Euwe Outplays Sargon

     Old time players will remember the program SARGON that was written by Dan and Kathe Spracklen. The name was originally written in capitals because early computer operating systems did not support lowercase file names. SARGON was introduced at the 1978 West Coast Computer Fair where it won the first computer tournament held for microcomputers with an undefeated 5-0 score. 
     As a result of this success the Spracklens began selling the program commercially. An ad in Byte magazine offered to sell photocopied listings that would work in any Z80-based computer or be converted to run on other computers. When magnetic media publishing became widely available, a US Navy petty officer, Paul Lohnes, ported Sargon to the TRS-80, altering the graphics, input, and housekeeping routines but leaving the Spracklen's chess-playing algorithm intact. After he contacted the Spracklens a TRS-80 (used a cassette tape!) version hit the market. Sargon II was ported to a variety of personal computers popular in the early 1980s and had improved greatly: multiple levels of look-ahead was the most important because it could be dumbed down to allow weaker players a chance of winning. It had a 1500 rating! 
     Sargon III was a complete rewrite from scratch and Video magazine listed the program third on its list of best-selling video games in February 1985. 

     While looking at some of Sargon's games I found the following game by Euwe to be quite instructive because it shows him using both sides of the board. He kept shifting back and forth until the strain of the defense became too much and black's position cracked. Most of us may well have confined our play to one side or the other and black might have been able to defend himself. 
     Compare with the Kupchik-Capablanca game from Lake Hopatcong, 1926.