Frankfurt Classic begins

By Arvind Aaron

FRANKFURT, JUNE 16. The Frankfurt chess Classic has started with the Ordix Open here this evening. The more important battle with five of the six world's best players facing Fritz on Primergy is to begin on Saturday. The threat to humans exist and going by statements of the computer team, there is reason to worry for the humans as their supremacy in rapid chess looks challenged.

There are three phases in computer-human competitions. The tournament mode which is classical chess, rapid chess with half an hour a side and blitz chess with five minutes a side per game. Humans have lost the blitz variety already. The fight for one more bastion is on from Saturday.

World No.1 ranked Garry Kasparov is not competing in computer games. It is more an economic reason, the press release adds. His manager Mr. Owen Williams thinks that there should be millions for that kind of contests. All his five rivals in the Giants Group are facing computers in separate matches.

The danger to humans in these five matches is present, warned Mr.Matthias Wullenweber of Chess Base on the eve of the five human versus computer matches beginning here on Saturday. The hardware is upgraded from 500 MHz to 700 and the processor is doubled from four to eight. In technical terms it can calculate 2.7 million positions per second, up from 900,000 positions a second in 1999.

This is precisely three times faster. But Mr. Wullenweber was conservative with the depth at which the programme will go, saying, ``now it can see one half move extra.'' In Elo terms he says it should be better by 30-40 Elo. He thinks the extra ply is almost nothing in a closed position.

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