INTERESTING BERLINER (30 january 2007)
In the autumn of 1977, a young German played against a chess computer for the first time. The machine was Chess Challenger 3. The name of the player was Hans-Peter Ketterling. The game went like this:
H-P. Ketterling - Chess Challenger 3
The game was not exactly an advertisement for the quality of computer chess. The computer is mainly interested in material gain and fails to see the dangerous position of its king.
Still, the fact that an electrical machine could simulate the process of thinking must have fascinated young Hans-Peter, who was an electrical engineer.
Hans-Peter was to become one of the world's leading authorities on chess computers. He has written several publications (in German) about chess computers, for instance in the magazine of chess club Tempelhof. It's very interesting to read these articles if you're interested in the history of chess computers.
Hans-Peter Ketterling
Hans-Peter and his wife Heide run a shop in the Dudenstrasse in Berlin, Elektroschach , where Heide sells chess computers and other chess accessories.
If you want, you can read about a short visit that I paid to their shop last year (click).
And if you happen to be in Berlin, why not to pay a visit to Elektroschach?
