The last time we looked at computer chess news, Junior had just won the 12th World Computer Chess Championship. Since then we've had the Hydra - Shredder match and a spate of announcements about online play events. Slashdot.org ('News for nerds. Stuff that matters.') provides news on these events, links to related sites, and informed commentary of particular interest to the computer chess community.

From Slashdot.org:

• World Computer Chess Championships Underway • 'While the FIDE World Championships for human players in Tripoli, Libya are down to the last two contestants, the computers are playing their own 12th World Computer Chess Championship in Ramat-Gan, Israel' [6 July]
  
  
• Hydra vs. Shredder • 'The powerful computer chess engine Hydra, running on a sixteen-way Linux cluster, is taking on the many times world champion engine Shredder in a match between the two chess super computers in Abu Dhabi' [15 August] • Hydra won.
  
  
• Internet Chess Club Security Defeated • 'Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have been able to defeat the security mechanisms of the Internet Chess Club and can effectively play a zero-time match, as well as have complete control over the game.' [8 September]
  
  

Other events:

• Festival Internacional de Ajedrez "Villa de Bilbao", 6-9 October, Bilbao, Spain. • One of the events scheduled is the 1st World-Wide Team Championship People vs. Computers, featuring GMs Sergey Karjakin, Ruslan Ponomariov, and Veselin Topalov against computer chess powerhouses Fritz, Hydra, and Junior.
  
  
• Internet Scholastic Chess Championship (ISCC) • 'The ISCC will be the largest and most lucrative student chess tournament online, and it all happens at the #1 internet chess community WorldChessNetwork.com!'
  
  
• InstantChess.com Offers Free Membership to School Chess Clubs • 'InstantChess.com, a popular Internet chess club based out of Moscow, announced today that it is celebrating International World Peace Day by offering free membership to all school chess clubs. This offer is good for all colleges, universities, high schools, and middle schools.'
  
  

Previous report : Elsewhere on the Web 17 July 2004.