WMCCC 1996

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The Fourteenth World Microcomputer Chess Championship took place from October 8 to 15, 1996, Campus Kenari, Gunadarma University, Jakarta, Indonesia.

=Final Standing= 14th World Microcomputer Chess Championship, Oct. 1996, Jakarta INA
 * CC Country Codes
 * SOS: Sum of Opponent Scores
 * SoDOS: Sum of Defeated Opponent Scores

=Participants= 14th World Microcomputer Chess Championship, Oct. 1996, Jakarta INA =Photos= Group Photo, Back row from left: Tom King, Gerold Fischer, Steen Suurballe, Jaap van den Herik Wolfgang Traudes, Wardiman Djojonegoro, Gerd Isenberg, E. S. Margianti,  Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, Roland Pfister, Monika Mayer, Martin Zentner, Front row: Markus Gille,  Werner Koch, Helmut Weigel, Reinhold Gellner, John Hamlen, Pascal Tang, Gerardo Castaño Recio
 * CC Country Codes

=Photos & Games=

Round 10
InterChess - IsiChess, Gerd Isenberg and Wolfgang Traudes [Event "WMCCC 1996"] [Site "Jakarta, Indonesia"] [Date "1996.10.??"] [Round "10"] [White "InterChess"] [Black "IsiChess 2.5"] [Result "1/2-1/2"]

1.Nf3 c5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 d5 4.O-O Nc6 5.d4 cxd4 6.Nxd4 e6 7.c4 Bc5 8.Nxc6 bxc6 9.Qc2 Be7 10.Rd1 O-O 11.e4 Bb7 12.Nc3 Qc8 13.Qb3 Nxe4 14.Nxe4 dxe4 15.Bxe4 f5 16.Bg2 e5 17.Re1 Bf6 18.Be3 Ba6 19.Rad1 e4 20.Bc5 Rd8 21.Rxd8+ Qxd8 22.Qa4 Bb7 23.Rd1 Qc7 24.Bd4 Bxd4 25.Rxd4 Bc8 26.Qa3 Be6 27.b3 c5 28.Rd1 Bf7 29.Qc1 Re8 30.Bh3 g6 31.Qd2 Qb6 32.Qe3 a5 33.g4 fxg4 34.Bxg4 a4 35.Re1 axb3 36.axb3 h6 37.Bd1 g5 38.Bc2 Bg6 39.h4 Qe6 40.Bd1 Qe5 41.hxg5 hxg5 42.Bf3 Kf7 43.Bg2 Kf6 44.f3 Bh5 45.fxe4 Ke7 46.Rf1 Bg4 47.Qf2 Be6 48.Rd1 Ra8 49.Bf1 Rh8 50.Rd3 Rh4 51.Re3 Bd7 52.Bg2 Qh2+ 53.Kf1 Qe5 54.Qe1 Rf4+ 55.Kg1 Bc6 56.Qd2 Rg4 57.Qd1 Rh4 58.Qe2 Qh2+ 59.Kf1 Rf4+ 60.Rf3 Bxe4 61.Rxf4 Qxf4+ 62.Kg1 Qc1+ 63.Kh2 Qf4+ 64.Kg1 Qc1+ 65.Kh2 1/2-1/2

Round 11
Patzer - Gandalf, Steen Suurballe and Roland Pfister , [Event "WMCCC 1996"] [Site "Jakarta, Indonesia"] [Date "1996.10.??"] [Round "11"] [White "Patzer"] [Black "Gandalf X"] [Result "0-1"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Bg5 d5 5.e3 c5 6.dxc5 Bxc3+ 7.bxc3 h6 8.Bxf6 Qxf6 9.Qd4 e5 10.Qxd5 O-O 11.Qd6 Be6 12.Qc7 Na6 13.Qxb7 Nxc5 14.Qb4 e4 15.Rc1 Qg5 16.Nh3 Bxh3 17.gxh3 a5 18.Qb1 Rfc8 19.Rd1 a4 20.Rd4 Rab8 21.Qc1 Rb6 22.Rd5 Qg6 23.Kd2 Qf6 24.Be2 Rcb8 25.Rxc5 Rb2+ 26.Kd1 Qxf2 27.Re1 Rb1 28.Rc8+ Kh7 29.Rxb8 Rxc1+ 30.Kxc1 Qxe1+ 31.Bd1 Qxe3+ 32.Kb2 a3+ 33.Kb3 Qc1 34.Rd8 Qb2+ 35.Ka4 Qxa2 36.Bb3 Qb2 37.Re8 a2 38.Bxa2 Qxa2+ 39.Kb5 f5 40.h4 f4 41.Kb4 0-1

=Prologue= The 14th World Microcomputer Chess Championship in Jakarta was a disputed championship. Due to Indonesia's actions in East Timor and elsewhere, reigning World Microcomputer Champion Marty Hirsch with MChess didn't felt comfortable to come to Jakarta to defend his title.

The de facto ban of the Junior team  was another main issue, which caused potential participants evince solidarity with the Junior team - to boycott the championship or withdrawal after already registered. For the one or the other honorable reason Richard Lang, Ed Schröder, Chris Whittington, Vincent Diepeveen, Walter Ravenek and others did not participate with their programs. Other programmers voted for not mixing political issues with sports or were more or less conform with the ICCA point of view.

The field of participants was dominated by 12 German entries, but only one Dutch, which was the program Fritz of the German ChessBase company, by Frans Morsch from The Netherlands and Mathias Feist from Germany. This matter of fact may be caused by Appeal to authority and Netherlands former relations to Indonesia and pronounced sensibility about the Suharto regime and symptoms of Antisemitism associated by the de facto ban of the Junior team due to their nationality. The ICCA felt obligated to fulfill the contract they made with the main sponsor and host, and claimed financial suicide to turn it down.

=On the Ground= The tournament circumstances were kind of tremendous: The subsidized accommodation in the class hotel Dai-Ichi (now Aston Atrium ) - where also the opening ceremony with Indonesian Minister of Education and Culture, Wardiman Djojonegoro and Rector of the Gunadarma University, Prof. E. S. Margianti, took place - was quite luxurious. All participants received Batik shirts as gift and had personal hosts from the university, not to mention the sponsored flights for a (limited) number of participants, the excursion to Bogor, the excellent food between rounds, and closing dinner and whatever else. A minor drawback was the organized bus transfer between the hotel and playing hall. While the buildings, specially the playing hall was well air-conditioned, the bus was not and sauna like. With the consequence that most participants catches a cold from the second day. During the tournament there was a huge local press and TV-coverage. For security, police or military staff was aboard at the entrance of the tournament hall in the modern and comfortable university building where the tournament took place. The price award ceremony was accomplished by ICCA President Tony Marsland, Rector Prof. E. S. Margianti, and Minister of Public Housing, Akbar Tanjung.

=Experience is a Hard Teacher=

Gunda-1 and Crafty
A point of criticism and a negative precedence was the concession of the ICCA to let the host's program Gunda-1 of the Gunadarma University participate. It was a clone of Crafty, which also participated as well. On the players meeting it was agreed, that Crafty had to play Gunda-1 in the first round as proposed by the TD - to avoid possible later issues if it turned out, both programs may fight for the title. Also, no other program should play both. Gunda-1 won that game against Crafty and finally both programs finished 4th (Crafty) and 5th. Crafty had a strong tournament and won some nice games with 4. Bc4 instead of 4. Ba4 in the Ruy Lopez, which apparently threw most opponents out of book.

Operators
Other issues were related to unexperienced operators, not member of the programmers team, which caused Tournament Director Jaap van den Herik to do a lot of hard work and decisions almost each round. Another problem was the missing ability to produce valid PGN by various programs. The most time consuming case was the Heureka versus Schach 3.0 game in round 8, where around move 40 one got aware the external and internal board position in Schach 3.0 was divergent due to an operator error a few moves before (unfortunately the chess boards had no coordinates). On the other side, due to an en passant capture, Heureka was not able to take back the moves or even to start from any arbitrary position, but had to reenter the whole game - which was a bit error-prone due to interface issues and had to be done at least twice until the game could continue.

Amateurs vs. Professionals
The distinction between professionals and amateurs was justified to encourage hobbyists in participation and to reflect the commercial value of the title for the professional programmers likely associated with companies. However, after the "golden age" of dedicated chess computers the distinction became more difficult and the rule applied by the ICCA was a kind of ambivalent due to the definition of a relative income of 25 per cent from computer chess.

Engines like Nimzo and IsiChess were already commercial. Their authors affirmed their relative and absolute low income from selling their programs, which was generously accepted by the ICCA officials. Other possibly semi professional authors, who observed a below 25 per cent income, were considered full professionals by the ICCA. That was true for Marc-François Baudot and Jean-Christophe Weill with Virtual Chess, and Chris Whittington with Chess System Tal and associated with Oxford Softworks, who developed and traded not only chess programs but other strategic games as well.

Quotes from Experience is a Hard Teacher by ICCA President Tony Marsland : In the past, applicants specified their program's category, competing for the Manufacturer's Title, the Professional Title or the Amateur Title. Now with sponsorship money and the provision of travel grants to some participants, times are changing. Naturally, the professionals had not been eligible for support (although it was after all their fees that were partly providing the grants), nor could the ICCA give financial incentives to professionals, since this might be construed as an endorsement of their product!

These conditions have led to an increasing number of participants requesting entry into the competition as amateurs. But the question of who is an amateur and who is a professional has no clear answer. For some amateurs there is unanimous agreement. Similarly, there is virtual unanimity that companies engaged in writing chess programs for sale should have their entries regarded as professional, even for a new program not yet marketed. However, there are many circumstances lying in a grey area between. For example: amateurs who offered a previous program for sale, but obtained little income from it. Or a programmer who works for a company making commercial chess software, but makes a living developing accounting packages. People are likely to have differing opinions about these cases. In the end the decision lies with the group charged with assessing the qualifications of the applicants. As with similar situations elsewhere the decision of the reviewers must be final and must be accepted with good grace. Basically the applicant makes the case and the reviewers give a judgement.

=Shredder's First Title= The tournament was an 11 round accelerated swiss system, the first three rounds were paired from two disjoint groups. The 14th WMCCC was the first victory of Stefan Meyer-Kahlen's Shredder, with half a point ahead of Bruce Moreland's Ferret. Shredder lost against the unbeaten Ferret in round 8, but Ferret made too many draws and got unlucky second place finisher. Ferret's win of the Blitz Title was a slight compensation though. Virtual Chess as sixth, won the title of the Professional World Microcomputer Chess Champion after a playoff against Fritz, since the leading five programs were all (still) amateurs.

=Publications=
 * Ratih Dewanti (1996). Report on the 14th World Microcomputer Chess Championship. ICCA Journal, Vol. 19, No. 4
 * Tony Marsland (1996). Recognition of Local Participation. ICCA Journal, Vol. 19, No. 4
 * The Board of ICCA (1996). The Junior Chess Program and the 1996 World Microcomputer Chess Championship in Jakarta. ICCA Journal, Vol. 19, No. 4
 * Tony Marsland (1996). Experience is a Hard Teacher. ICCA Journal, Vol. 19, No. 4
 * Eric Hallsworth (1996/1997). 1996 World Micro Computer Championships. Selective Search 67, pp. 4, pdf hosted by Mike Watters

=Forum Posts=
 * 1996 World Microcomputer Chess Championship by Tony Marsland, rgcc, May 22, 1996
 * WMCCC Jakarta by Chris Whittington, rgcc, August 7, 1996
 * World Micro Championship - Jakarta by Chris Whittington, rgcc, September 1, 1996
 * WORLD MICROCOMPUTER CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 1996 by ICCA President Tony Marsland, rgcc, September 12, 1996
 * Don and Jakarta by Ed Schröder, rgcc, September 12, 1996
 * Jakarta Jokes (not funny at all) by Don Fong, rgcc, September 15, 1996
 * ICCA Press Release: 14th WMCCC Jakarta by Bruce Moreland, rgcc, September 15, 1996
 * WMCCC Jakarta information by Robert Hyatt, rgcc, October 8, 1996
 * WMCCC / Jakarta information by Robert Hyatt, rgcc, October 10, 1996
 * Comments on ICCAJ v.19 n.4 by Steven Edwards, rgcc, January 12, 1997
 * Re: FIDE Ethics Commission ruling on ICGA/Rybka complaint by Robert Hyatt, CCC, May 04, 2015

=External Links=
 * 14th World Microcomputer Chess Championship from the ICGA Tournament Database
 * 14th World Microcomputer Chess Championship, Oct. 1996, Jakarta INA, CSVN site
 * World Microcomputer Chess Championship - 14th WMCCC - 1996 Jakarta by Mark Weeks
 * 14th World Microcomputer Chess Championship, Jakarta, Indonesia 1996 by Volker Richey

=References=

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