Zappa

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Zappa, an UCI compliant chess program developed by Anthony Cozzie. Zappa won the WCCC 2005 in Reykjavík, and after the Rybka disqualification in 2011 the WCCC 2007 in Amsterdam, the DOCCC 2005 and CCT7.During the World Chess Championship 2007 in Mexico City, September 2007, Zappa played a match versus Rybka and scored 5.5 / 10 to win the match. Zappa's book authors for different events were Arturo Ochoa (CCT7) and Erdogan Günes.

=Photos= Anthony Cozzie before round 7, Zappa - Junior, WCCC 2005 Zappa Team, Anthony Cozzie and Erdogan Günes, Closing Dinner WCCC 2006, Turin

=Etymology= Zappa is not directly named for Frank Zappa, but from a scene from Austin Powers 2, where Dr. Evil's base in the moon is divided in two units: Moon Unit Alpha and Moon Unit Zappa - the latter being the name of Frank Zappa's daughter, Moon Unit Zappa.

=Strictly Commercial= Immediately after the successful WCCC 2005, there were plans to commercialize Zappa. First attempts with Vincent Diepeveen involved failed. In April 2006, a commercial version dubbed Zap!Chess running under the Fritz GUI was released by ChessBase. The version which played the Rybka match, Zappa Mexico, is distributed by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen.

Quote from No Commercial Potential : The Saga of Frank Zappa (1972) by David Walley, p. 4  :

=Program Internals=

Board Representation
Zappa utilizes bitboards and uses rotated bitboards to generate sliding attacks on the fly. Anthony once experimented with incremental updated attack tables, which was a win on 32-bit systems.

Hash Collisions
Excerpt from The Effect of Hash Signature Collisions in a Chess Program, that is Crafty and Zappa : Both programs are traditional computer chess programs that use the alpha/beta algorithm to search a minimax game tree. The search is done in three distinct phases.

Phase 1 is the normal full-width search that is done to some fixed depth as limited by the total time allowed for a move. This fixed-depth search is modified by various search extensions.

Phase 2 is an add-on search done after the basic search has reached a satisfactory depth. Phase 2 only considers captures in Crafty, while Zappa also includes some checking moves.

Phase 3 is the static evaluation, which takes the current position after phase 2 has completed, and computes a numerical score based on the material, the locations of the pieces, pawn structure, and many other positional considerations. In Crafty/Zappa, all of the hashing is done in phase1 of the search, there is no hashing in the quiescence search.

Singular Extensions
Zap!Chess, the commercial ChessBase version, has an implementation of Singular Extensions, the famous Deep Blue search algorithm. They are disabled by default, but they increase the tactical strength of the program at the cost of positional strength.

Parallel Search
Zappa was designed to run on multiple processors and massive parallel systems using shared memory and threads and has an efficient parallel search. Zappa Mexico can be used on Windows or Linux computers with up to 512 CPU cores.

=100% Finished= In March 2008 Anthony Cozzie announced that "the Zappa project is 100% finished", which includes both tournaments and future releases.

=Rondo= In 2010, Zach Wegner started to work with Anthony Cozzie, who, still in computer chess retirement, has given control for further development of his massive parallel program, now called Rondo, to Zach.

=See also=
 * Rondo

=Publications=
 * The Editor (2005). ZAPPA Wins the Computer-Chess Tournament 7. ICGA Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2 » CCT7
 * Robert Hyatt, Anthony Cozzie (2005). The Effect of Hash Signature Collisions in a Chess Program. ICGA Journal, Vol. 28, No. 3
 * Anthony Cozzie (2007). Zappa vs. Rybka. ICGA Journal, Vol. 30, No. 4
 * Monty Newborn (2011). Beyond Deep Blue: Chess in the Stratosphere. Springer, ISBN-13: 978-0857293404, amazon
 * [[FILE:bejDeepBlue.jpg|none|border|text-bottom|link=http://www.springer.com/computer/general+issues/book/978-0-85729-340-4]]
 * Chapter 9: 2005: Zappa Red Hot at 13th WCCC, page 119
 * Chapter 14: 2007: Zappa Upsets Rybka in Mexico City, 5.5–4.5, page 169

=Forum Posts=

2003

 * Zappa CCT5 Report by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, January 21, 2003 » CCT5

2004

 * Zappa @ CCT6 by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, February 01, 2004 » CCT6
 * The Zappa Attack Table Code by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, May 05, 2004

2005 ...

 * Zappa 1.0 released by Volker Pittlik, CCC, February 22, 2005
 * Zappa - TCB 1-0 by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 14, 2005 » WCCC 2005
 * Sjeng-Zappa by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 14, 2005
 * FUTE-Zappa by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 15, 2005
 * Zappa=Fruit live by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 15, 2005
 * Zappa - Jonny 1-0 by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 16, 2005
 * The Baron - Zappa 0-1 by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 18, 2005
 * Zappa - Junior by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 19, 2005
 * Zappa-Isichess by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 19, 2005
 * Shredder-Zappa by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 20, 2005
 * Zappa - Crafty by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 20, 2005
 * Diep-Zappa by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 21, 2005
 * Zappa scaling #s by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 23, 2005
 * Zappa web update & a few other things by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, August 27, 2005
 * Zappa commercial and available in september by Thomas Logan, CCC, August 27, 2005
 * Re: Zappa Retail: No UCI? by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, September 04, 2005
 * Zappa UCI: You are all a bunch of HYPOCRITES by Gian-Carlo Pascutto, CCC, September 04, 2005
 * I will not buy Zappa and Sjeng by Sandro Necchi, CCC, September 06, 2005
 * Zappa 1.1 by Ernst Walet, CCC, September 14, 2005
 * Re: what do we know about zappa by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, December 12, 2005
 * Zappa Hardware Upgrade by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, December 23, 2005
 * Zappa Report by Anthony Cozzie, CCC, December 30, 2005 » IPCCC 2005 b
 * Re: Zappa Report by Ingo Althöfer, CCC, December 30, 2005

2006 2007 2008 ...
 * Zappa? by James T. Walker, CCC, January 27, 2006
 * Zappa Mexico UCI going commercial by Kaj Soderberg, CCC, September 09, 2007
 * Zappa V Rybka Mexico 2007 - Zappa wins 5.5-4.5 - The Games by Harvey Williamson, Hiarcs Forum, September 27, 2007
 * bad news from zappa ... by Powell, CCC, Mar 09, 2008

2010 ...

 * info about zappa on 512 cores ? by Daniel Shawul, CCC, June 23, 2012
 * Threads-Test - SF, Zappa, Komodo - 1 vs. 2, 4, 8, 16 Threads by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, May 04, 2014 » Thread, Stockfish, Zappa, Komodo
 * Threads factor: Komodo, Houdini, Stockfish and Zappa by Andreas Strangmüller, CCC, May 17, 2014 » Thread, Komodo, Houdini, Stockfish, Zappa

2015 ...

 * Empirical results with Lazy SMP, YBWC, DTS by Kai Laskos, CCC, April 16, 2015 » Lazy SMP, YBWC, DTS
 * What is the secret of Zappa? by Frank Quisinsky, CCC, September 11, 2016

=External Links=

Zappa Chess

 * Zappa Chess Engine
 * Zappa's ICGA Tournaments
 * Zappa (chess) from Wikipedia
 * The chess games of Zappa (Computer) from chessgames.com
 * World Computer Chess Champion: Zap!Chess, ChessBase News, April 13, 2006
 * Man vs Machine, Zap!Chess vs Erwin L'Ami 1-1 by Eric van Reem, ChessBase News, March 08, 2007 » Jos Uiterwijk
 * Zappa Mexico II available now from shredderchess.com

Zappa

 * Frank Zappa from Wikipedia
 * Moon Zappa from Wikipedia
 * Dweezil Zappa from Wikipedia
 * Frank Zappa - Wikiquote
 * The Mothers of Invention from Wikipedia
 * Zappanale from Wikipedia
 * Zappa Wiki Jawaka!
 * (3834) Zappafrank (Planet)
 * 3834 Zappafrank from Wikipedia
 * Pachygnatha Zappa from Wikipedia
 * Zappa confluentus from Wikipedia
 * Frank Zappa - The Ocean Is the Ultimate Solution (1979), YouTube Video
 * lineup: Frank Zappa, Patrick O'Hearn, Terry Bozzio, George Duke, Bruce Fowler, Chester Thompson, Ruth Underwood

=References=

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