Chess is a board game between two players. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games, such as xiangqi and shogi. The current form of the game emerged in Spain and the rest of Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from chaturanga, a similar but much older game of Indian origin. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide.
Deep Blue was a chess-playing expert system run on a unique purpose-built IBM supercomputer. It was the first computer to win a game, and the first to win a match, against a reigning world champion under regular time controls. Development began in 1985 at Carnegie Mellon University under the name ChipTest. It then moved to IBM, where it was first renamed Deep Thought, then again in 1989 to Deep Blue. It first played world champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game match in 1996, where it lost four games to two. It was upgraded in 1997 and in a six-game re-match, it defeated Kasparov by winning three games and drawing one. Deep Blue's victory is considered a milestone in the history of artificial intelligence and has been the subject of several books and films.
Fischer random chess, also known as Chess960, is a variation of the game of chess invented by the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer. Fischer announced this variation on June 19, 1996, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Fischer random chess employs the same board and pieces as classical chess, but the starting position of the pieces on the players' home ranks is randomized, following certain rules. The random setup makes gaining an advantage through the memorization of openings impracticable; players instead must rely more on their skill and creativity over the board.
Computer chess includes both hardware and software capable of playing chess. Computer chess provides opportunities for players to practice even in the absence of human opponents, and also provides opportunities for analysis, entertainment and training. Computer chess applications that play at the level of a chess master or higher are available on hardware from supercomputers to smart phones. Standalone chess-playing machines are also available. Stockfish, GNU Chess, Fruit, and other free open source applications are available for various platforms.
Bughouse chess is a popular chess variant played on two chessboards by four players in teams of two. Normal chess rules apply, except that captured pieces on one board are passed on to the teammate on the other board, who then has the option of putting these pieces on their board.
Computer Go is the field of artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to creating a computer program that plays the traditional board game Go. The field is sharply divided into two eras. Before 2015, the programs of the era were weak. The best efforts of the 1980s and 1990s produced only AIs that could be defeated by beginners, and AIs of the early 2000s were intermediate level at best. Professionals could defeat these programs even given handicaps of 10+ stones in favor of the AI. Many of the algorithms such as alpha-beta minimax that performed well as AIs for checkers and chess fell apart on Go's 19x19 board, as there were too many branching possibilities to consider. Creation of a human professional quality program with the techniques and hardware of the time was out of reach. Some AI researchers speculated that the problem was unsolvable without creation of human-like AI.
In computer chess, a chess engine is a computer program that analyzes chess or chess variant positions, and generates a move or list of moves that it regards as strongest.
Fritz is a German chess program originally developed for Chessbase by Frans Morsch based on his Quest program, ported to DOS, and then Windows by Mathias Feist. With version 13, Morsch retired, and his engine was first replaced by Gyula Horvath's Pandix, and then with Fritz 15, Vasik Rajlich's Rybka.
Advanced chess is a form of chess in which each human player uses a computer chess program to explore the possible results of candidate moves. Despite this computer assistance, it is the human player who controls and decides the game.
Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. Around 2011, Rybka was one of the top-rated engines on chess engine rating lists and won many computer chess tournaments.
This article documents the progress of significant human–computer chess matches.
Lawrence Charles Kaufman is an American chess and shōgi player. In chess, he was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE for winning the 2008 World Seniors Championship. Kaufman had been previously awarded the title International Master in 1980.
A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition among serious players.
Computer Othello refers to computer architecture encompassing computer hardware and computer software capable of playing the game of Othello. It is also known as Reversi for Microsoft Windows and Classic Mac OS.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chess:
Komodo and Dragon by Komodo Chess are UCI chess engines developed by Komodo Chess, which is a part of Chess.com. The engines were originally authored by Don Dailey and GM Larry Kaufman. Dragon and Komodo are commercial chess engines, but older versions of Komodo are free for non-commercial use. Dragon is consistently ranked near the top of most major chess engine rating lists, along with Stockfish and Leela Chess Zero.
Kasparov's Gambit, or simply Gambit, is a chess playing computer program created by Heuristic Software and published by Electronic Arts in 1993 based on Socrates II, the only winner of the North American Computer Chess Championship running on a common microcomputer. It was designed for MS-DOS while Garry Kasparov reigned as world champion, whose involvement and support was its key allure.
Aviv Bushinsky is a journalist, CEO, businessman and an undergraduate program communications lecturer. He is the chairman of the Israel Squash Association. He served as chairman of Maccabi Tel Aviv and as chairman of the Israeli Chess Federation.
Computer Arimaa refers to the playing of the board game Arimaa by computer programs.
