Rebel vs Anand

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main whatisnew download strength features shots subscribe reviews FAQ price list phonelistemail list how to order aegon bench database util epd2diagramj. noomen column DIAZ column misc. older topics comp. profile cartoon mode From July 21 till July 23,1998 REBEL in Italy on the island Ischia played 8 games against World's SECOND BEST chess player VISHY ANAND.

After the two Deep Blue - Garry Kasparov matches, this year we had a new challenge. In 3 days a well known computer chess program called REBEL competed with Viswanathan (Vishy) Anand on the highest level.

The most exciting question was if a normal commercial available chess program running on a normal PC is able to compete with the human chess TOP. Deep Blue (especially in the last match) has proven it is able to compete.

Deep Blue from IBM last year with super fast and special designed hardware (of several million of dollars) hitting 200,000,000 nodes per second (NPS) beat Garry Kasparov with 3ス-2ス. The main question will be if Rebel on a normal available PC (2500ドル) hitting 200,000 NPS will be able to set another milestone in chess.

The Schedule
July-21 4 blitz games (5 minutes + 5 seconds Fischer for each move) and 2 semi-blitz games (15 minutes)
July-22 1 tournament game (40/2:00, 1 hour)
July-23 1 tournament game (40/2:00, 1 hour)


Used hardware by Rebel

A KryoTech Cool K6-2 450 (based on a 450MHz KryoCooled AMD-K6-2 processor) supplied by Kryotech

128 Mb EDO Ram

512 Kb second level cache

Expected NPS (nodes per second) about 200,000 - 250,000

Used software by Rebel

Rebel 10 experimental.

Rebel 10 (experimental) is estimated at least 30 elo points stronger than Rebel9.

Improved search algorithm rewritten from scratch, better tactics.

Less selective than Rebel9, better results.

Experimental ANTI GRANDMASTER software

Goals of the Match

Was the REBEL9-YUSUPOV 10ス-6ス match of last year an accident?

Will the DEEP BLUE-KASPAROV 3ス-2ス story repeat itself?

Is Rebel on a normal PC (no special hardware) able to compete with the World Top?

We believe Rebel can on blitz, but will Rebel manage on tournament time control too?

Interesting questions!

After the natch the conclusion is clear, Rebel is able to compete with the human chess TOP on the highest level!


In all 8 games Rebel played very attractive chess resulting in a 5 -3 victory for Rebel. Spectators said that Rebel played very human alike and that they hardly could believe a computer was playing these games. This was perhaps the best compliment the Rebel-team got since this has been the goal of Rebel since its birth 17 years ago.

The experimental ANTI GRANDMASTER software worked very well against Anand. In all 8 games Rebel was able to create chances and wasn't strangled as we have seen in the past when computers played against strong Grand Masters. No, in most of the games it was Rebel who took the initiative and dictated the game.

Anti-GM is a new exciting development which has a great future and potential. It was tried against Anand as first human chess player and it worked. Anti-GM will be developed further in the future as it is expected to gain even more playing strength when facing the world human chess top.

In about 2 months (september / october) we will release Rebel 10.0 and it will have the SAME chess engine that has played Vishy Anand so you will be able to find out yourself about ANTI-GM.

Because of the REBEL - ANAND match we offer you a free download of 1148 games of world's second best player Vishy Anand including an extra 1582 games from complete main events of highlights in his career.


It is said DEEP BLUE used REBEL as a sparring partner in the trial period of the Deep Blue-Kasparov match. Last year GM Arthur Yusupov said:

In all 17 games Rebel played sensible moves. I never saw Rebel playing one senseless move as I have seen Deep Blue playing some in the recent match against Kasparov.

This year Hans Bohm (International Master and Dutch Television entertainer) said:

Rebel richly deserved the victory and his impression was that Rebel played more intelligent chess than Deep Blue.