The following events were held in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, October 19-24. They were co-located with ECAI, the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence. We are deeply appreciative of ECIA’s support for the local arrangements.
The World Computer Chess Championships and the CHESS event (Chess History Experiments, and Search Symposium) were generously sponsored by Google DeepMind.
The World Computer Chess Championship is appreciative of DGT‘s loan of their electronic boards and clocks, allowing us to stream the games online.
Pictures of the ICGA Events
Note that there are multiple events in the following photo collections:
- World Computer Chess Software Championship, held at a the Santiago de Compostela University
- World Computer Chess Championship, held at the Santiago de Compostela conference centre
- CHESS event, held at the Santiago de Compostela conference centre
- Awards banquet, held at the Eurostars San Lazaro hotel
ICGA General Meeting
The ICGA General Meeting was held October 23 (13:30-14:00, local time).
- Meeting agenda
- Presentation
- Recording of the meeting [Note: we had a problem recording the video. This version represents our best attempt to fix the issue.]
World Computer Chess Championships
- Posters used for the WCCC and CHESS events at ECAI
- World Computer Chess Championship games
- World Computer Chess Championship website
- World Chess Software Championship games
- World Chess Software Championship website
- World Computer Speed Chess Championship games
- World Computer Speed Chess Championship website
- Ares (Charles Robertson) interesting games
- RofChade (Ronald Friederich) interesting games — including a spectacular finish!
- Shashchess observations
World Computer Chess Championship results
Slide table to the right to see the rest of the columns.
| Pos | Program | Country | Gms | W | D | L | Score | SBgr |
| 1-3 | Stoofvlees | Belgium | 8 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 5,5 | N/A |
| 1-3 | Jonny | Germany | 8 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 5,5 | N/A |
| 1-3 | Raptor | United States | 8 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 5,5 | N/A |
| 4 | Rofchade | Netherlands | 8 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 5,0 | 16,25 |
| 5 | GridChess using Fritz | Germany | 8 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 4,5 | 15,75 |
| 6 | Shashchess | Italy | 8 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 4,5 | 13,75 |
| 7 | Tornado | Germany | 8 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4,0 | 11,25 |
| 8 | Ares | United States | 8 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 1,5 | 2,25 |
| 9 | Tech 4 | United Kingdom | 8 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0,0 | 0,00 |
The title was shared between Stoofvlees, Jonny and Raptor.
World Computer Chess Software Championship
Slide table to the right to see the rest of the columns.
| Pos | Program | Country | Gms | W | D | L | Score | SBgr |
| 1 | Rofchade | Netherlands | 8 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 5,5 | 17,75 |
| 2 | Fritz | Germany | 8 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 5,5 | 17,75 |
| 3 | Raptor | United States | 8 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 5,0 | 17,25 |
| 4 | Deep Sjeng | Belgium | 8 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 5,0 | 16,25 |
| 4 | Shashchess | Italy | 8 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 5,0 | 16,25 |
| 4 | Jonny | Germany | 8 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 5,0 | 16,25 |
| 7 | Tornado | Germany | 8 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3,5 | 9,00 |
| 8 | Ares | United States | 8 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 1,5 | 2,50 |
| 9 | Tech 4 | United Kingdom | 8 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0,0 | 0,00 |
Rofchade won the Championship by winning the tiebreak match 1.5-0.5.
World Computer Speed Chess Championship
Slide table to the right to see the rest of the columns.
| Pos | Program | Country | Gms | W | D | L | Score | SBgr |
| 1 | Raptor | United States | 8 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 6,0 | 18,25 |
| 2 | GridChess using Fritz | Germany | 8 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 6,0 | 18,25 |
| 3 | Stoofvlees | Belgium | 8 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 5,5 | 16,25 |
| 3 | Rofchade | Netherlands | 8 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 5,5 | 16,25 |
| 5 | Jonny | Germany | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5,5 | 11,50 |
| 6 | Shashchess | Italy | 8 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4,5 | 11,50 |
| 7 | Tornado | Germany | 8 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 1,5 | 1,00 |
| 8 | Ares | United States | 8 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 1,0 | 1,00 |
| 9 | Tech 4 | United Kingdom | 8 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 0,5 | 0,50 |
Raptor won the Championship by winning the tiebreak match 1.5-0.5.
CHESS: Chess History, Experiments, and Search Symposium
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first World Computer Chess Championship (Stockholm, 1974), the pioneers of computer chess were invited to reunite in Spain. The goal of achieving a world-class chess-playing computer was one of the original grand challenges of AI. The last 50 years of software and hardware advances have seen a transition from the days when humans crushed computers to today, where computers crush humans. The pioneers of computer chess, many of whom participated in CHESS either in person or online, contributed to achieving this historic success for the field of artificial intelligence research. The emphasis was to bring together the pioneers who contributed in period up to and including 1997.
CHESS was held one October 23. It was scheduled from 14:00-17:00, but ran from 14:00 to 18:00.
- CHESS program
- CHESS presentation (Jonathan Schaeffer — PowerPoint slides)
- Recording of CHESS [Note: we had a problem recording the video. This version represents our best attempt to fix the issue.]
- ICGA Journal presentation (Dap Hartmann — slide show)
- 1977 World Computer Chess Championship movie
In person attendees included:
- Vladimir Arlazarov (Kaissa — winner of the 1st WCCC)
- Don Beal (Beal; BCP; Delicate Brute; Cilkchess)
- Alexey Brudno (son of Alexander Brudno, who wrote the first alpha-beta paper, 1963)
- Murray Campbell (Hitech; Deep Blue prototype; Deep Thought — winner of the 6th WCCC)
- Johannes de Koning (RISC 2500)
- John Hamlen (Woodpusher)
- Helmut Horacek (Merlin)
- Feng-hsiung Hsu (Deep Blue prototype; Deep Thought — winner of the 6th WCCC)
- Richard Lang (Chess Genius, Mephisto; multiple World Microcomputer championships)
- David Levy (Moby, Cyrus 68K, Philidor; WCCC commentator and organizer)
- Tony Marsland (Awit)
- Monty Newborn (Ostrich; WCCC organizer)
- Jonathan Schaeffer (Phoenix)
- Tom Truscott (Duchess)
- Jaap van den Herik (Much; Pion; Dutch)
Online attendees included:
- Larry Atkin (Chess 4.0/4.6/4.9 — winner of the 2nd WCCC)
- Hermann Kaindl (Merlin)
- Larry Kaufman (Rex; Mini; Komodo — winner of the 22nd-26th WCCC)
- Linda Scherzer (Bebe)
- Kathe and Dan Spracklen (Challenger; Fidelity X; Kasparov Sparc; multiple World Microcomputer championships)
- Ken Thompson (Belle — winner of the 3rd WCCC)
- Marcus Wagner (Merlin)
- Burton Wendroff (Lachex)
- Bruce Wright (Duchess)
Other notable in-person and online attendees:
- Mark Lefler (Now; Komodo — winner of the 22nd-26th WCCC)
- Stefan Meyer-Kahlen (Shredder — winner of the 9th, 11th, 17th WCCC)
- Gian-Carlo Pascutto (Leela Chess; Deep Sjeng, Stoofvlees — winner of 17th, 27th WCCC)
- Johannes Zwanzger (Jonny — winner of the 21st WCCC)