CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER (19 october 2007)
What if your opponent in a game of chess still has his queen -- while you are left with nothing but your king?
Most of us would resign, or wouldn't you? But if you'd play against Fritz-one-ply, you'd better not! Wanna know why? Just have a look at the following game:
Game 1: Fritz unable to checkmate
White: Fritz 8 (1 ply)
Black: GO 1650 L (± 10 seconds / move)
An animation of this game can be seen if you have Java installed on your computer.
After Fritz had made fifty aimless moves, GO1650 still seemed perfectly willing to go on for at least 1650 moves (hence perhaps its name?), but Fritz announced a draw because of the fifty-move rule.
GO1650
This game, which clearly showed Fritz-one-ply is unable to checkmate with king-and-queen against king-alone, was played while I was in the process of making the moves of about three hundred games between all the exhibits of the Overtom Collection and Fritz-one-ply .
Game 2: illegal castling by Boris
Another surprising game in this series was one, in which quaint-looking Boris was involved:
White: Fritz 8 (1 ply)
Black: Boris (± 10 seconds / move)
Een animatie van deze partij is te zien als u Java op de computer heeft.
Although his king had already moved, Boris had the nerve to castle!
Boris
Needless to say Fritz refused to co-operate with this rather obvious ploy!
Game 3: Fritz loses a queen, gets a winning game and ...
In a game against an ancient Tandy computer, Fritz demonstrated that one-ply can be a handicap and lost his queen against this weakling.
"Tandy Computerized Chess Game"
Seventeen moves later, Fritz had the chance to take revenge and win his opponent's queen with 36. Bd6, but decided to capture a pawn instead.
But believe it or not: Fritz got a second chance. The Tandy computer did not realize how dangerous its position was and unwarily captured a pawn on the same deadly diagonal.
This time, Fritz woke up and pounded on the poor queen.
In the first game, we saw Fritz's inability to checkmate a lonely king with king-and-queen. Would Fritz be able to checkmate this time?
White: Fritz 8 (1 ply)
Black: Tandy Computerized Chess (± 10 seconds / move)
Een animatie van deze partij is te zien als u Java op de computer heeft.
Although checkmating with king and queen is beyond his capabilities, Fritz would probably be able to checkmate with king, rook and queen. But lo and behold: Fritz managed to stalemate his opponent and the game was drawn !
Well, from now on, if anyone claims playing chess games between computers is a dull and boring activity, we know better, don't we?
