Volker Jeschonnek

Player Portrait:

• Rating: 2104 (CCLA)
• Residence: Newport News, Virginia (USA)
• Profession: Mathematician, Journalist

Selected chess results:

• OTB: 1986 Troisdorf Open, 2nd place 1990 Bonn Open, 4-5th place
• Correspondence Chess: 1993 half-norm for Master Class with the German CC Federation

My contact with chess and correspondence chess:

Recently, I read in John Nunn's book Secrets of Grandmaster Chess that as far as his personal memory was concerned he could always read, write, play chess and multiply small numbers in his head. He was taught the rules of chess when he was four years old. Well, it seems that there are some differences between him and myself. I do remember my first writing lessons in school and found them terribly exciting. It seems that learning to play chess was not that much of a thrill. According to my father, he taught me how to play when I was about 13 years old. I don't remember anything of that. However, I remember very well the day when he explained to me the Pythagorean Theorem; mathematics appeared much more rewarding to me at the time. In this regard I found it funny to hear that John Nunn has a Ph.D. in Mathematics and that his thesis was on a problem in Algebraic Topology. That's because I have the German equivalent of a masters degree in Mathematics and actually my thesis was also in this field.

But back to chess - I first visited a chess club when I was 15 years old. A friend of mine, with whom I played on a basketball team, invited me to come with him. The chess club in Troisdorf, a town in Germany located between Bonn and Cologne, had a special program for kids. I was curious but, after it was announced that there would be a blitz tournament that day, my friend wanted to leave. He did not want to play me because he knew that my father and I played about ten games every Sunday and so I had some experience. I persuaded him to stay by promising him a draw, but in our game I checkmated him by accident. Ooops. Nevertheless, we agreed on a draw. Although this was fun the idea to join the Club did not enter my mind. However, fate decided not to send our basketball team some people of remarkable height and soon I found myself worn down from playing the center position. Even now I am "only" 6 feet 2 inches (189cm) tall. I wanted to be a point guard but coach had already enough guards. When he left the team I also left. The late 70s and the early 80s saw the great German chess fever which was inspired by Robert Huebner, who after defeating the strong Hungarian grandmasters Lajos Portisch and Andras Adorjan in close matches, made it to the candidates' final of the World Championship cycle. There he met chess legend Victor Korchnoi and lost. I did follow the events closely in the press and I assume that this was the reason I thought that chess maybe could replace basketball. After looking at the thing for a couple of months I formally joined Troisdorf Chess Club in 1980. Three years later I won my first Club Champion title. That was about the time I heard about Correspondence Chess from other club members and decided to join the German CC Federation (Deutscher Fernschachbund). My first tournament was a social event and, after that, I played in the preliminaries of the German Junior Championships. Although the results were not too bad I did not like it and left. In my twenties I tried Correspondence Chess again and this time it worked out to my satisfaction. In December 1996 I moved from Germany to the United States and in 1998 I joined the Correspondence Chess League of America (CCLA).

Some remarks on chess computers:

The matter of how chess computers or chess engines do affect chess and correspondence chess at present and will affect chess in the future has triggered many debates. I don't have any particular thoughts on this - probably because for me they have always been around. For example in 1980, on request from our club president, some young players and I presented a new line of chess computers at a local department store to the public. That earned the club some money and we had a lot of fun. These machines were already a little stronger than we were but that wasn't a problem for us.

Some information on other Humans vs. Computer CC Challenges:

In March 1997, the German magazine Fernschach International (Correspondence Chess International) organized a very interesting event which also features four Humans vs. Computer games. Here, two former CC-World Champions, Dr. Fritz Baumbach (GER) and Mikhail M. Umansky (RUS), play ChessGenius 5 in two-game matches. The pace of play is rather slow and at the moment about 15 moves have been played in each game. Unfortunately, the internet coverage of the event, see http://www.fschach.mtl.pl and click Games, hasn't been updated since 03/27/1998. Nevertheless, the event is still ongoing. In interviews, Dr. Baumbach stated that his knowledge of chess computers and chess playing software is extremely limited and it appears that he does not use these tools (which are legal - or not illegal - under ICCF rules).

Steve Valvo played Deep Thought in 1988 and won one game with White and Black each. His play was certainly brilliant but, of course, there are always some questions. Analyzing the playing strength of IBM's programs is extremely difficult because there have been relatively few games. They did rather well against Garry Kasparov and that is why the public thinks it is probably the best program. However, Deep Blue lost some games which are not that well-known, e.g., against Manuel Illescas in 1995 in only 26 moves

Computer Specifications:

• Acer Model 1254
• 233 MHz Processor
• 32 MB RAM
• 2 GB Hard Drive with approx. 850 MB unused space
• 24 X CD ROM
• 56 kbs modem
• 3 1/2 " floppy disk drive
• 14" monitor