ACM 1974

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The ACM's Fifth North American Computer Chess Championship (NACCC) was held from November 10-12, 1974, San Diego, California, USA.

=Final Standing=
 * CC Country Codes
 * SOS: Sum of Opponent Scores

=Participants=
 * CC Country Codes

=Selected Games=

Losing on Time
In Round 3, Tech 2 versus Ribbit, Tech 2 had a number of forced mates to choose from and 45 minutes at its disposal for the next 18 moves. One beginning with 23. Qg6 and the others, slightly longer, beginning with 23. Rc2. Possibly confused by the multiplicity of wins available, Tech 2 thought and thought and thought and ... finally it lost on time without making another move. [Event "ACM 1974"] [Site "San Diego, CA"] [Date "1974.11.11"] [Round "3"] [White "Tech 2"] [Black "Ribbit"] [Result "0-1"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.d4 Nf6 5.Bc4 cxd4 6.Nxd4 Nxd4 7.Qxd4 e5 8.Qd3 Bd7 9.O-O Be7 10.Bg5 Qb6 11.Bxf6 Bxf6 12.Nd5 Qc5 13.Nxf6+ gxf6 14.Bd5 Bc8 15.Rfe1 O-O 16.Re3 a5 17.Rae1 h5 18.Rg3+ Kh7 19.Qf3 Bg4 20.Qxf6 Qb4 21.Rc3 Qxb2 22.Bxf7 d5 0-1 {time}

Winning with the Lone King
Round 4, Duchess vs. T. Belle [Event "ACM 1974"] [Site "San Diego, CA"] [Date "1974.11.12"] [Round "4"] [White "Duchess"] [Black "T. Belle"] [Result "0-1"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4+ 7.Bd2 Bxd2+ 8.Nbxd2 d5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Qb3 Nce7 11.O-O O-O 12.Rfe1 c6 13.a4 Qb6 14.Qxb6 axb6 15.Re5 Bd7 16.Bd3 c5 17.b3 b5 18.dxc5 bxa4 19.Rae1 axb3 20.Nxb3 Rfe8 21.Nbd4 f6 22.R5e4 Nc6 23.Bc4 Ncb4 24.Re7 Rxe7 25.Rxe7 Ra1+ 26.Ne1 h5 27.Nb3 Kf8 28.Re2 Ra8 29.Nc2 h4 30.Rd2 Nxc2 31.Bxd5 Re8 32.g3 h3 33.Rd1 Bc6 34.Bxc6 bxc6 35.Na5 Nd4 36.Kf1 Nf3 37.Nxc6 Kg8 38.Rd8 Rxd8 39.Nxd8 Kf8 40.Ne6+ Kf7 41.Nf4 Ke7 42.Ke2 Nxh2 43.Nxh3 Kd7 44.Nf4 Ng4 45.Nd3 Kc6 46.f3 Ne5 47.Nxe5+ fxe5 48.Ke3 Kxc5 49.Ke4 Kd6 50.Kf5 Kd7 51.Kxe5 Kc6 52.Kf5 Kb7 53.Kg6 Kb6 54.Kxg7 Kb7 55.Kf6 Kb6 56.f4 Kb7 57.f5 Kb6 58.Ke5 Kb7 59.f6 Kb6 0-1 Game and analysis from Lichess

Quote from Michael and Ronda Hauben's netbook Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet :

Following is Truscott's description of his first tournament (with Duchess ed.) and how he met one of the most respected programmers in the Unix community during that tournament. Truscott writes:


 * There were twelve teams competing in the tournament. We were on a stage in a large room with seating for spectators. Each team had a computer terminal (something like a dot-matrix printer with a keyboard in front and an acousticmodem on the back). And a telephone. Boy were those phone calls expensive. But the ACM was picking up the tab, and Duke was giving us the computer time. At the 1974 tournament, we knocked off MIT's TECH-II in the first round. They had come in second the previous year, and we were a newcomer, so that was something of an upset. In the second round we got clobbered by the perennial champ, CHESS 4.0 from Northwestern University. In the third (fourth ed.) round we played Bell Labs' Belle. It was called T. Belle at that point. I had met the author earlier, before the second round, when he showed me how good his program was at solving mating problems. I wasn't that interested in chess, but humored him while he pulled a chess position out of a library and had the program find a mate in 5 (or some such). I guess if I actually played chess I would have been impressed.


 * So when the third round began, Bruce Wright and I were on one side of a table, and Ken Thompson and someone else from Bell Labs (who years later I realized was Brian Kernighan), were on the other. I noticed that when Ken Thompson logged on, the Bell Labs computer printed:


 * Chess tonight, please don't compute.


 * I mentioned that that was really neat to be able to get the comp center to put out a notice like that. He said something non-commital in response. So the game began. A few hours and a few thousand dollars later we really had Belle on the ropes. All it had left was a lone king and we were about to queen a pawn! But then our program ABENDed (core dumped) in a way that caused the phone line to drop. We dialed back in and set things up, same thing. Every so often it would actually make a move. But making the phone call was slow (we had to ask for an outside line from the hotel operator) and painful (rotary dial you know) and eventually our program lost on time.

After the tournament was over, Truscott and Wright examined what had happened and they observed that the problem was not with their program, but rather with a bug in the TSO operating system on their mainframe. "Thus was our mighty mainframe slain by a minicomputer," he admitted, as they had lost the competition because the operating system of their mainframe computer had proven inferior to the operating system of the mini computer used by the Bell Labs Team. "But I didn't realize it was UNIX," Truscott recalls, noting that the victory went to the Bell Labs team and their mini computer because of the power of the Unix operating system.

Battle for First Place
Ribbit vs Chess 4.2 [Event "ACM 1974"] [Site "San Diego, CA"] [Date "1974.11.12"] [Round "4"] [White "Ribbit"] [Black "Chess 4.0"] [Result "1-0"]

1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 cxd4 5.cxd4 Nc6 6.Nf3 Bg4 7.Nc3 Qd6 8.d5 Nb4 9.Bb5+ Bd7 10.Bxd7+ Kxd7 11.Be3 Qa6 12.Ne5+ Ke8 13.a3 Qd6 14.Qa4+ Nc6 15.dxc6 bxc6 16.Nxc6 e5 17.Nxa7+ Qd7 18.Qxd7+ Kxd7 19.Rd1+ Ke6 20.O-O Nf6 21.b4 Be7 22.h3 h5 23.Rfe1 h4 24.Rd3 e4 25.Bd4 Rhe8 26.Bxf6 Bxf6 27.Rxe4+ Kf5 28.Rxe8 Rxe8 29.g4+ hxg3 30.fxg3 Re1+ 31.Kf2 Rc1 32.g4+ Kg6 33.Ne4 Be5 34.b5 Rc2+ 35.Kf3 Rh2 36.Nf2 Bf6 37.Rd6 Kh7 38.Rd5 Bb2 39.Kg3 Rxf2 40.Kxf2 Bxa3 41.b6 Bc1 42.b7 Bf4 43.Nc6 Bc7 44.Rd7 Bf4 45.Rxf7 Bd6 46.b8=Q Bxb8 47.Nxb8 Kg6 48.Rf5 Kh6 49.Nd7 g6 50.Rf6 Kg5 51.Kg3 Kh6 52.Ne5 Kg7 53.g5 Kg8 54.Nxg6 Kh7 55.h4 Kg8 56.h5 Kg7 57.h6+ Kh7 58.Ne5 Kh8 59.g6 Kg8 60.Kg4 Kh8 61.Rf8# 1-0 Game and analysis from Lichess

=See also=
 * Scotch versus Vodka - one of David Levy's bets
 * WCCC 1974

=Reports=
 * Jack R. Buchanan (1974). Chess. ACM SIGART Bulletin, No. 49, DeepDyve
 * Ben Mittman (1977). A Brief History of Computer Chess Tournaments: 1970-1975. in Peter W. Frey (ed.) Chess Skill in Man and Machine

=External Links=
 * ACM 1974 CSVN site

=References=

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