Do you think it is possible? It is happening now.
One man against 6 machines. Do you need ESPN to tell you what is exciting or groundbreaking?
Ask the Grandmaster at www.chessfriend.com what a tough match is…
with Correspondence Chess MAN VERSUS MACHINES!

mjf on 16 February 2004. Producing information for the chess-playing public.

Fihankra Chess Collective will know about it.

"How would it be if we would try to demonstrate in a match wherein could lie the small but delicate difference between man and machine in correspondence chess?" proposes Arno Nickel and he points at the new CC server Chessfriend.com (CFC), which offers to present the experiment publicly and live in an appealing form, as if been created especially for this purpose.
--from a translation by Wim van Wugt, of the Netherlands, from:
Computerschach & Spiele (CSS) Vol. 4, Aug.-Sept. 2003 (page 12-14)

On October 1 2003, there began an interesting match: GM Arno Nickel of Germany (ICCF rating 2585) is competing against 6 of the 10 best chess-playing programs in the world. Followed by ChessFriend.com and ComputerSchach un Spiele magazine, he is competing against The Six: Chess Tiger 15, Fritz 8, Hiarcs 9, Junior 8, and Shredder 7.04—but he is not told which opponent is which. He only knows that he controls white against Venus, Jupiter, and Neptune, and he controls black against Mars, Saturn, and Pluto, the collective aliases of these powerful programs. Information on the engines and their hardware are available on the site, for those who might want to see how their machines hold up against the Six.

As of the writing of this article he is facing
the Nimzo-Indian, Kasparov Variation [E20] against Venus,
the Sicilian Defense [B92] against Mars,
the Nimzo-Indian, Kasparov Variation [E32] against Jupiter,
The Sicilian with c2-c3,
by different move order from the Modern Defense [B02] against Saturn,
the Nimzo-Indian, Reshevsky Variation [E46] against Neptune,
The Caro-Kann Defense, Tartakower Variation [B15] against Pluto.

He is annotating the games “live” with a annotation delay of 3 moves
Tune in and see how he thinks, how he puts his ideas together, what he thinks of his opponents’ moves.

You may “play through” the games at the site.

How does this apply to you?
The process gives you insight into a game as it is proceeding in real time. You may watch a grandmaster who has the freedom to comment on his options and opportunities as the game progresses and thickens. If the vectors of the game are similar to some of yours, play through and see where you and GM Nickel diverge, and figure out why you may play your choices, and why he plays his. Then go and PLAY THE GAME!

The match "Grandmaster vs. Computer" will be organized by the magazine Computerschach & Spiele (CSS), represented by Dieter Steinwender and the Server Chessfriend.com, CFC, represented by Reimund Lutzenberger.

- posted by nasmichael @ 12:40:00 AM