BGBlitz 1.7 won against GNU-BG 0.14 at the 8 Computer Olympiad.....

BGBlitz 1.7 won against GNU-BG 0.14 at the 8 Computer Olympiad!
It was a best of five 13pt match. GNU was operated by Achim Müller,
BGBlitz by myself. We reached Graz at Saturday and found a phantastic
environment in an impressive city. Sunday we started to play in the
Casineum, a part of the Casino at Graz. Next to us were Shogi, GO,
Draughts and so on. Then Prof. J.v.Herik announced the decision of the
ICGA that the Backgammon event will be an official world championship.
Sounds cool!

Well, then the play begins. In the first match BGBlitz had virtually
no chance. No dice plus BGBlitz passed some takes. This was far too
much. BGBlitz lost 4-13 winning only a single game although it reached
in some games nearly gin position, but nearly gin is sometimes not
enough. After that match I turned BGBlitz cube handling to aggressive
to avoid dropping takeable cube, just to realize later that this works
only for moneyplay.....
The 2nd match was closer, just BGBlitz lost again 10-13. The deciding
game was the 4th game, where BGBlitz leading 5-0 lost unluckily an 8
cube. At that moment I prayed don't loose 0-3... and I was heared. The
third match was won by BGBlitz 13-6 and BGBlitz had the luckier dice.
 
The 4th match started and again it looked well for BGBlitz. At 19:30
we stopped  at 9-3 for
BGBlitz to watch the Chess World Championship taking place in the "Dom
im Berg" (Dome in the Mountain) It was a phantastic location and the
best: we could continue our match at Monday in "Dom im Berg".

At monday the match continued as it had ended the day before. BGBlitz
won the 4th match with an doubled gammon (unfortunately the recordings
of this single game were lost :( ). Now the score was 2:2 and
everything was possible again.

The 5th match was mirroring the competition so far. GNU made point
after point, leading 9-3. Then BGBlitz came closer making point for
point and finally leading 11-9. Then the last game started. GNU
doubled early and started a Blitz. Point after point was closed and
BGBlitz was dancing. The probability to loose a gammon and thus the
whole match was nearly 70% when BGBlitz came in at the golden point,
GNU danced and BGBlitz retrieved his 2nd checker from the bar, hitting
a blot. With cautious play BGBlitz managed to bring its checkers home
and did
win 13 - 9. BGBlitz is the World Champion!

An exciting match and it took quite some time for me to calm down. 

At www.bgblitz.com you can find the matches as mat and html files.

BGBlitz 1.7, the version winning at Graz, will be out very soon. As
you can see the checkerplay is vastly improved compared to previous
versions.

Achim Müller is currently analysing the matches and will probably post
an thorough analyze soon.

I hope this was a little entertaining for you.

ciao
Frank