2100 FIDE player wipes Hydra off the board twice....seeking his third win

Now my friend Stu Taylor sent me an awesome article about Hydra!! Please read it carefully :-)


As everyone knows, Hydra is the "Kasparov of all computers." Yet Hydra has had some recent failures which put doubt into my mind of its supposed invincibility. For one, Hydra before its match with Adams, was crushed by Correspondence GM Arno Nickel twice with White and Black! Nickel looked like Petrosian playing some 1400 in a simul. Yet for some reason, this significant feat was vastly ignored before and after the Adams match. Not only this, Hydra's slogan "it has never been beat by a human" was totally false! A politcally correct quote would have been "it has never been beat by a human in classical chess." This seems like an amazing feat by a computer until you start to look at things a little closer.

Hydra has not won a game vs. current a top 10 GM (Adams is currently 13th in the world) and the one top ten GM it has played, Hydra blundered positionally and got a losing ending. Topalov was choking it to death like a boa constictor until Topalov got into time trouble and missed a win in an endgame (says the creator of the program Junior which drew Kasparov two years ago). Topalov said that he was more impressed with Fritz 9 (will be released in the fall or christmas) though, because of its positional understanding. Yet Kasimdzhanov gained a winning advantage (drew) against that so who says GM's cannot compete against the world's best computers?

The humilation of Hydra's losses to Correspondence GM Arno Nickel was the least of its worries though. There was a freestyle tournament at playchess site which Hydra was expected to wipe away the competition. The rules of the tournament were simple... there are no rules. Meaning the point of a Freestyle tournament is that the participants are permitted to use external help. They are allowed to use computers, books, club mates, grandmasters. Getting help from Vishy Anand or Fritz, from Karpov or Deep Shredder is permitted. Participants can play alone or in a team. The use of computers is not just allowed, it is encouraged. Almost mandatory. The winner of the finals gets the first prize of US $10,000 and the title of "First PAL/CSS Freestyle Chess Champion". The runner-up gets $5,000, the winner of the match for third place gets $3,000.

Anyways Hydra even had two Hydra's in the tournament which even GM Lutz was giving one version of Hydra strategical advice. The other Hydra (the slower version) was on its own. Surprisingly, both Hydra's were destroyed and knocked out in the first round by GM's armed with computers. It had 3.5/8 points an embarrassing defeat. Not only this, the Hydra programmer is still baffled on how it loses occasionally to GM's with no assistance in 3 min games. Its screen name is Zor_Champ. And amazingly a 1300 USCF rated player and his 1600 USCF brother won the tournment ahead of GM's and Hydra!

Before I get back to the main topic of a 2100 FIDE player (but GM in correspondence) crushing Hydra. There were some main concerns of the Adams-Hydra match. For one many people do not know Adams didn't even have proper preparation for the match. He just came off of a match with Leko and the MTel tournament and only had a week to prepare with Seirawan. Unlike Kasparov's and Kramnik's monthly preparation. Not only this no one seems to mention that Hydra was 3000 miles away from the match itself and was in Abu Dubai while Adams was in London. What was stopping them from using Human intervention 3000 miles away no cameras or anything? Although this isn't anywhere as suspicious as IBM kidnapping and interrogating reporters, witholding logs, guards guarding Deep Blue, etc. it is still a little suspicious.

Okay back to the topic. Here are some games by Arno Nickel with his wins over Hydra. Please note these aren't the annotated games by him because the annotations are like 7 pages long! Please private tell me for the link to the annotated games.

[Event "Corr. Chess Match"]
[Site "Abu Dhabi/Berlin"]
[Date "2004.09.16"]
[White "Hydra Chimera (C)"]
[Black "Arno Nickel"]
[Result "0-1"]
[BlackElo "2101"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. exd5 Qxd5 5. Ngf3 cxd4 6. Bc4 Qd6 7. O-O Nf6 8. Nb3 Nc6 9. Nbxd4 Nxd4 10. Nxd4 a6 11. Re1 Qc7 12. Qe2 Bc5 13. c3 h6 14. Bd3 Bd7 15. Be3 Bd6 16. g3 O-O 17. Qd2 Ng4 18. Rad1 Rfe8 19. Nb3 Nxe3 20. Qxe3 Rad8 21. Qe4 g6 22. Bf1 Bc6 23. Qe3 Kh7 24. Bg2 e5 25. Bxc6 Qxc6 26. Qe4 Qxe4 27. Rxe4 Bc7 28. Ree1 b6 29. Na1 Kg7 30. Nc2 Rxd1 31. Rxd1 Rd8 32. Rxd8 Bxd8 33. Nb4 a5 34. Nd5 f5 35. c4 Kf7 36. a4 Ke6 37. b3 g5 38. h3 h5 39. Kf1 g4 40. h4 f4 41. Ke2 Kf5 42. Kf1 Ke4 43. Ke2 fxg3 44. fxg3 Kd4 45. Kd2 e4 46. Ke2 e3 47. Ke1 Kd3 48. Kd1 e2+ 49. Ke1 Kc2 50. Kxe2 Kxb3 51. Kd3 Kxa4 52. Kc2 Bxh4 53. gxh4 g3 54. Nf4 Kb4 0-1

[Event "Corr. Chess Match"]
[Site "Abu Dhabi/Berlin"]
[Date "2004.09.16"]
[White "Arno Nickel"]
[Black "Hydra Chimera (C)"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2101"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. Be3 a6 7. Qd2 Nf6 8. O-O-O Bb4 9. f3 Ne5 10. Nb3 b5 11. Qe1 Be7 12. f4 Nc4 13. e5 Ng4 14. Bd4 O-O 15. Bd3 Bb7 16. Qe2 Nh6 17. Nd2 d5 18. g4 Rac8 19. Rhg1 b4 20. Ncb1 a5 21. Nf3 a4 22. f5 Bc5 23. Qf2 a3 24. bxa3 Bxd4 25. Qxd4 bxa3 26. f6 Ba6 27. Bxc4 Qxc4 28. Qxc4 Bxc4 29. Nd4 Ra8 30. Rg3 Bxa2 31. Nxa3 Rfb8 32. h3 Rb7 33. Rdd3 gxf6 34. exf6 Rb6 35. Rc3 Kh8 36. Rc6 Rb4 37. Nab5 e5 38. Nd6 exd4 39. Ra3 Rb1+ 40. Kd2 Rab8 41. Rxa2 Rf1 42. Rb6 Rg8 43. g5 1-0