Zor-Champ wins Freestyle Tournament

by ChessBase
4/16/2006 – In a very exciting final the team of Zor-Champ, located in the United Arab Emirates, took first place and the $8,000 prize money in the Second PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament. The team was driven by the program Hydra, which runs on multi-processor speical-purpose hardware. Second was IM Vasik Rajlich, assisted by his own program Rybka. Report and games.

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Zor_champ wins Second PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament

The final couldn't have been more thrilling. In a fierce last round battle, when the leading team "Zor_champ", located in the United Arab Emirates and running with the Hydra multiprocessor hardware program, had to fend off the attacks of the German centaur team "Ciron". Zor_champ finally gained the upper hand and took the title, as well as the first prize of US $8,000.

The second placed team, with a prize of $4,000, was International Master Vasik Rajlich, who has made a name for himself with his powerful chess engine "Rybka". Vasik and his engine played as a team. Rybka, playing unassisted (operated by Darren DiAlfonso, USA), took third and the prize of $2,000.

The entire tournament with more than 30 FIDE title holders and about 150 participants from 37 countries, was considered as a great success by the organizers. The Third Freestyle event is already scheduled for June 16-18 (main tournament) and July 14-16 (final). However there will be a change in the time controls: whereas the Second Tournament was conducted at the rate of 45 min + 5 sec per player and move, the next will probably be changed back to the 60 min + 15 sec. This is to allow human participants to play a more constructive role when they team up with the computer and compete against the pure engine participants.

Arno Nickel

Final standing


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