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MacHack's Victim in Revenge 19 Jan 1969, Sun The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) Newspapers.com
MacHack's Victim in Revenge
Ben Landey, who aspires more to organize chess and spread the game over the land than to be a great chess player, suddenly found himself famous last year when he became the first player in history to lose to a computer.
Many respected players have since joined him as a victim of MacHack. Landey took the loss amiably and indeed became somewhat bemused as his name spread throughout the world.
He says his game with MacHack has been printed in a least six languages, and probably many more. Bobby Fischer, writing an article on the game, termed Landey's game a “disgrace to the human race”—no doubt meaning to compare the human race to the “computer race”.
Recently the British Broadcasting Corp. doing a program on artificial intelligence, sent a team to cover MacHack and its creator, Richard Greenblatt. The B.B.C. personnel wanted to film a game against MacHack and, though offered many players, would have no other than the famous Ben Landey.
So Landey and MacHack joined in a struggle between two different species. They played a Ruy Lopez, but Landey left the book on the fourth move. MacHack exposed its Kingside and Landey missed chances, but Landey, playing carefully, got a wicked pin and won the exchange.
Greenblatt then gallantly resigned for his charge. And so the human race has shown that it has great resiliency against the computer race.
We are told that much development work has gone on with MacHack of late and there is some feeling that MacHack needs a new language, not simply a numerical method, for evaluating its moves. If so, the inevitable day when a computer will be crowned World Chess Champion may be long deferred.
Here are a couple of recent brevities. Bill Robertie delivers a rebuttal to Harlow Daly's favorite opening.
Chess Playing Computer 12 Jan 1969, Sun The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) Newspapers.com
