Junior (chess program)

' Junior is a computer chess program written by Israeli programmers Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky . They are supported by Grand Master Boris Alterman , who is in particular responsible for the opening book . The multi-processor version of the program is called Deep Junior . At the end of 2009 a version of the engine appeared under the name "Junior 2010 UCI" together with the preview version of its own chess surface called Bobby Junior. Version 12, which supports up to 40 processors, was released in October 2010. Version 13 was released in early 2012. Version 14, called "Yokohama", is currently on the market since the beginning of 2014.

Matthias Wüllenweber (left) with Junior 6 as an opponent of Robert Hübner at the Dortmund Schachtagen 2000.

Junior won the 1997, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2011 and 2013 World Computer Chess Championships hosted by the International Computer Games Association .

In 2003, a program version of Deep Junior reached a draw (3: 3) in a match against Garry Kasparov . In 2006 the program won the World Computer Chess Championship in Turin without losing a game. In June 2007, it came out victorious in a comparison against Deep Fritz with 4: 2 (+2 = 4 −0), although it had a hardware advantage with a 16-processor system over an 8-processor system.

The program is optimized for multiprocessor systems and has 25 million calculated positions per second. A dynamic style of play is characteristic of Junior. The program is considered to be very strong, especially in tactical positions with uneven material distribution. In the ranking of the Swedish computer chess association SSDF , Deep Junior 10.1 is 250 points behind the leader (Intel Q6600, 646 evaluated games) with an Elo rating of 2982.

Up to engine version 10, the program is marketed by ChessBase with a Fritz user interface ; the "Junior 2010 UCI" engine with "Bobby Junior" user interface is available from the Internet Chess Club . Since spring 2010, the official engine versions from version 11 onwards have been sold on the HIARCS website of Mark Uniacke.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bobby Junior (at World Chess Live) ( Memento from December 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Dortmunder Chess Meeting 2000 ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on TeleSchach 
3. ↑ SSDF list of September 20, 2009
4. ↑ Homepage