Junior Wins Computer Chess, Fritz Crashes Out

bryan writes "'Junior' has regained the title of best computer chess program for 2004. Deep Junior previously drew Gary Kasparov 3-3 last year. From chessbase.com: 'Two programs went into the final round with equal scores: title defender Shredder and the home team of Junior. Interestingly it was another Israeli program that brought Junior the overall victory: Falcon held Shredder to a draw, while Junior demolished ParSOS.'" But, more interestingly: "The other favourite in the field, Fritz, did not have a good tournament. In round three it lost a very promising position against Falcon on time, when the computer froze and the operator did not notice this soon enough."

Comments

Re:OPerator error?

[nacturation]

Wait... they are allowing operators in what is basically an AI competition between machines? AI non-self-recoverable crash => game loss, no exceptions!

As long as the operator isn't making suggestions, I don't see a problem with that. It would be like Kasparov having a guy whose sole job is to elbow him in the ribs if he falls asleep during a game.