e6 4. d4 d5 5. e5 Bd7 6. dxc5 Bxc5 7. Bd3 Qc7 8. O-O
Ne7 9. Re1 Ng6 10. Nbd2 Qb6 11. Nd4 Nc6 12. N2b3 Ngxe5 13. Nxc5 Qxc5 14. Bf4
Nxd3 15. Qxd3 O-O 16. Qg3 Nxd4 17. Bd6 Qb6 18. cxd4 Rfc8 19. Be5 g6 20. Qf4 Qd8
21. Re3 Rc2 22. Rh3 f5 23. Rg3 Be8 24. h4 Qe7 25. Rc1 Rac8 26. Rxc2 Rxc2 27. h5
Bf7 28. a3 b5 29. Bd6 Qd8 30. h6 Qf6 31. Bc5 Be8 32. Qb8 Kf7 33. Qd6 Rc1+ 34.
Kh2 Kg8 35. Re3 Qh4+ 36. Rh3 Qf6 37. b4 Re1 38. f4 Re4 39. Qb6 g5 40. fxg5 Qf7
41. Kg1 Rg4 42. Qd8 f4 43. Rf3 Qg6 44. Be7 Qb1+ 45. Rf1 Rxg2+ 46. Kxg2 Qe4+ 47.
Kg1 Qe3+ 48. Rf2 Qg3+ 49. Kf1 Qh3+ 50. Ke2 Qe3+ 51. Kd1 Qd3+ 52. Rd2 Qb1+ 53.
Ke2 Qe4+ 54. Kf1 Qf3+ 55. Ke1 Qh1+ 56. Kf2 Qh2+ 57. Kf3 Qg3+ 58. Ke2 Qe3+ 59.
Kd1 Qb3+ 60. Rc2 Qd3+ 61. Kc1 Qxa3+ 62. Kb1 Qb3+ 1/2-1/2

Published by chessmusings

Chris Torres is a nationally renowned scholastic chess coach working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His classes have attracted players of strengths ranging from rank beginners to world champions. A chess professional since 1998, Chris is widely recognized as one of the main driving forces behind the explosion in popularity and sudden rise in quality of scholastic chess in California. Chris Torres served as the President of the Torres Chess and Music Academy from 2005-2020 and currently is recognized as a correspondence chess master with the United States Chess Federation. Since 1998 Chris Torres has taught 6 individual national champions as well as led multiple school teams to win national championship titles. In addition, Chris Torres has directed and taught at 10 different schools which have been California State Champions at chess. In 2011 and 2012, several former and current students of Chris Torres have been selected to represent the United States at the World Youth Chess Championships. Mr. Torres’ hobbies include playing classical guitar and getting his students to appear on the national top 100 chess rating lists.

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