Hi George,

Yes, Michel's program was only one week old when it had its first win against Gothic Vortex. I was shocked to say the least, but I am glad it happened, as it lead to the discovery of a bug. The code for deciding whether a Queen + Pawn was better than Archibishop + Knight had a very bad bug. The game began:

1. Nc3 d5 2. Af3 Af6 3. d4 Bg4 4. Nxd5 Qxd5 5. Axd5 Axd5 and Black (Vortex) has given up too much material and loses quickly. Remember, this was played on an 800 MHz Pentium III at 10 seconds per move, these were not "tournament time control" games!

I am not sure what happened to Michel, the TSCP Gothic programmer. We used to play games each night over Yahoo Messenger. Then one night he did not show up. No response to emails. Reinhard Scharnagl also reports no further contact with him. Either he is working in "the bat cave" or he has just disappeared.

I think maybe the other program is really TSCP Gothic in disguise. Notice the programmer is Dutch as well. I am not sure.

Somebody registered their copy of Zillions to play in the tournament. They paid, and must think the $10 is worth the chance at $10,000. So Rob (ChessCarpenter) will be its operator for the tournament.

I am in the process of looking for a way to do a web simulcast, so you can log in and see webcams of the tournament as it happens. More on this as it developes.

I have an older copy of the ChessV software program which plays Gothic Chess. If anyone wants it, I can give it to them for free. Email me (address is on the Gothic Chess web page.)