Round about 60 programs in all categories played in impressing surroundings. Computer Chess was placed in a futuristic cave deep inside a hill, Backgammon and Go was played in the Casino Graz. The organization of this event was outstanding, Austrian television, the major of Graz and local politicians were present at the opening ceremony. We got an bulletin every day, there was a fast internet connection, and, and, and ...

Unfortunately only two Backgammon bots had the heart to come: BGBlitz, an underestimated but very strong java engine written by Frank Berger and GNU Backgammon, "coached" by Achim Mueller. As last year in Maastricht, Netherlands, other bots did not participate. Neither Snowie, nor Jellyfish, mloner, motif or other "elder" statesmen of backgammon did show up.

BGBlitz competed with an enhanced version of 1.6. Inside was a new engine and it was now possible, to let the bot evaluate 3ply. Because 3ply of BGBlitz was much slower than gnubg's 2ply (which is actually also 3ply in the "non-unix" world), Frank Berger built in an algorithm which let the engine switch back to 2ply automatically in non-contact positions. GNU Backgammon used the engine 0.14, developed by Josef Heled in December 2002.
 

Both players agreed on the following modus:

Best of five 13-point matches, settings up to 3ply (respective 2ply for GNU Backgammon), self made bearoff databases allowed. At least three matches should be played on Sunday, if necessary, a fourth and fifth match on Monday. For generating rolls we used Franks BGBlitz, seed was determined by the serial number of my mouse. And this was my first error in the event. Never agree on your opponents dice unsolicited!

The contest turned out to be a real battle over five matches with a thrilling final. A quick analysis by Snowie proved, that both computers played on a very high level (if Snowie is the leveling rule at all). BGBlitz scored a 2.064 world class and GNU Backgammon a 1.112 extra-terrestrial over all five matches.

GNU Backgammon won the first match very easily. Final score was 13-4. The huge difference was - of course - determined by a certain luck factor, but also by timid cube decisions made by BGBlitz. The Java-Bot dropped at least three takeable doubles. The most incredible drop is shown here, other will follow in the deeper analysis.

GNU judged this as a "close double/take" and finally lost a gammon. After the game I asked for a time out. GNU Backgammon seemed to be very groggy, and we agreed on adjourning to Monday morning. The next morning we moved to the impressing playing ground in the big cave. Parallel to our matches the "Advances in Computer Games Conference" took place including some very interesting presentations on endgame bases in chess, search algorithms in games and so on.

The final of the fourth match was a cranky 1-2-3-backgame by GNU Backgammon. Unfortunately I missed to save this game, but I remember one position shown at the end of the paragraph. Anyhow it was a shame, because this game would have shown some real weaknesses of both bots. The ending was stamped by some unspectacular doubles of BGBlitz and two missed shots by GNU Backgammon, loosing a gammon and the match 3-13.

A few rolls later BGBLitz found itself with 2 checkers on the bar against a 5-point board, but managed to come back and finally win the game, match and title. Congratualion to Frank, who works now for more than 6 years on his BGBlitz and finally was rewarded with the second title after Maastricht in 2002. Though GNU Backgammon lost, the trip to Graz was a very interesting experience again. Graz is a very nice city, we had a lot of fun there and really regretted that we could stay only for 3 days. Coaching a bot in a "face to face" competition is totally different from doing this at home and almost so thrilling as a "human" match in a big tournament.

The winner of the Backgammon Olympiade and new World Champion Frank Berger.

All matches of this "bot" tournament are downloadable here.