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Bobby Fischer vs Mac Hack VI (Computer)
"Man vs. Machine, 1977" (game of the day Oct-24-2018)
Computer Match (1977), Cambridge, MA USA
King's Gambit: Accepted. Bishop's Gambit Bledow Countergambit (C33)  ·  1-0

ANALYSIS [x]

FEN COPIED

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Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 6 OF 6 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Oct-14-18  AlicesKnight: <MissScarlett, Keypusher et al> I still have my Chess Challenger, in working order. From those distant days.... I regard it with some affection. It was handy when multi-tasking on some long, complicated and uninteresting work-at-home stuff - to glance at the CC for a few seconds and make a response was light relief when on about level 5 or 6 (not 1 or 2 when I agree it played help-mate at times). <MissScarlett> Thanks for the Youtube clip; my version came in a smart plastic briefcase, and has the correct algebraic marking, so perhaps I have a 'second edition'. The little lights on the display flick slowly back and forth as if to say "I'm alive and thinking....", unlike some silicon - cute.....
Oct-14-18
Premium Chessgames Member
  AylerKupp: <<Sally Simpson> I think he is talking about Greenblatt who after this game went onto claim that Humans had fixed World Chess.>

You're probably right, I don't know how I could have missed that. Thanks for setting me straight!

And I also missed that in the past he had referred to Fischer as "the computer". Thirty lashes with a wet tablebase!

Oct-15-18
Premium Chessgames Member
  harrylime: <AylerKupp: <<harrylime> The awful sad thing about this game is not the computer ... it's that we are staring at arguably the greatest Chess Player ever in his prime.>

WHAT !!! Did you actually used the phrase "<arguably> the greatest Chess Player ever <in his prime>." ????? Are you feeling all right? Or are you mellowing in your old age? Please don't.>

Ok I maybe had some kinda fainting fit there ! lol lol

RJF IS the Greatest and this game is pretty historic.

Oct-16-18  diceman: <Sally Simpson: Hi AylerKupp,

I think he is talking about Greenblatt who after this game went onto claim that Humans had fixed World Chess.>

1. Russians fix chess
2. Humans fix chess
3. Humans own computers
4. Humans fix computers
5. Computers own humans

Oct-24-18  sfm: 19.Rc1! At first glance I thought Fischer was joking, caring about an unimportant pawn - but with this move the queen is in severe trouble,and will soon be unable to defend h7 (or h6, as it came).
Oct-24-18  Whitehat1963: Crushing! But wouldn’t most grandmasters have found these moves?
Oct-24-18  Violin sonata: Bobby Fischer played a king's gambit, before this he often playing against it, even he had made a defense in the King's gambit. I'm sure he did it now as an exception, I think Bobby Fischer can be a strong king's gambit player with the positional sense.

I like white position after the move 10.Nxg5, I think it gains the initiative and tempo for white and this is proven after 14.Bxf4 Qg7 15.Nf6+ black position has been pressed. Well played by Fischer.

May-22-19  The Boomerang: Greenblatt? :)

Kasparov beat the much stronger, Deep Thought. Deep Blue 1996, took rounds off Deep Blue 1997 and Deep Junior 2003.

Jul-13-19  Chesgambit: Cambridge 1977 no reated
maybe Greenblatt elo 2100
Jul-13-19
Premium Chessgames Member
  AylerKupp: <Chesgambit> Cambridge 1977 no reated . maybe Greenblatt elo 2100>

The Greenblatt program (actually MacHack VI) was definitely rated. In fact, according to Greenblatt (Computer), It was the first program to play in a tournament against humans and achieved a chess rating, 1243 in 1966. It played under the pseudonym "Robert Q". And according to https://www.computerhistory.org/col... it achieved a rating of 1400 in Feb. 1967. A paper published in 1969 (https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/ha...) indicates that its rating was advancing quickly, reaching 1450 in Apr 1967.

It was also the first program to draw and then win a game against a human player in tournament play (https://www.chess.com/article/view/...).

In 1966 MacHack VI was running on a PDP-6 computer, but in the early 1970s it was rehosted to run on a PDP-10, a much faster computer (~ 500K ops vs. the PDP=6's 200K ops) with much more memory (the PDP-6 Greenblatt used had only <16K> words of memory for both program and data, although it could support 32K). So I suspect that the version that played Fischer in 1977 was a lot stronger than the version that played in that tournament in 1966/1967. Which probably isn't saying much.

May-01-20  wordfunph: simply a mismatch..
May-02-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  HeMateMe: one of the MIT Greenblatt programmers would have given Bob a stronger game.
Nov-13-21  newzild: It says something about Fischer that he chose to mate with the queen rather than the bishop.

In one of his other Greenblatt games, he could have underpromoted to a bishop and mated just as quickly:

Greenblatt vs Fischer, 1977

Nov-13-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  Joshka: <newzild> So you would have used your bishop to mate? What's the difference?
Nov-17-21  newzild: <Joshka> Some players would mate with the bishop just to be cute.
Nov-18-21  Granny O Doul: It shows that Fischer felt the state should take precedence over the church.
Apr-19-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  PawnSac: < Granny O Doul: It shows that Fischer felt the state should take precedence over the church. >

The royal lady just wanted to look into her enemy's eyes as she put the knife to his royal throat!

What do the Klingons say? "Revenge is a dish best served cold" ?

Seriously tho.. Fischer undoubtedly saw it both ways.. just thought it was prettier with the Q maybe.

As for the state vs the "church", around this time wasn't he was still entangled in Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God.. and his heretical teachings? My guess is that's where he started with the antisemitism nonsense. I remember rumors he gave a large percentage of his WWC winnings to Armstrong, only to be disappointed. But who knows any more what was really true.

Apr-19-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  HeMateMe: Why would Fischer have demanded white against some crappy computer program? None of the great players was as insecure as fischer.
Mar-31-23  alshatranji: "HeMateMe: Why would Fischer have demanded white against some crappy computer program?" He didn't. The database has two other games which Fischer played with black and won. The forth game of the match was not played because it was obviously unnecessary.
Mar-31-23
Premium Chessgames Member
  Dionysius1: 19.Rc1 looks weird - whats wrong with 19.c3 even if 19...Qc2? Maybe it's an example of RJF's dislike of allowing even a hint of counterplay?
Mar-31-23  Aminda: 19…. Kg7 is a move of a very early beginner. But there are others like that one in this game. I wonder why Fischer played such a weak computer program in 1977. What did it bring him?
Mar-31-23
Premium Chessgames Member
  MissScarlett: <The forth game of the match was not played because it was obviously unnecessary.>

Fischer wrote: <I recently played some games on a terminal with the Greenblatt program. Enclosed are three of them.> The implication being that he played more.

<I wonder why Fischer played such a weak computer program in 1977. What did it bring him?>

In 1977, it was a strong program. The likeliest answer is that he developed an interest in computer chess. But I wouldn't rule out of the possibility that he also was well-paid.

Mar-31-23  Aminda: MissScarlett, you are quite right in pointing that for 1977, it must have been a “strong” program. I remember playing several games on a PDP-11 around that time. It must have been even weaker. But my point was that obviously Fischer must have seen right away that he was playing against a “patzer”. Why would he bother? For money? For publicity (for his book)? Just wondering.
Jul-09-24
Premium Chessgames Member
  keypusher: < Dionysius1: 19.Rc1 looks weird - whats wrong with 19.c3 even if 19...Qc2? Maybe it's an example of RJF's dislike of allowing even a hint of counterplay?>

He is taking away all the available squares on the b1-h7 diagonal in order to trap the queen.

Oct-26-24  newzild: Fischer's motivation for playing these games?

Probably just curiosity about this emerging tech. I have also played weak programs just for fun.

It's unlikely he was paid - the developers would have insisted on publicity, and the only reason these three games have come to light is that Fischer included them in a letter to a person who was thinking about creating a computer chess magazine.

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