World Computer Chess Championship

WCCC and the Computer Olympiad to take place in Pamplona

The XVII World Computer Chess Championship will take place 11-18 May, 2009, in Pamplona, Spain. The championship will be part of the International Week of Computation which will be held in Palacio del Condestable. Other events include the Advances in Computer Games conference, the XIV Computer Olympiad (with the modalities of Chinese Chess, Go, Checkers, Hex, etc.), and many additional seminars.

The official opening is on Monday 11.30 hours, in the playing hall.

Participants

There will be 10 participants in the XVII World Computer Chess Championship. The favorites are Rybka (USA), Junior (Israel), and Hiarcs (Great Britain). Last seeded are The Baron (NED) and Deep Sjreng (Belgium). Here is the full list.

1. Rybka
2. Hiarcs
3. Junior
4. Pandix 2009
5. Shredder
6. Equinox
7. Jonny
8. Joker
9. The Baron
10. Deep Sjreng

The last two events were dominated by the current world chess champion Rybka. In both events there were not many participants (10 in Beijing 2008 and 12 in Amsterdam 2007). The event with most participants so far was the 1999 Paderborn championship with 30 participants. If you ever wondered how many programs are there, here is a comprehensive list of computer chess programs.

All winners by year

1. 1974, Stockholm, Kaissa
2. 1977, Toronto, Chess 4.6
3. 1980, Linz, Belle
4. 1983, New York, Cray Blitz
5. 1986, Cologne, Cray Blitz
6. 1989, Edmonton, Canada, Deep Thought
7. 1992, Madrid, Spain, ChessMachine (Gideon)
8. 1995, Hong Kong, Fritz
9. 1999, Paderborn, Germany, Shredder
10. 2002, Maastricht, Netherlands, Deep Junior
11. 2003, Graz, Austria, Shredder
12. 2004, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, Deep Junior
13. 2005, Reykjavík, Iceland, Zappa
14. 2006, Torino, Italy, Junior
15. 2007, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Rybka
16. 2008, Beijing, China Rybka

More about the XVII World Computer Chess Championship

Official website

Live games

Interview with Rybka (fun)

Newly opened computer chess forum