What Happened In 1999?

     Well, let’s get off the bleak subject of chess being played during war and flu pandemics and move on to a happier time, the year 1999. 
     Come to think of it, maybe 1999 wasn’t such a happy year in chess either. History of sorts was made with a big cheating scandal. Also, the world lost a number of players. 

February 24th: Catharina Roodzant, 3-time winner of the women's Dutch championship. March 22nd: Fan Adams, chess patron and organizer. April 13th: Ortvin Sarapu, 20-time New Zealand champion. May 17th: GM Lembit Oll ) committed suicide by jumping out of a 5th floor window of his apartment in Tallinn at the age of 33. He suffered from severe depression after his wife divorced him. September 11th: Francisco Perez, Spanish/Cuban master. September 17th: Gary Koshnitsky an Australian master. November 11th: Lodewijk Prins of The Netherlands at the age of 86. 

     The big scare that year was the Y2K Bug, also called Year 2000 Bug or Millennium Bug. It’s funny now, but things were panicky at the time. It was supposed to be a problem in the coding of computerized systems of every kind that was going to create havoc in computers and computer networks around the world at the beginning of the year 2000. 
     Nothing was going to work, cars wouldn’t start and even garage door openers wouldn’t work. Elevators, temperature control systems, medical equipment...everything was going to shut down. 
    The engineering vice president of the company I worked for asked me to prepare a list of all the computerized equipment we had in the machine shop so he could make a report to the company president. When I asked the machine shop foreman what digital equipment we had he snorted, “Are you kidding? All this (expletive deleted) is ancient.” 
    Supposedly, the problem was that many computer programs abbreviated four-digit years as two digits in order to save memory space. These computers could recognize “98” as “1998” but would be unable to recognize “00” as “2000.” Thus on midnight January 1, 2000, computers would be using an incorrect date and so fail to operate properly unless the software was repaired or replaced before that date. 
     Programs that projected budgets or debts into the future could begin malfunctioning in 1999 when they made projections into 2000. In addition, some computer software did not take into account that the year 2000 was a leap year. 
     Even before that it had been feared that some computers might fail on September 9, 1999 (9/9/99), because early programmers often used a series of 9s to indicate the end of a program. Widespread chaos on and following January 1, 2000 was predicted. 
     In October of 1998, President Bill Clinton signed the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act. The law was designed to encourage American companies to share Y2K data by offering them limited liability protection for sharing information about Y2K products, methods, and best practices. In England the British government announced that its armed forces would be prepared in time and would provide assistance to local police if utilities, transportation systems, etc. Worldwide an estimated $300 billion was spent to upgrade computers and application programs to be Y2K-compliant. 
     Come January 1, 2000 everybody woke up and found everything working just fine. There followed accusations that the whole thing had been greatly exaggerated from the beginning. Naturally, those who had worked in Y2K-compliance efforts insisted that the threat had been real. 
     In other computer/chess related news, at the 1999 Boblingen Open, an unknown German player named Clemens Allwermann went undefeated scoring 7.5-1.5 and finished first ahead of several IMs and GMs. His performance was 2630. Not bad for a 55 year old with a 1900 rating. 
     People became skeptical when it was discovered his moves matched Fritz 5.32. Allwermann’s nefarious scheme was exposed by Hartmut Metz when he showed examples where Fritz played brilliant tactics, but also made bad, anti-positional moves. 
     When Allwermann’s last round opponent, GM Sergey Kalinitschev resigned, Allwermann informed him that the final position was mate in eight, but Kalinitschev didn’t think so. Allwermann told him to check it out which is what some players did and they discovered Allwermann was right. 
     The question became how did he get the moves from a computer? The Boblingen TD recalled that although the temperature in the playing hall was usually near 90 degrees, Allwermann always played wearing a tie and a blazer. It was speculated that a miniature camera might have been hidden in his tie and his long hair and glasses could easily have hidden a receiver. It was also reported that Allwermann used to run a store selling electronic equipment. 
     Not long after the tournament Allwermann published a letter on the Internet saying that his result had been due to careful preparation, especially in the Sicilian Sveshnikov. He also threatened to sue anyone who accused him of cheating. It was a hollow threat because he didn’t follow up on the threat when the Metz story was published. 
     Several months after Boblingen, the District Attorney’s office began investigating him for embezzlement of the prize money which amounted to about $850. It was shown that almost all of his moves were reproduced by Fritz5.32 and the Fritz Powerbook 99. Even a transposition error in Powerbooks was reproduced. 
     Super-sleuthing by Hartmut Metz enabled him to locate an electronics supplier who had sold Allwermann some equipment. The store owner stated that Allwermann had insisted on modifications that would allow him to enter a four-digit code in a hand-held radio transmitter. He had also purchased a small receiver that would fit in his ear and could be hidden under his long hair. 
     After several months the District Attorney’s office dropped the case for lack of evidence. Their reasoning was that a strong player's moves sometimes matched Fritz and nobody actually saw him using any electronic devices. None of that mattered to the Bavarian Chess Federation which banned him from tournaments. 
     Before the ban Allwermann had played in another tournament where he was under scrutiny by everybody. In that event his play matched his 1900 rating. 
     In other 1999 developments, Judit Polgar was the first and only woman to be a FIDE World Champion quarter finalist. That same year Susan Polgar, who was the woman’s world champion, refused to accept the match conditions between her and Xie Jun and forfeited her title. She didn’t want to play the match in China.
     The top rated players were Kasparov (2812), Anand (2751), Kramnik (2751) and Shirov (2726). Boris Gulko was the US Champion. 
     There was some good news though. In March, Maurice Ashley became the first black GM and youth had their day. David Howell, age 8, became the youngest player to beat a GM when he defeated John Nunn in London and Bu Xiangzhi became the world's youngest GM at the age of 13 years, 10 months, and 13 days.