Russian Chess Federation Auction
March 30, 2015
This announcement for the Russian Chess Federation went out this morning:
We are selling one-of-a-kind manuscripts written by the 6th world chess champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, Lev Polugaevsky’s grandmaster conferral, the one-of-a-kind Kremlin chess set, numerous pictures, autographs, score-sheets kept by famous chess players, issues of old Russian chess magazines and much more.
You can see the various items here or copy the following URL into your browser:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/russian_ches...p2047675.l2562
Chess collectors and historians should make a copy of these pages now because the link will be terminated in six days when the auction is over.
One item starting at $900 are handwritten notes by Botvinnik on the Pioneer program.
At wikispaces.com there is an interesting entry about “Pioneer”.
Pioneer, (Russian: Пионер)
was a Soviet Artificial Intelligence project headed by Mikhail Botvinnik with the aim to develop a chess program to model a Chess Master's Mind, also used as general purpose planning tool to solve economical problems in the Soviet Union. Based on a hierarchical mathematical model consisting of square control, trajectories, sheaves of trajectories, and counter trajectories of attacking and defending pieces, piece chains, and zones, and the intermediate goal to win material within a given horizon, its purpose was a minimax best-first search of extremely narrow but deep game trees. The name Pioneer was chosen in 1977, when the program was invited to play the WCCC 1977 in Toronto. However, Pioneer was never completed in a way that it could play a game of chess in public under tournament conditions.
https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Pioneer
A little way down the page is a letter from Botvinnik to Z. Vranesic, the Canadian world chess computer championship organizer, in Russian with a translation added:
Dear Professor Vranesic,
I’m rather grateful to have received your kind letter dated 26.4.77 in which you mention that PIONEER will be one of the tournament participants. Regretfully, we must inform you that we will be unable to finish the program by the tournament start date, therefore PIONEER won’t take part. Please let the world chess computer championship participants and organizers know and wish them the best of luck from us.
Yours truly,
M. Botvinnik
____________
Other items in the auction with starting bid in brackets:
Chess certificate of Polugayevsky ($750)
28 large photos of Karpov in Krasnoyarsk in 1976 ($700)
Shakhmatny Listok 1930 ($350)
Scoresheets Taimanov-Koblents 1944 ($300)
Shakhmatny 1926 ($250)
Scoresheet Karpov-Korchnoi 1973 ($250)
The book Grossmeĭster Polugaevskiĭ, published by Fizkultura i sport in 1982 (Polugayevsky and Damskii I.V.) covered with signatures by Tal, Geller and other players ($110)
and a host of photos, scoresheets and letters. In all a total of 58 items. A veritable history of modern Russian chess at bargain basement prices!
March 30, 2015
This announcement for the Russian Chess Federation went out this morning:
We are selling one-of-a-kind manuscripts written by the 6th world chess champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, Lev Polugaevsky’s grandmaster conferral, the one-of-a-kind Kremlin chess set, numerous pictures, autographs, score-sheets kept by famous chess players, issues of old Russian chess magazines and much more.
You can see the various items here or copy the following URL into your browser:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/russian_ches...p2047675.l2562
Chess collectors and historians should make a copy of these pages now because the link will be terminated in six days when the auction is over.
One item starting at $900 are handwritten notes by Botvinnik on the Pioneer program.
At wikispaces.com there is an interesting entry about “Pioneer”.
Pioneer, (Russian: Пионер)
was a Soviet Artificial Intelligence project headed by Mikhail Botvinnik with the aim to develop a chess program to model a Chess Master's Mind, also used as general purpose planning tool to solve economical problems in the Soviet Union. Based on a hierarchical mathematical model consisting of square control, trajectories, sheaves of trajectories, and counter trajectories of attacking and defending pieces, piece chains, and zones, and the intermediate goal to win material within a given horizon, its purpose was a minimax best-first search of extremely narrow but deep game trees. The name Pioneer was chosen in 1977, when the program was invited to play the WCCC 1977 in Toronto. However, Pioneer was never completed in a way that it could play a game of chess in public under tournament conditions.
https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Pioneer
A little way down the page is a letter from Botvinnik to Z. Vranesic, the Canadian world chess computer championship organizer, in Russian with a translation added:
Dear Professor Vranesic,
I’m rather grateful to have received your kind letter dated 26.4.77 in which you mention that PIONEER will be one of the tournament participants. Regretfully, we must inform you that we will be unable to finish the program by the tournament start date, therefore PIONEER won’t take part. Please let the world chess computer championship participants and organizers know and wish them the best of luck from us.
Yours truly,
M. Botvinnik
____________
Other items in the auction with starting bid in brackets:
Chess certificate of Polugayevsky ($750)
28 large photos of Karpov in Krasnoyarsk in 1976 ($700)
Shakhmatny Listok 1930 ($350)
Scoresheets Taimanov-Koblents 1944 ($300)
Shakhmatny 1926 ($250)
Scoresheet Karpov-Korchnoi 1973 ($250)
The book Grossmeĭster Polugaevskiĭ, published by Fizkultura i sport in 1982 (Polugayevsky and Damskii I.V.) covered with signatures by Tal, Geller and other players ($110)
and a host of photos, scoresheets and letters. In all a total of 58 items. A veritable history of modern Russian chess at bargain basement prices!
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