Category Archives: Chess Engines

INTRODUCTION

Throughout history, chess was revolutionized several times.

In the late 19th century, the first World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz provoked his opponents to attack him vigorously and laid the foundations of positional chess.

In the middle of the 20th century, the sixth World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik started devoting an enormous amount of time to physical and chess preparation before the tournaments and matches, announcing the era of strict chess professionalism.

In the 1970s, largely under the influence of eleventh World Champion Robert James Fischer, the opening theory went through massive changes. New opening systems such as the Hedgehog were introduced and new ideas were discovered in ancient opening systems, demonstrating the inexhaustible nature of chess.

Nothing else, however, has revolutionized chess so much as the appearance of computer chess engines. Nowadays, even the biggest beginners are familiar with the terms Stockfish and Rybka (especially when they are shouting their names in online chats while kibitzing the games of top chess players). Even a chess computer on your mobile phone is stronger than a grandmaster nowadays. It is not surprising players have started using them as a tool and learning from them.

Even though we all embrace computer chess engines as something normal and use them on a daily basis, most of us arent familiar with the challenges and problems previous generations had to face in order to create one. Who devised the first computer chess engine? How long did it take for computers to become stronger than humans? What is the difference between classical computer chess engines and Googles Alpha Zero?

In this article, we will answer these questions and take a closer look at the history of computer chess engines.

In 1769, French illusionist Francois Pelletier was performing an act in front of Maria Theresa of Austria, at the Schnbrunn Palace in Vienna. Among the onlookers was Hungarian inventor and author Wolfgang von Kempelen. Inspired by Pelletiers performance, Kempelen immediately started building the invention which would later become one of the most notorious hoaxes in the entire history.

Next year, in 1770, at the exact same place, Kempelen exhibited the Turk the first chess-playing automaton in history. Its complicated construction consisted of several compartments with various operational mechanisms. It incorporated a life-sized model of a human, dressed in traditional oriental clothes (hence its name).

Turk was capable of playing chess on its own and beating human opponents. It was even able to recognize illegal moves and force its opponents to take them back. In one exhibition, it even solved the difficult knight-tour-around-the-board puzzle.

There was just one problem. It was all fake. The Turk was not the one making all the moves. A human hidden inside it was.

You see, during the construction, Kempelen envisioned several hidden compartments, big enough to fit an adult. He even made sliding hallways, through which a person was able to move from one compartment to another. It was important to preserve the illusion before each exhibition, Kempelen would invite the audience to examine the automaton, during which the operator of the machine would remain hidden.

And it worked? Kempelen toured Europe exhibiting his invention until his 1804. After his death, the machine changed several owners and continued playing chess until 1854, when a fire in Philadelphia sealed its fate. It is amazing no one realized the fraud during the Turks lifetime.

Thus, the first computer chess engine was a major commercial success.

However, if we disregard several similar automatons, the development of chess engines was stalled during the next 100 years. The real breakthrough happened only in the late 1940s and early 1950s. And just like with many other technological advances, a major historical event fulfilled the role of the catalyst.

During World War II, Axis and Allies leadership spent a lot of time hiring top scientists and gathering them into teams. The purpose was clear winning the war. Greatest minds of the 20th century devoted their wartime years to developing technology and weapons that will help overpower the enemy. The science was in service of the war industry.

In spite of that, the war led to a startling amount of breakthroughs. Scientists laid a foundation for a number of new fields. In the context of this article, computer science is of particular interest. Two famous names played the crucial role in its development Claude Shannon and Alan Turing.

Shannon is widely recognized as the father of the modern information theory, while Turing is the father of the modern computer (Turings machine!). Their contributions to the field of computer science are well known. What is perhaps lesser known, is that Shannon and Turing are also fathers of chess computer engines.

After finishing their PhDs on the eve of the war, Shannon and Turing both started working on cryptanalysis, in USA and UK, respectively. They closely followed each others work and even met in person back in 1943, during Turings two-month stay at Bells Lab in New York, where Shannon was working. After the war ended, they both took an increased interest in programming a chess computer.

(Main source describing the relationship between Shannon and Turing: Life In Code And Digits When Shannon Met Turing)

In 1949, Shannon published an iconic paper titled Programming a Computer For Playing Chess, in which he described an algorithm for the chess-playing machine. Simultaneously, Turing was developing his own chess playing program. His work on Turbochamp started back in 1948 and finished in 1950.

(Link to Shannons article)

It is noteworthy to mention Turing programmed Turbochamp on paper, without access to an actual computer. He tried testing it on Ferranti Mark I the first commercially available computer and failed. In the end, he tested it manually (!) in a friendly chess game in 1951.

(51 years later, none other than Garry Kasparov tested Turbochamp. The program didnt stand a chance, but the greatest players of all times recognized how tremendous Turings achievement was source: Alan Turing Created A Chess Computer).

It is not yet certain whether Shannon and Turing worked independently or were inspired by each other the content of their conversations in 1943 is not known. However, even if they didnt collaborate, their contributions were immense. Subsequent generations of computer chess developers all stood on the shoulders of these two giants.

In 1951, Turings colleague Dietrich Prinz managed to implement the algorithm on Ferranti Mark I and created a program capable of solving mate in two. In 1956, a team of scientists led by Stan Ulam (one of the inventors of the h-bomb)created a program capable of playing chess on a 66 board. And finally, in 1957, IBM engineer Alex Bernstein created the first automated program fully capable of playing a complete game of chess.

The era of computer chess has officially begun.

The first computer chess engines were rather weak and primitive. During the 1960s and the 1970s, however, their strength increased rapidly. Two major factors contributed to this qualitative leap:

In the 1960s and 1970s, algorithms for the computer chess engines were significantly improved. The foundation was set by the genius of John Von Neumann, who developed the MiniMax algorithm, perfectly suited for the game of chess (it minimizes the score of one player while maximizing the score of another). In the decades that followed, MiniMax search was improved with advanced heuristic techniques and iterative deepening, which gradually increased the depth of the search by MiniMax.

The greatest restriction for Turing and other pioneers was computing power. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, hardware speed increased exponentially according to Moores law, the computing power doubled every two years. It allowed the implementation of advanced algorithms the search time for MiniMax was significantly decreased.

It was not only the matter of raw computing power, though. In the 1960s and 1970s, computer chess gained prominence. The first all-computer chess championship was staged in 1970 in New York. Shortly afterward, in 1974, first World Chess Computer Chess Championship was staged in Stockholm. The appearance of the scene inevitably led to the foundation of specialized companies which started developing customized chess playing software and hardware. Which allowed computer chess engines to get even better.

How good get better was? How good were computer chess engines compared to humans at a time? Experience showed good enough to beat an amateur, not good enough to compete with a master.

For instance, in 1967, MacHack VI became the first computer chess engine to beat a human opponent. Its playing strength revolved around 1300 USCF rating. But already in 1976, a significant leap happened chess computer engine Chess 4.5 won the Class B Section of the Paul Mason tournament in Northern California. In 1977 it also won Minnesota Open with the performance rating of 2271 and beat a Class A player Stenberg rated 1969.

However, the computers werent on equal terms with stronger humans. In 1968, International Master David Levy bet 3000$ he would be able to beat any chess computer engine in the next 10 years. In 1977, he won his bet in a match against chess computer engine KAISSA. He also beat the newer version of MacHack in 1978.

Therefore, at the end of the 1970s, could compete against humans, but couldnt play on a master level.

But then the 1980s arrived.

By the start of the 1980s, computer chess engine programming has become a lucrative business. Personal computers have become widespread in households. The interest in customized and specialized software including computer chess engines exploded. In 1982 alone, computer chess companies topped 100 million in sales.

It is not surprising, thus, that computer chess engines continued improving. In 1980, their programming became a serious competition. Edward Fredkin, professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, introduced the Fredkin Prize. He offered monetary prizes for various achievements in the world of computer chess programming (5000$ for the first engine to reach Master level, 10000$ for the first engine to reach Grandmaster level, 100000$ for the first engine to beat the World Champion).

The race was on. The number and strength of computer chess engines continued increasing.

Fredkins colleague from Carnegie Mellon University led the way. The most notable project and the spearhead of an entire generation is Deep Thought the first chess computer engine which reached Grandmaster Level. In 1988, it shared the first place with Grandmaster Tony Miles in US Open Championship. In 1989, it easily beat International Master David Levy four games to zero.

The downfall of humanity seemed inevitable. In the search for its Champion, it turned to the reigning World Champion and arguably the greatest player of all times Garry Kasparov. First, in an iconic simultaneous exhibition in Hamburg in 1985, he played against 32 (!) strongest chess engines and beat all of them (!!). Then, in 1989, he faced Deep Thought in a two-game match, which he also won.

(Source: Kasparov And Thirty Years Of Computer Chess)

Therefore, in his encounters with engines in the 1980s, Garry became the chosen one.

Alas, in the 1990s, he too would fall.

Thus, in 1989, humanity won the battle, but not yet the war. In the 1990s, many more clashes between humans and computer chess engines were held. Top chess engines even competed in elite chess tournaments with mixed success. Several human vs machine matches were organized, but none of them became famous as the match in which the engine defeated the World Champion in 1997.

In 1989, researchers involved in the Deep Thought project were hired by IBM. They started developing a more powerful version of the engine.

The name of the project was Deep Blue. In 1996, only 7 years after the Kasparov Deep Thought match, round two of man vs. machine was held: the first Kasparov Deep Blue match. In the very first game, Deep Blue shocked Kasparov and became the first chess computer engine to beat a World Champion in a classical game. However, Garry composed himself and won the match with the result 4-2, prolonging the inevitable once again.

The failure didnt disheartenDeep Blue programmers. During the next year, they continued to improve the engines strength. They even hired Grandmaster Joel Benjamin as a consultant to help them build the opening book. After thorough preparation, they challenged Kasparov to a rematch again and as they say the rest is history.

In the celebrated match, Kasparov won the first game. But the engines counterintuitive 44th move confused him. It shook his confidence and he missed serious drawing chances in the 2nd game. Then Deep Blue crushed him in 6th game with a knight sacrifice early in the opening. This sealed Kasparovs fate and earned Deep Blue team the Fredkin Prize.

(Source: Deep Blue Inventors Win Fredkin Prize)

After the match, he claimed IBM cheated and that a human was actually making the moves (Joel Benjamin). Other sources speculated a bug in Deep Blues code brought him victory.

(Source: Did Deep Blue Beat Kasparov Because Of A Glitch?)

In any case, 1997 symbolically marked the end of human domination over the chess computer engines.

However, humans didnt yet resign.

After Deep Blues victory, everyone expected the gap between the humans and machines to widen further. However, over the next six years, until roughly 2003, humanity made its last stand.

For instance, in 2000, computer chess engine Deep Junior participated in the Dortmund Elite Supertournament and scored just 50%. In 2002, new World Champion Vladimir Kramnik drew his match against computer chess engine Deep Fritz (despite a catastrophic mate-in-one blunder). In 2003, Garry Kasparov drew two matches against Deep Junior 7 and X3d Fritz.

Alas, this small ray of hope was quickly destroyed by computer chess engine Hydra. In 2004, it beat GMs Evgeny Vladimirov (3-1) and Ruslan Ponomariov (2-0). Then, in 2005, it destroyed Michael Adams, a member of the world top 10, with a devastating score: 5.5-0.5.

And in 2006, Deep Fritz drove the final nail in the coffin of humanity by beating the World Champion Vladimir Kramnik 4-2.

The 2006-2017 decade is the golden era of the computer chess engines.

On an everyday basis, computer chess engines infiltrated all areas of chess from broadcasting and analyzing to playing. They became an integral tool for any chess tournament player. They raised a generation of strong youngsters the so-called computer generation. When smartphones appeared, their Android and iOS versions were immediately developed, to the horror of any tournament anti-cheating committee.

World Chess Computer Championship continued growing. Due to the prestige and money involved, some controversies ensued. The most infamous case is the disqualification of the computer chess engine Rybka, the consecutive winner of the four editions between 2007-2010, due to code plagiarization.

(Source: Rybka, The Worlds Best Chess Engine, Outlawed and Disqualified)

Apart from the World Chess Championship, a new competition was introduced in 2010 Top Chess Engines Competition. In contrast to the WCC, TCEC features longer games played using high-end hardware, which leads to a higher quality of chess.

The human-machine matches proved the gap is widening. Over the decade, a number of handicap matches were held, in which engines gave various odds to strong grandmasters. The results were depressing for humanity. For instance, in 2014, computer chess engine Stockfish defeated GM Daniel Naroditsky who used the assistance of an early version of Rybka. In 2015, computer chess engine Komodo played 6 odds games against Sergei Movsesian, a former top 10 member and crushed him easily. And in 2016, Hikaru Nakamura, a current member of world top 10, feel down to Komodo as well.

(Sources: Man Versus Machine Historical Archive and Komodo Beats Nakamura In Final Battle)

In any case, during the 2006-2017 period, classical computer chess engines dominated. Until the end of 2017, nothing revolutionary happened. Their strength changedconsistently, but slowly. Everything seemed familiar and nobody expected any radical changes, any major breakthroughs.

Then AlphaZero happened.

On 5th December 2017, a group of scientists from Google AI company Deep Mindshattered the chess world.

In the paper titled Mastering Chess and Shogi by Self-Play with a General Reinforcement Learning Algorithm, they described the development of a new chess engine, AlphaZero, based on a completely new approach. Instead of alpha-beta searching and linear approximation function for position evaluation used by traditional engines, AlphaZero uses non-linear approximation function based on a deep neural network and Monte Carlo Simulation. As a consequence, instead of brute-forcing through the analysis, AlphaZero is able to self-learn chess.

The team tested thestrength of the new engine in a 100 game match against the strongest classical chess engine available at the moment Stockfish 8. The result of the match was staggering +28-0=72 in AlphaZeros favor. But what was even more impressive was AlphaZeros style of play it was much more intuitive and human-like than the play of the traditional engines.

The reactions to the paper were mixed. Many chess players were amazed the mighty Stockfish suffering such a defeat was indeed a miracle. But on the other hand, there was a lot of skepticism. A lot of criticism has been directed toward the playing environment of the match Stockfish ran on inferior hardware and played without an opening book. One interesting article on Medium was very careful to label Alpha Zero a scientific breakthrough in AI.

However, on 7th December 2018, another paper was published by the Deep Mind team, titled A general reinforcement learning algorithm that masters chess, shogi, and Go through self-play. In it, they presented the results of another match between Alpha Zero and Stockfish. Out of 1000 games, A0 won 155 games and lost only 6. Even though the older version of Stockfish was used, it is an impressive result.

Irrespective of whether skepticism is justified or not, Alpha Zero made a significant impact on the chess world. They forced everyone to start pondering about what is coming next. They might signify the start another revolution.

One thing is certain: with the entry of AI, computer chess engines will never be the same.

The Best Schools: Brief History Of Computer Chess

Bill Wall: Early Chess Computers

HPC Wire: Deep Blue Inventors Win Fredkin Prize For Computer Chess

IBM: DeepBlue

Excerpt from:

History Of Chess Computer Engines - Chessentials

Talk about cancel culture.

Our calendar of events was cleared completely byCOVID.

Bloomsday. Get Lit! The Friends of Manito Plant Sale.

The Spokane Bike Swap and Expo. The YWCAs Spring Fling fund-raiser.

The Shadle Park Spring Craft Show. The Spokane Speed and Custom Show.

From our largest traditions to our smallest gatherings canceled. Its been a year haunted by the not-done, the rain check, the unperformed.

A year without festivals without Hoopfest and ArtFest and Musicfest Northwest and the Coeur dAlene Blues Festival and the Spokane Blues Festival.

A year without concerts without Cher or Allen Stone or Sleater-Kinney or Ronnie Milsap or The Flaming Lips or Wilco.

A year without dinner and a show. Without movies out or theater. Without The Book of Mormon or Jersey Boys at the First Interstate Center. Without Matilda at the Lake City Playhouse or Cabaret at the Civic Theatre.

Canceled. The things we do every year undone. The special events we planned for unscheduled. All the connections we make with our people unconnected. At best, we Zoomed.

A lost year.

It started a little more than 12 months ago, as it was becoming more and more obvious that the pandemic was big trouble. The governor would not issue his stay-home order until March 23, but the cancellations and postponements were already piling up.

Looking back, it is striking how many organizations announced that they were merely postponing things, rescheduling events for a few months down the road. Before long, it became pointless to keep track of what was canceled and what was not.

Everything was.

The big, broad effects of those cancellations have gotten the lions share of the attention, naturally schools shut down, restaurants shuttered, workplaces emptied. The major losses to life and well-being have been the rightful focus.

But theres been a massive loss in cultural, community events, too.

Almost all of the gatherings that signal our seasons and rescue us from solitude gone. Graduations. Potlucks. Proms. Weddings. Funerals in the darkest of ironies, in a year of such loss, even our ways of grieving together have been lost.

Chess club and Math is Cool and volleyball. Poetry readings and car shows. Fairgrounds and libraries. Gyms and senior centers. Climbing walls and rec-league sports and drinks out with co-workers.

Hooptown lost its hoops. The NCAA tournament was canceled, and with it Spokanes round of games. Hoopfest was postponed, then canceled. As the pandemic dragged on, a particular cruelty was visited on Spokane basketball fans, as the undefeated Zags the apotheosis of a decadeslong development of a basketball dynasty composed their perfect season before cardboard fans, in echoing gymnasiums.

The sacrifices were necessary, of course. The greater losses, to life and well-being, compelled them, and still do. And yet these past 12 months have been so strange, so divorced from the communitys cycle of life, that it has left us starved for culture and connection.

Will we get that back soon? Stand shoulder-to-shoulder at a Wilco concert, crowd into the Cracker Building for Terrain, see Cats again, swarm around the gleaming engines at a car show or see our neighbors at a flower sale or bingo game? Stay out too late at a bar, pack a table a little too full at a restaurant? Hear the roar at the McCarthey Center or Reese Court or Union Stadium?

Of course we will. Were getting there now, though it could not possibly come fast enough. The calendar will fill, and our points of connection and culture and community will return.

Well arrive there, in that life of the uncanceled calendar, on the other side of this lost year, as though we are landing on a lovely new shore. A place we know well, seen as if for the first time, with fonder hearts and fresh eyes and a raging hunger to be among each other once again.

View post:

Shawn Vestal: A year haunted by all that we did not do - The Spokesman-Review

A fortnight or so ago, my desktop computer started to get rather grumpy, making increasingly loud harrumphing sounds. A week later it began to go on strike, with the power cutting out completely, apparently at random.

Back in the day, I even once changed a disk drive in a computer, but nowadays Im rather phobic about playing with them. My wife heroically opened the case and took a (cold) hair dryer to the interior, clearing out a vast quantity of dust, but the problem persisted and the old codger its more than four years old which makes it heaven knows how ancient in human years is currently being ministered to by a nice man down the road, who has confirmed that it needs a new power supply and is testing for any other ailments.

In its absence, Im communing with an even oldercodger, my laptop, which is a nice machine but also not entirely ungrumpy (dont get me started on its wilful backspace key).Its not set up for streaming or recording and like the cats in this house not to mention me resistant to change, so theres no video version of todays column or at least wont be until I get the desktop back, with luck on Monday.

In contrast to grumpy computers, we focus today on happy people who have played nice games of chess and in particular on move selection and trusting yourself.

Playing chess is one of the few times in our lives when we are totally self-sufficientand self-reliant. Its the joy and horror of the game and of course other similar games like Go, Shogi and Draughts (Chequers) that you can take all the credit for your triumphs but have nobody else to blame for your mistakes.

Go,an abstract strategy board game invented in China

This applies to all players including children, and when Im teaching adults or kids I make a point of not telling them what types of position or openings they should play. Or rather not pressing the point. Certainly I will express an opinion, and if I think that a line is purulent nonsense then I will try gently to wean them off it.But while they are doing well with it, they should continue if they like, until they play stronger opponents who will prompt them to change their own minds.

Extreme Calculation Training

Special attention will be paid to Intermediate Moves, Quiet Moves, Sacrifices on Empty Squares, Mating Patterns, Ignoring Opponents Threat, Calculation in Defence and Method of Comparison. Plus 50 interactive examples to test your knowledge.

The same applies to move selection later on in the game. By the time that people become club players they will already have a fairly strong feeling of the moves they want to play and this will harden as they improve. For me, when Im in the zone and to work at its strongest this really means being at a chessboard faced with the danger of losing I have a visceral reaction to the choices available and normally know immediately what I want to play (or at least what I want to choose between) unless the position is very confusing. Indeed, one way I evaluate positions is by looking at the moves I want to play and seeing whether they are possible. If they seem okay, then all well and good, but if my top choices palpably lose then I may simply have a bad position.

One of the most important lessons in improving is to trust yourself (or, as I often think of it, trust your hand). If you like a move then you must check that it isnt a blunder, but you shouldnt talk yourself out of it, especially when playing stronger opponents when theres a tendency to believe that the great man or woman opposite you couldnt possibly have allowed such a strong move, so there must be something wrong with it.

So if you see a strong move and cant see a good reason not to play it then trust your hand, but equally you must look at possible refutations, and the higher the level of play the more important it is sometimes to rethink because, however good your hand, it isnt always right.

Vladimir Kramnik is one of the players who most trusts his hand, and this has led to some fantastic games, though occasionally, against really strong opponents, to disaster too. Today Im reprising one of his best games before his retirement from professionalplay, but also another game from the same tournament the Berlin Candidates of 2018 when he couldnt resist his hand and eventually lost.

Vladimir Kramnik at the 2018 Candidates in Berlin | Photo: World Chess

Im finishing with a game Ive given here before a couple of times, in which I really wanted to play a move but had a feeling of unease about it. I was right to do so and got splatted, though engines later told me that I could have got away with it.

Select an entry from the list to switch between games

Master Class Vol.11: Vladimir Kramnik

This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors (Pelletier, Marin, Mller and Reeh) how to successfully organise your games strategically, consequently how to keep y

Read the original here:

Grumpy silicon and happy carbon - Chessbase News

Install device to warn drivers of spanIn a Feb. 9th Gazette article (Town looks at fines for striking bridge), Adam Shinder reported that Glenville Town Supervisor Chris Koetzle will introduce a law to assess penalties for hitting the low railroad bridge on Glenridge Road.This strikes me as a failure of the government to address this continued problem caused by the bridge being too low on a newly paved and much improved road.An attempt was made to address this problem with increased signage, but that was obviously not completely successful.Fines will certainly not correct or even reduce this problem any more than all the publicity from the numerous letters to the editor and articles in the paper have.If it really is too expensive to raise the bridge or lower the road to correct this problem, then why not install an active-warning device before the bridge to allow truckers time to stop before their trucks are damaged and local authorities have to get involved to remove the damaged truck.For a fairly small cost, this would be a win-win for everyone since taxpayers wouldnt have continuous costs involved with these accidents and delivery companies wouldnt have delayed deliveries and severely damaged trucks to repair.This active warning device could be as low-tech as hanging something the same height as the bridge, well before it, which when impacted would cause a loud noise. Or it could be a little more high-tech by using a laser to set off numerous bright lights and/or loud sounds.Stephen AndersonGlenville

Stockade residents need a civics lessonImagine my amusement when I opened my Gazette on the morning of Feb. 9 and read about the residents of the Stockade complaining about receiving parking tickets.These are the same people who screamed from the rooftops that their streets werent cleaned properly (and instantaneously) after the blizzard in December.Plows cant get through if there are cars parked all over the place. Anyone with any common sense who chooses to live in the Stockade should be aware of the difficulties the narrow streets pose in a typical upstate New York winter.For some reason, the residents of the Stockade seem to think they are entitled to both better city services and less law following than the rest of us commoners who reside in other neighborhoods.And a small lesson in civics: The police department doesnt make the rules; they just enforce them. If Stockade residents dont want parking restrictions, then they should go through the proper channels to have them changed.Jennifer DikemanSchenectady

Require voters to have identificationIf requiring an ID to vote is discriminatory and unconstitutional, then why is it legal to require an ID for all of these other things in life?DMV, airports, hospitals, pharmacies, for blood donation, banks, gun shops, Social Security office, pawn shops, jails, courts, unemployment, public schools, adoption agencies (for children and animals), parole and probation, auto insurance, traffic stops, passport, and at the post office (to pick up packages).By the way, liberals say that requiring an ID for voting is unconstitutional and discriminating.The ironic part of this is that most unions are Democratic supporters, and they require an ID for all union voting, but they are against requiring an ID to vote. Am I pazzo (crazy)?Domenico DicaprioVoorheesville

Both discouraged and encouraged by verdictIn his self-serving, cynical and manipulative speech after the impeachment vote, Mitch McConnell made it clear that this was not a great exoneration of Trump. He admitted, There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.Yet, McConnells unashamed hypocrisy is appalling. He kept the trial from occurring while Trump was in office and then used a technicality to acquit him. History will not look kindly on the current Republicans, who with their votes declared that they are a far-right party that supports the philosophy of fascism and military coups.I continue to believe that the United States is a constitutional republic and not a cult of personality. However, the vote by the 43 Republican senators is evidence that there is an existential crisis in our country and evidence of two different Americas. This was not about the facts or the truth, but a way to preserve and defend a certain way of life.The facts were undeniable, and the substance of the charge is indisputable. Trump once declared that he could shoot someone and not lose a single vote. I am heartened that he lost seven Republican votes for inciting and contributing to the death of five citizens at the Capitol. I am also encouraged that the majority of Americans supported a conviction.President Biden said, each of us has a duty and responsibility as Americans, and especially as leaders, to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.Maxine BrisportRotterdam

Trump continues to damage the countryW-W-Way back in 2016, I turned to my wife after recovering from the shock of that November election night and said, Were screwed!Fast forward to 2021. Even though empathy and civility has arrived on Pennsylvania Avenue with Joe Cool, the man-child before him still has the floor. The damage to democracy continues.America, youve been duped repeatedly. Were still screwed!Dave BarnesRotterdam

Party not looking out for local residentsFor those of us who have lived here long enough, the residents who make this place diverse and colorful, the residents who look out for each other because that is who we count on, know that local government and officials do not see us.If anyone questions if our opinions are considered or our interests are thought of, look no further than the endorsed candidate a major party is supporting to represent us.It is almost comical if it wasnt going to directly impact the lives of my friends and family. I thought that the time had finally come, with two diverse candidates in the primary field.There are candidates who grew up and live in our neighborhood, with experience and who have overcome challenges my neighbors face day in and out.Despite this, a politically active student who has never lived in the district, jumping from race-to-race, is who the Democratic Party believes is best to be our legislator.I do not underestimate the power of the next generation, especially after the way we saw them come out this year. However, this is not the next generation to represent our community. Again, our voices are being bulldozed over by the agenda of the political machine and they have now found their candidate who will fall in line.David MillerSchenectady

Reviewer missed the point of miniseriesRegarding the Your Move article by Patti Nickell in the Feb. 14 Sunday Gazette Travel section:Im no chess player, but I greatly enjoyed The Queens Gambit miniseries.Nickell may have enjoyed it too. But if she thought the lead character was experiencing hallucinations, as she alluded to twice in her light and fluffy travel feature, then she clearly didnt get the core premise of the novel and the series.Was Elizabeth Harmon addicted? Yes! Was she seeing chess boards on the ceiling in her minds eye? Yes! But was the drug hallucinogenic or was she hallucinating? Absolutely not. She was taking and, sure, addicted to tranquilizers, long known for their infamous and nefarious abuses in institutional care.But the primary effect of the drug, clearly expressed in the screenplay, was that her mind could be calmed and focused, and she could shut out distractions so that she could, solely through her own inimitable brilliance, mentally project and play in her imagination one of the most cerebrally and strategically complex games in existence.If Nickell didnt grasp this point, then she missed the whole shebang, and clearly has no understanding or appreciation for the novel, the author, the entire miniseries or the game of chess. Checkmate.Carl SnyderNiskayuna

Time to hold Trump responsible for actsDonald Trumps impeachment trial led to an acquittal by the Senate. However, in the words of (Republican) Senator Mitch McConnell, Impeachment was never meant to be the final forum for American justice. it is not the criminal justice system, where individual accountability is the paramount goal. He didnt get away with anything yet.We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.Bruce Castor, one of the attorneys representing Trump at the impeachment trial, stated A high crime is a felony, and a misdemeanor is a misdemeanor. After hes out of office, you go and arrest him.Clearly, Donald Trump instigated and encouraged the insurrection that occurred on Jan. 6, all in the name of overturning an election he inarguably, demonstrably lost. Thats called treason. He lied and several people died; scores of others were seriously injured. Those are crimes that cannot be ignored.The Donald has always managed to avoid being held responsible for anything in his life; he has mastered the technique of deflecting blame onto others. When that hasnt worked, he has always managed to pay, lie, or weasel his way out of things.This time, finally, he must be held responsible. This country needs to heed the advice of McConnell and Castor. What are we waiting for?Paul DeierleinSchenectady

Deception will be difficult to explainI imagine my grandchild or great grandchild, bothered and curious well past her bedtime, will come to me, with innocent eyes, and ask, How did you elect a midway huckster to be president? I will look at her and say, I am writing my appeal to my death panel, now still your mouth and go to bed; youre 5, and stop listening to history shows on your Apple brain implant. I am sure she will look up sweetly and say, Its called an iThink, you fossil, and I hope you lose your appeal!I will have that response because I will not be able to explain that we ignored the very first president when he said of political parties, However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust domination.I will not be able to explain how a mass media, whose advertisers needed to sell electronics, pillows, hotel stays and cars, disseminated disinformation, or debated that disinformation, or reported the disinformation with outrage, all elevating the presence of this huckster, because it was exciting, so more people watched those advertisements.I will not be able to explain how we allowed ourselves to be so led and deceived.James CiminoSchenectady

Capitalism to blame for vaccine issuesPeople are currently frustrated and angry about how difficult it is to access the coronavirus vaccines, and they are absolutely correct to feel that way. The roll-out of the vaccines has, like the rest of the handling of the coronavirus by the Democrats and Republicans, been a disaster.But the root of this problem is the same as the root of all of our other societal problems: capitalism.The coronavirus vaccines were developed, like everything else in our society, through the massive investment of public funds. The Moderna vaccine alone received $2.5 billion in public funding: orders of magnitude higher than anything that company put toward R&D. We the people should own these vaccines because we paid for them.The Trump and Biden administrations not only granted intellectual property rights to these companies over vaccines that we paid for, they have also adamantly refused to allow for the manufacture of generic versions of these vaccines to increase supply. Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly put private profits over people.They have enshrined the profit margins of these companies to a product we paid for to the detriment of broader public health, contributing to increased delays in the reopening of schools and the economy, and of course to increased deaths from the coronavirus itself.Intellectual property has always functioned to inhibit production through granting monopoly rights.But maintaining such property rights during the supposed emergency of this pandemic highlights how truly sick capitalism and the two ruling parties are to the core.Samuel RoseSchenectady

McConnell failed to convince either sideMitch McConnells speech on Feb. 13 was an attempt to placate both the anti-Trump faction of his party and the pro-Trump base.The Lincoln Project supporters would be happy with his condemnation of Trumps role in creating the atmosphere necessary to stir up an insurrectionist mood with the Big Lie: the election was rigged against him and he actually won in a landslide, repeated ad nauseum, then lighting the fuse with his fiery speech to the angry crowd, many bearing weapons, that he summoned to the Capitol on Jan. 6.The Trumpistas would be content with his vote to acquit. I think he failed to hold on to the support of either faction. Before the actual trial began, the Senate affirmed, with a bipartisan vote, their right to try an impeached former president; the Senate has the constitutional authority to set trial rules and procedures. Thus, McConnells vote, justified by his personal belief that the Senate has no power to try a former president, will ring hollow with anti-Trump Republicans. His obvious disdain for Trump and his assertion that Trump bears much responsibility for the events of Jan. 6 will cancel the value of his vote to maintain support among the Trumpistas.Those without strong views may ask themselves why he didnt take the opportunity to bar a man he obviously sees as a grave danger to our democracy from holding any future federal office. This can be done only after a guilty verdict followed by a simple majority vote.Anthony J. SantoRotterdam

Trumps supporters will ultimately prevailOn Feb. 11 The Gazette featured a front page Associated Press article (Video shows chilling scenes of riot) describing chilling videos of a riot on Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C.However, the paper never characterized the assaults, arson and looting in Washington last summer as other than mostly peaceful.Sam Adams, Benjamin Edes and John Hancock, leaders of the Sons of Liberty, would find it thrilling that the patriots on Jan. 6 replicated their actions. The Sons of Liberty tore down the homes of British agents, tarred and feathered Tory Bostonians and famously threw the tea in the harbor. Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts, barely escaped to a fort on an Island and called for thousands of British troops. Sound familiar?The Redcoats shot down unarmed citizens on the street. The Capitol police shot an unarmed woman and caused the death of three others trying to enter the peoples house. Now the Biden/Schumer/Pelosi revolution, like the generals in Myanmar, hold power at the point of tens of thousands of National Guard rifles. Their icon, Chairman Mao, said power comes from the muzzle of a gun. Fealty to a stolen election is implemented by what is essentially martial law in the nations capital.Unlike the timorous Proud Boys, those who voted to re-elect President Trump will not stand down or stand by. We will peacefully assemble, we will not comply, and like Martin Luther King, we will prevail.Art HenningsonScotia

Cancel culture is the same as censorshipDonald Trump lost the election, and he should go to jail because he incited a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the election. But John Figliozzi in his Feb. 7 column in The Gazette (Cancel culture: Old wine in new, mislabeled bottle) suggested those facts justify the cancel culture approach to political debate. Really?Its just an old wine that needs a new name on the bottle. George Orwell might call it GroupThink Kool-Aid.John cites a poll that says 53% expect social consequences for expressing unpopular opinions. He does not say how many of the 53% think the expected social consequences are a good thing or a bad thing. And what about the other 47%? Should they just shut up? Maybe the 47% can call themselves the Resistance. And isnt 3% the margin of error? So maybe its really 50-50? The last election also proved that polling data is not very reliable.Cancel culture or GroupThink is censorship, plain and simple, and I find censorship deeply offensive.And now even Republicans are copying the censorship model by censuring party members who did not buy Trumps lies. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But for true inspiration, GroupThink supporters should visit the Chinese re-education camps where the minority Uighurs are facing very harsh social consequences for their unpopular opinions.Tom HollandBallston Spa

Look for the signs of problem gamblingMarch is Problem Gambling Awareness Month. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many challenges to everyone across the nation.With that there has been an increase in the number of people that have found themselves struggling with problem gambling. Major triggers for problem gambling are being exacerbated during this time of isolation such as depression, anxiety, loneliness, boredom and stress.Financial uncertainty can drive a person to gamble in hopes of income. Unfortunately, the end result may be further debt and greater feelings of despair.Although most adults who gamble can do so for a fun recreational activity for some it may become a problem with negative consequences.Some warning signs that gambling might be a problem include: thinking about gambling often; lying or covering up gambling behaviors; missing time with friends and loved ones to gamble; gambling to escape negative feelings or problems; gambling more money than a person can afford or planned; unsuccessfully trying to cut back or stop gamblingIf you, or a loved one is struggling reach out. Call the free, confidential NYS HOPELINE 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) for help, and referrals to treatment.Becky SchroederAmsterdamThe writer is a Substance Abuse Prevention Educator with Fulton Montgomery Catholic Charities.

State-run elections saved democracyMichael J. Goff wrote a piece in the Jan. 23 edition of The Gazette entitled The Electoral College saved democracy.I believe, more precisely, it was the system of state-run presidential elections that carried the day.He conflates the Electoral College with state-by-state voting. Whereas the two are currently intertwined, state-controlled voting for presidential elections could exist without the Electoral College.Whats important is that authority over the election process remains distributed among the states and kept away from federal government control and, therefore, immune to possible influence from the current president.Why not have each states votes counted and totaled by their individual election boards using methods and procedures of their own choosing, same as today, and then the totals from all states combined to determine the winner?Mr. Goff asserts that mixing of votes from all states prevents the states from defending their individual totals. But thats no different than states defending their Electoral College vote today, which, by the way, is a function of the individual totals.Another approach, that still retains the Electoral College, is to apportion the electoral votes of each state according to the individual vote totals within that state.For example, in New York, Biden received 5,230,985 votes to Trumps 3,244,798. This would result in the states 29 electoral votes being split 18 for Biden, 11 for Trump. In Texas the split would be 18 for Biden, 20 for Trump. Today, its all or nothing.Larry JordanAmsterdam

Papers editorials unfair to NiskayunaOn Dec 8, 2020 this paper ran an editorial (Spa timing is bad; project is good) in support of the Saratoga schools referendum for a $129.7M capital project. The editorial says to support the referendum in part because: The project has been in the works for several years. The needs are real, and it appears the district has the funding in place to pay for them without overburdening local taxpayers. Dont let the distractions of the season keep you away from this important proposition.Yet on Feb. 9 this paper ran an editorial (District should push vote to May) in opposition to the Niskayuna schools referendum by saying in part Todays forecast calls for 2-4 inches of snow and urged voters to call on the district to come up with a more detailed, more realistic and more financially reasonable project.While on July 10, 2019, another editorial (Help plan districts future) on the Niskayuna schools project urged readers to become involved in the planning process: you can help the school district, yourself and your fellow taxpayers develop a plan for the future.In my opinion, the hypocrisy of the editorials mentioned above are as obvious as the years of an anti-Niskayuna school slant for this newspaper which hurts its credibility and makes the value of its editorial opinions meaningless as evidenced by the overwhelming voter support for the Niskayuna project. If you think mine is an isolated opinion, I urge you to read the Facebook comments on Your Niskayuna. Many of your readers and I are fed up with the irreconcilable editorials and baseless negativity.Carlene IrelandNiskayuna

Consequences of unelecting a presidentWe did not elect Mr. Biden. We unelected Mr. Trump.We did the same thing in 1976. We unelected Gerald Ford due to his guilt by association with Mr. Nixon and having pardoned Mr. Nixon. Thats how we got Jimmy Carter, who gave away the Panama Canal, pardoned the draft-dodging cowards who ran away to Canada, totally blew the Iran Hostage Crisis and boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, even after what we did to USSR at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.Hopefully history wont repeat itself.Robert GrimmAmsterdam

Cuomo responsible for covid deathsGov. Andrew Cuomo is being characterized as an Angel of Death.Local Democrats Angelo Santabarbara and Patricia Fahy are now speaking up, now that it is convenient. Better late than never. Their language is measured; they fear Cuomo; they are Democrats. That has not changed. They do not want to come under the woke blade.How many of our beloved elderly would be alive in nursing homes if Santabarbara and Fahy spoke up sooner? This is known only to God.The state Legislature is on graveyard shift, that is all they are good for. Pallbearers! No one is safe from self-serving politicians.The governors casual references to death are reminiscent of what difference does it make. Democrats think that way. The cat being let out of the bag speaks more to arrogance than stupidity. They believe they can do anything. We allow it. Ignorance is a form of stupidity; it borders on evil.There is a commercial on TV showing a polar bear in a cage banging his head against the sides of the cage. The bear has been confined too long. That is Andrew Cuomo in the governors office. He has been affected. Like the bear, Cuomo will not get out of the cage on his own. Cuomo needs help.Edmond DayRotterdam

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Letters to the Editor Saturday, Feb. 20 - The Daily Gazette

Rory McIlroy must go back to the drawing board to get ready for next week's World Golf Championship after missing his first cut since the 2019 Open in The Genesis Invitational at Riviera.

attling an ice-cold putter (33 putts) and a two-way miss, the World No.7 carded a five-over 76 - his worst round on the PGA Tour since the same score in the second round of last year's US Open to finish seven shots outside the projected cut mark on seven-over par.

The four-time Major champion hadn't missed a cut since he shot rounds of 79 and 65 to miss out by a shot at Royal Portrush 19 months ago - ending a 30-event streak that was, admittedly, 117 events shy of Tiger Woods' record of 142.

But he'll be hoping to rebound strongly as he did after his last failure on the Dunluce links which heralded the start of a red-hot run that brought him three wins, plus another 14 top-10 finishes and a second FedEx Cup title.

With less than seven weeks to go to the Masters, this was a glaring failure on a course that's a serious barometer of a player's preparedness for Major championship golf.

And having gone 15 months without a win, he will be keener than ever to make a statement when he joins Shane Lowry in the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession in Florida next week.

He started the day tied for 85th after opening with a two-over 73, but while there was little wind for his 7.13 am tee-time, he failed Riviera's chess-like examination.

After failing to birdie the short par-four 10th or the par-five 11th, he was facing an uphill task when he three-putted the 12th from 65 feet.

Clearly struggling with his swing, he hit back by holing a 20 footer for a birdie at the next but handed that shot straight back when he took three to get down from the front edge of the par-three 14th.

There was still time to get back to level par, but his agent was likely telling the pilot to warm up the engines on his jet when he short-sided himself at the 17th and made a bogey six, then three-putted from the fringe at the 18th to go out in three-over 39.

An eagle three at the 493-yard, par-five first could have changed his fortunes, but he missed an eight-footer for a birdie there, then reeled off a series of pars before he tangled with the barranca at the eighth and ran up a double-bogey six.

Bidding for his maiden win, overnight leader Sam Burns (24) took up where he left off following his sensational opening 64, carding a bogey-free, five-under-par 66 to lead by five strokes from Tyler McCumber and Jason Kokrak on 12-under par - the joint lowest 36-hole aggregate in the event's history.

"I think just having patience out there," Burns said when asked the key to his impressive play. "I didn't try to force anything."

Burns' thoughts were echoed by Jordan Spieth, who continued his resurgence in form when he shot a second successive 68 to share fourth place with Max Homa, who shot 70, on six-under.

"It's one of those rare weeks where you just can't get away with firing at flagsticks," Spieth said. "Precision is so key, but being smart and recognising when even being precise still won't work out."

"It's such a different experience from what we normally have on Tour where you're used to 20 to 25 under winning, where you get away with short-siding yourself because guys' short games are so good, but here it just doesn't happen.

"I said yesterday I'd take four rounds of three-under, and as the weekend comes around and the greens start to firm up, and conditions get tougher, I think six-under on the weekend will be a great score."

European Ryder Cup captain Harrington added a five-over 76 to his opening with a 75 to miss the cut on nine-over, having spent 10 days in self-isolation following a positive COVID-19 test.

Belfast Telegraph

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Rory McIlroy's cut record snapped as he misses out on weekend for first time since Royal Portrush at Riviera - Belfast Telegraph

Chess has captured the imagination of humans for centuries due to its strategic beautyan objective, board-based testament to the power of mortal intuition. Twenty-five years ago Wednesday, though, human superiority on a chessboard was seriously threatened for the first time.

At a nondescript convention center in Philadelphia, a meticulously constructed supercomputer called Deep Blue faced off against Garry Kasparov for the first in a series of six games. Kasparov was world chess champion at the time and widely considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of chess. He did not expect to lose. It was perhaps understandable; 1996 was an age of fairly primitive computer beings. Personal computers were only just becoming a more affordable commodity (35 percent of U.S. households owned a computer in 1997, compared with 15 percent in 1990), the USB had just been released, and it would be another five years until Windows XP made its way onto the market.

But Deep Blue was no run-of-the-mill computer. It was a behemoth built with the sole intention of being very good at chess. And it fulfilled that mission. On Feb. 10, 1996, the reigning world chess champion lost a game to a computer for the first time in history. Kasparov would win the 1996 match four games to two, but in May 1997, an upgraded Deep Blue would defeat Kasparov 32.

The 96 match nonetheless demonstrated that the tide was starting to turn in the chess world, and the tide was deep, blue, and electronic. It introduced chess computers to the world, sparking conversations about a rise of automation in the famously romantic field.

Some version of computers had been playing chess even before the emergence of artificial intelligence as an official field in the 1950s. Alan Turing, the famous cryptographer, had developed a handwritten chess algorithm in 1950 called Turochamp. In 1957, Alex Bernstein, a researcher and chess enthusiast from the Bronx, created the first complete chess program with the help of a number of his IBM colleagues.

Computer chess changed in the 80s. says Jonathan Schaeffer, president of the International Computer Games Association and professor of computer science at the University of Alberta. That decade, pioneering American computer scientist Ken Thompson released a paper proving something that now seems intuitive: If your computer was faster, your chess program would perform better. Programs could thus analyze more and more moves per second, increasing their chances of finding the best move possible.

Accordingly, computer chess became about getting the fastest technology. When I started in the [computer chess] game, we were using a single computer. Then it became 16, then 210, and so on to chips and supercomputers, says Schaeffer. In 1988, students at Carnegie Mellon University developed a sophisticated chess computer called Deep Thought. In January of that year, Deep Thought became the first computer to beat a grandmaster in a regular tournament game when it triumphed over Bent Larsen, a Danish GM. The next year, IBM hired three of those Carnegie students, Feng-hsiung Hsu, Thomas Anantharaman, and Murray Campbell, with the express aim of building a chess computer to rival the world champion; they would be joined by Chung Jen-Tan, Joseph Hoane Jr., and Jerry Brody later in the project. In October 1989, Kasparov played two games against Deep Thought, winning both of them with ease.

The first match demonstrated that the tide was starting to turn in the chessworld.

The loss to Kasparov in 1989 demonstrated the amount of work that needed to be done, says Schaeffer, so they took it to the extreme. They went off for seven years and built new computer chips that were faster, building a system that was scaled up to not just four computer chips, but 500. They added more knowledge to it as well as a book of openings, and eventually the brain of chess grandmaster Joel Benjamin helped provide expertise. This was a very long project involving many, many people, and significant financial expense, but it paid off for IBM in the form of media clamor.

The 2,800-pound Deep Blue, complete with special-purpose chess computer chips, was the end product. It was capable of processing 200 million moves per second, or 199,999,997 more than Kasparov could manage, according to IBM. This produced a chess machine that was stronger than any of its automated predecessors, and the outside world was stunned at the eventual resulta human had been outdone by a machine in this game of intellect, wit, and judgment. At the 1997 match, Kasparov and Deep Blue would go toe-to-automated-toe in front of numerous television cameras and a large crowd.

But Kasparovs loss was not as devastating as casual observers might have expected. Computers had beaten grandmasters before; it was inevitable that someone of Kasparovs stature would fall too. And though Kasparovs loss certainly came earlier than expected, the competitive chess world continued to go about its business relatively unfettered.

I dont think it affected chess players too much, says Matthew Sadler, chess grandmaster and co-author of Game Changer, a book about modern chess engine AlphaZero, Firstly, Kasparov was probably stronger than Deep Blue at the time, despite the loss. Secondly, it didnt really inspire any chess players with its play.

It helped that Deep Blue, at the time, was the exception rather than the rulemachines of its strength werent widely available. In 2006, though, a chess computer called Deep Fritz beat thenworld champion Vladimir Kramnik. I think thats really when chess players sort of thought, Oh, my goodness, the machines really are getting stronger than us, says Sadler, when they were beating us not on supercomputers, but on relative commodity hardware.

The change here wasnt just that a computer could win, but that a computer could help human players win if incorporated into their training regimes effectively. Computers were adept at judging the quality of moves and positions accurately, particularly during opening sequences. Some found this easier than others. Sadler says: I think a lot of competitive players took a while to adjust to the new reality. For example, if you werent really computer-literate, and all of a sudden you found yourself in a world where having a computer really makes a difference, thats a difficult thing.

Despite initial resistance from certain parts of the community, the advantages that computers afforded chess players eventually made them impossible to ignore. Sam Shankland gained his international master title in 2008, right around when computers started to become a necessity. There was some backlash, but honestly, those people are mostly gone now, Shankland, now a grandmaster and 2018 U.S. chess champion, says. They either got tired of losing and quit chess or they got tired of losing and adapted.

The sheer wealth of knowledge chess players now had access to meant that determination was increasingly rewarded. I think that chess is essentially a subset of talent and hard work, says Shankland, and as training resources like computers become better and more accessible, talent tends to become less important compared to hard workwhich suits a workhorse like myself.

Such accessibility has also led to chess, once reserved for rich families who could afford tutors and other training, to become a markedly more democratized pursuit. Take India, for example, says Shankland. Apart from Vishy [Anand], they werent a particularly strong chess nation historically. Now, theyre clearly the fastest-growing country in the world in terms of rising stars, and I think a lot of that is down to training resources becoming more widely available.

The availability of advanced chess analysis at the flick of a smartphone has caused a bizarre balance of power in the media and a certain trepidation among top-level players, as Peter Heine Nielsen, coach of current world champion Magnus Carlsen, points out:

When I started working with Vishy Anand, at a postgame press conference the players would explain the games, and everybody would look at them with excitement and think, Wow, these guys are clever. Now, the player in the press conference is a bit nervous because they have only calculated themselves, while all the journalists have been using advanced technology. So they are afraid to say, I thought this wasnt a strong move in case theyre wrong.

So sometimes before a press conference I speak to Magnus and tell him the computer said this or that, just so he knows. The spectator-player dynamic has changed a lotsome of the mystery has gone.

However, while certain human aspects of the games have disappeared, recent developments have caused professional players to rethink what they know about their beloved board game. In 2017, a team of scientists at Google-owned DeepMind created AlphaZero, a self-learning neural network program that surpassed the strongest chess program after just four hours of playing against itself.

Before the computer boom, and before the neural network boom, we were thinking quite dogmatically, says Nielsen. After both occurred, we were forced to rewrite our own solutions. It led to the game becoming more exciting. Moreover, the two strongest chess enginesLeela (which is based on AlphaZero) and Stockfishare available online, which signifies a remarkably more distributive and collaborative approach to chess innovation than that which was pioneered by Deep Blue, a closed circuit.

Despite all their progress, there are still some goals to which innovators in the chess world can aspire. The next step is for engines to explain what theyre doing, says Sadler, so that the average player can understand why an engine says, No, trading that piece is a bad idea. The relationship remains one of reciprocity.

One thing is certain: Chess programs will remain the most important piece of a professional players preparatory arsenal. Not using a computer to do chess would be like not using a calculator to do math, says Nielsen, I like itbut it doesnt matter if I like it or not. Its the right way to do it.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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The 25th anniversary of Deep Blue beating Garry Kasparov in a chess game. - Slate

Fat Fritz has revolutionised the world of chess engines. The AI engine is based on the famous AlphaZero algorithms: the extraordinary playing strength and the completely new analyses fascinated the chess world. Now Fat Fritz 2.0 has arrived!

Fat Fritz 2.0 is based on the Stockfish 12 engine, but uses a completely new neural network with better ratings and greater performance.

NNUE-Technology:

Fat Fritz 2.0 achieves top performance even without a high-end graphics card!

Fat Fritz 2.0 miles ahead!

In the comparative match over 1552 games Fat Fritz 2.0 clearly beats Stockfish 12 (286 wins with 99 losses, rest draws) and outperforms the previous top engine by over 40 Elo points (as of February 2021).

Incl. Fritz 17 user interface (64 Bit).

Runs on any current Windows PC or laptop.

What you receive:

ChessBase Premium-Membership (sixmonths) with access to the ChessBase Video Portal, Playchess, the Tactic-App, LiveDatabase, LiveBook etc. Database of around 1.5 Mio. Games, and much more

Order Fat Fritz 2 in the ChessBase Shop now(best by download, to get it immediately)

Or: how about trying it out on our engine cloud?

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

Minimum: PC Core i3 or i5 / AMD FX or Ryzen 3, 2 GB RAM, Windows 7/8/8.1 64Bit, DirectX9, graphics card with 256 MB RAM, DVD-ROM drive, Windows Media Player 11 and Internet access.

Recommended: PC Core i7, i9 or AMD FX, Ryzen 7/9 and Windows 10 64-Bit, 4 GB RAM, Windows 10, DirectX10, graphics card with 512 MB RAM or more, Windows Media Player 11, DVD ROM drive and Internet access. System requirements for ChessBase Account: Internet access and up-to-date browser, e.g. Chrome, Safari. Runs on Windows, OS X, iOS, Android and Linux.

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Fat Fritz 2.0 - The new number 1 - Chessbase News

It has been an extraordinary year for everyone, but no less so in computer chess. You would be forgiven for thinking we had seen the last major revolution in the field, thanks to AlphaZero and all the works it inspired and spawned. The neural network technology they created was staggering and incredible, and while it is still being explored and worked on, a new development has come to the chess world thanks to chesss Japanese sibling, Shogi.

Although the AlphaZero neural network is extremely powerful overall, and consequently Leela and Fat Fritz, it is held back by the need to use a GPU (graphics processor) to read it, slowing it down by over a thousand times compared to traditional speed demons such as Stockfish and Komodo. That it could still compete with them on equal terms in spite of this handicap speaks volumes on just how powerful those neural networks are.

Still, this came at a price too. The nature of its search, averaging the various outcomes, good or bad, led to a strongly exploitative style, but could fail in technical endgames or positions where surgical precision was needed. The dream of combining a large and powerful neural network with the speed and accuracy of Stockfishs search seemed just that: a dream.

Enter NNUE.

As chess players we naturally think of AlphaZero as a chess engine development first and foremost, whilst acknowledgingGo was its originator. It is easy to forget that the AlphaZero paper described its applications to three strategy games, not two, the third being the Japanese chess game known as Shogi.

Unsurprisingly, the shogi world was no less shaken up by the AlphaZero paper, but instead of just trying to reproduce it, a Japanese programmer, Yu Nasu, developed and published agroundbreaking paperfora different neural network architecture known as NNUE, inspired by DeepMinds success, whichran at full strength exclusively ona computer processor with no need for avideo card.

Just asAlphaZero and the first edition of Fat Fritz, NNUEalso builds it own chess knowledge by learning from chess positions and evaluations. NNUE completely revolutionized Shogi programs, leading to leaps of well over 100 Elo!It was their developers who shared their work with the chess world by adapting their open source Shogi NNUE code to the open source programStockfish. Based on the success of Stockfish 12, the first chess engine to implement NNUE, numerous other engine authors have also added NNUE into their work, such as the recently released "Dragon" by the Komodo team.

Order Fat Fritz 2 in the ChessBase Shop now

Fat Fritz 2 is trained and developed using this NNUE technology, runninginside the open source Stockfish binary, butwith a completely new and different neural network that differs significantly from Stockfish's on a couple of key points:

After all, if an elite neural network could be trained from just Stockfish evaluations, imagine what it could do with the sophisticated knowledge of Fat Fritz!To this end, some four billion positions were generated on thousands of hours of the most powerful graphics cards to train it.

So what was the result of this larger neural network with deeper chess knowledge?Ina large test at 1 minuteplus 1 second, Fat Fritz 2 scored +42 Elo over Stockfish 12.Click to download the PGN games.

Score of Fat Fritz 2 vs Stockfish 12:

286 wins / 99 losses /1167 draws

Elo difference: 42.1 +/- 8.5, LOS: 100.0 %, DrawRatio: 75.2 %1552 of 1552 games finished.

Note: the reason for the odd number of games is that the suite used has 776 positions, which with reversed colours leads to 1552games.

Also, there is reason to believe that its endgame play is superior overall, though even if true, exceptions will no doubt be found. Here are a few examples:

This has often been a very tough one for engines, even when enjoying all the tablebases available. Using a modest sixcores to emulate laptop users or those with less than premium desktops, here are the results of Stockfish 12 and Fat Fritz 2:

Analysis by Stockfish 12

While taking 37 seconds might not seem like a big deal, most people will not spend that long with an engine on a position unless they already suspect there might be something to uncover.

Analysis by Fat Fritz 2

Five seconds! True, this is but a single position, yet there is a reason Shirov's move remains in modern test sets to this day.

Another curiosity actually comes from an article published a few months ago by GM Karsten Mueller. He had asked for the analysis of a development version of Fat Fritz 2, and in itone of his moves had been refuted badly... much to his delight. The reason for his pleasure was that it showed new engines might become even more valuable tools in complex endgames.

Here Fat Fritz 2gave a winningline starting with 52...e7.

This same position was then shown to Stockfish 12, which had access to 30 threads, 7-piece tablebases, and after nine billion nodes it declared 52.d6 was winning and its choice.

There doesn't seem to be much doubt with such a high evaluation, does there?

Was this a case of more than one move doing the job? 52.d6 was then shown to Fat Fritz 2, but it declared this move and line a draw! According to it,there was a blunder just five plies into Stockfish's 50-ply mainline.

Instead of 56.h3? as shown above, Fat Fritz 2's 56.Nb4! saves the game. Granted, none of this is absolute proof, but this sort of thing has been common enough to stand out.

Regardless, it is clear Fat Fritz 2 is an enormous step forward, and will offer fantastic analysis and pleasure to all who use it. Anyone who felt left out, due to the previous need to use a powerful video card to reap the benefits of a world-class neural network, can now rejoice asthis is no longer required.

Order Fat Fritz 2 in the ChessBase Shop now(best by download, to get it immediately)

No such work is the result of one person, whether directly or indirectly, and this is no less true of Fat Fritz 2.

Deepest thanks and gratitude go to my friend Daniel Uranga, a brilliant Argentinian programmer who helped realize and test every mad idea I came up with, and there were many. His help was invaluable and his skill has now been deservedly recognized by Amazon who recently hired him and brought him to the UK.

Also, warmest thanks to my friend Dietrich Kappe who is an endless source of useful scripts and ideas, and who helped take the project to the next level. His friendship and generosity cannot be overstated.

Finally, where would any of this be without the fabulous Stockfish team and their legion of contributors, as well as Yu Nasu for his groundbreaking NNUE work, and Tanuki (nodchip) for his translation of the Shogi code for use in chess.

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Fat Fritz 2: The Best of Both Worlds - Chessbase News

Renegade Game Studios revealed this week that they will be releasing Gravwell 2nd Edition sometime later this year. This version won't be like the last in a few ways. They've kept the gameplay as-is but they've added some awesome stuff, such as new artwork from artist Kwanchai Moriya, an increased player count so you can play with up to six people, and new ship models with unique powers for every ship in the game. Essentially, if you love the original by designer Corey Young, you still have it. But this one expands on it and allows for more insane plays with more people at the table. The game is set to be released sometime in June 2021 as of when we're writing this, but you can pre-order it on Renegade's website right now for $40.

In Gravwell you're among a flotilla of ships that survived passing through a black hole. The fabric of space and the general physics you've known have changed. You quickly discover that your engines are offline, but you can navigate crudely using your tractor and repulsor beams. By mining asteroids and collecting raw elements from space dust, you muster just enough force to move your spacecraft. You lock onto another object, perhaps a spacecraft, and creep toward it. But just as you're about to engage your tractor beam, its captain engages his beam, catapulting his ship past you. If you don't act quickly, you'll be pulled the wrong direction! It's a real mind-bender! We've updated this award-winning game with beautiful all-new art by artist Kwanchai Moriya. In addition to the game art, the player ships each feature a new and unique sculpt. With the ability to accommodate up to 6 players, and unique powers for each ship, Gravwell 2nd Edition has all the gameplay players loved in the original, and much more!

Gavin is the current Games Editor for Bleeding Cool. He has been a lifelong geek who can chat with you about comics, television, video games, and even pro wrestling. He can also teach you how to play Star Trek chess, be your Mercy on Overwatch, recommend random cool music, and goes rogue in D&D. He also enjoys hundreds of other geeky things that can't be covered in a single paragraph. Follow @TheGavinSheehan on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vero, for random pictures and musings.

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Gravwell 2nd Edition Will Be Coming Out Later This Year - Bleeding Cool News

Chess has been fascinating players and spectators for nearly 2,000 years. With the technological revolution of the last 100 years, computers have become an increasingly important part of our lives, and their effect on chess has been substantial.

Hardware and software developments have given programmers a powerful environment where they can merge chess and computers together.

This article is a brief guide to understanding how chess computers (chess engines) have affected the game of chess:

A chess engine is simply a software program that plays and analyzes chess. The word engine simply refers to a kind of high-powered program that does a lot of searching and processingsimilar to a search engine.

Humans have always been fascinated with machinesincluding chess-playing machines.

In 1796, a fake chess-playing machine called the Automaton was created, but it had a strong human chess player hiding inside playing the moves. In 1912, a machine was created that could actually checkmate with a king and rook vs king.

But it wasnt until 1951 that a computer program was written by Alan Turing that could actually play chess. For the next 50 years, programmers worked on making their chess engines better, and improvements in hardware allowed for stronger play. By 2005, chess engines had definitely become stronger than the best human players. In the years since, they have improved significantly, and now there are hundreds of computer programs that are stronger than human grandmasters.

Humans have gotten better at chess over time as they learn from the collective wisdom of past players. Computers have accelerated this progress, as chess engines have added new knowledge and understanding to the game.

The top players today use chess engines extensively to analyze positions and generate ideas. Unfortunately, this has also introduced cheating to chess, where any player using merely a mobile phone and a chess engine can play better than any grandmaster.

Online chess servers like Chess.com catch hundreds of cheaters each day who cannot resist the urge to win games using computer assistance. Still, fans of the game have benefitted from engines as they have helped improving players get better through analysis, and have also created a spectator sport where top chess engines battle to see which is best.

Chess engines are complex. However, in simplest terms, they do two important things:

1. Evaluate. Chess engines look at individual positions and evaluate which position is better. Almost all chess engines display a evaluation number, or eval, based on the same scoring that most chess players use (a pawn being worth one point, a minor piece three, etc). Each chess engine does this differently, but most engines look at things like material on each side, all the threats on the board, the king safety, and pawn structure.

The cumulative score of the best evaluation in the future is summed up to one number. Traditional engines evaluate similarly to humans because they were designed by humans. Neural net engines (see below) evaluate differently.

The position below is given a cumulative score of +3 by the computer engine Stockfish even though material is equal, because White's piece development is much better. This means that the white position is roughly three pawns better.

2. Search. Like good chess players, engines try to look deeply into the position. The further ahead they can see, the better the move they can make now, as they can evaluate positions that will result after the best possible moves in the future. Each individual chess move is called a ply (a layer), and the depth is explained in how many ply deep. At 20 ply (10 white moves, and 10 black moves), most engines are already evaluating far deeper and stronger than humans. Depending on the time allowed and the complexity of the position, engines can look more than 50 ply deep.

From the current position, an engine starts to look at all of the possible moves and replies. And then all of the possible replies to that. And then all of the possible replies to that! Imagine there are 32 possible moves in any position. After four moves, there are already more than one million positions to evaluate. After just four more moves, that would be more than one trillion position. That becomes extremely unpractical.

So instead, engines try to use smart pruning to look deeply at just the most promising lines, and ignore the obviously bad ones. The engine keeps a running principal variation (PV) of the most promising moves in every position.

Traditional chess engines use complex evaluation functions and intelligent search algorithms to find the best possible move. Their power is also related to how much CPU processing power the phone, computer, or server has. The more powerful and plentiful the CPUs, the stronger the engine becomes.

A neural network (NN) engine is a different kind of chess engine. The first NN was AlphaZero, created by DeepMind (a Google company). In 2017, AlphaZero reportedly crushed Stockfish, the best traditional engine, in a 100-game match. But the match was private and many have questioned the results. However, in 2019, the open-source Lc0 (Leela Chess Zero), did finally become the worlds strongest chess engine in the Chess.com Computer Chess Championship.

A neural network is a series of algorithms and instructions used to evaluate a chess positionexcept we dont know exactly how! A NN is trained by feeding it data (in this case, chess games), and then letting it learn on its own. This is traditionally called machine learning.

The games can come from external sources (like grandmaster games). Or, as in Lc0, the game data comes from playing more than 200 million games against itself. So for NN engines, their evaluation is provided by the neural net.

The introduction of NN engines has also change how search is done. Traditional engines have typically used what is called an alpha-beta (AB) minimax search, where only the best possible moves are evaluated. NN engines, however, choose to use what is called Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS), where the best move is selected based on the probable outcomes of many playouts. Basically, it plays a ton of quick games against itself at super fast speeds with random moves and looks at the moves that seem to have the highest odds of winning.

NN engines also get stronger based on the type of hardware they are run on. They need powerful CPUs. But, even more so, they need powerful GPUs (graphics processing units, like in many gaming computers), because GPUs are faster at processing neural nets.

There are several online chess engine tournaments that match up the best engines. Chess.com runs the Computer Chess Championship, which is an ongoing series of engine-vs-engine tournaments with different engines and formats that you can watch 24/7!

There are many ways to determine the top chess engines. A lot depends on hardware, time control and methodology used. You can look at the rankings for past chess events (such as the CCC), or different online rating systems. Themost recent CCC was won by Lc0, with Stockfish second, Leelenstein third and Antifish fourth.

Traditional Chess Engines:

Neural Network Engines:

Stockfish is an open-source chess engine developed by a large community of chess engine enthusiasts and developers. It has been the strongest traditional chess engine since 2016. Many of the modern chess engine programming methods were pioneered through Stockfish. It uses a complex eval formula and A/B search.

Komodo is a private commercial engine originally developed by Don Dailey and now continued by Mark Lefler and grandmaster Larry Kaufman. How it works is not publicly known, but it claims to rely on a more sophisticated evaluation based on grandmaster understanding and the insights of GM Larry Kaufmann, which is supposed to give it a more human style. It uses a traditional A/B search. It is currently the second strongest traditional chess engine.

Komodo MC is the Monte Carlo search version of Komodo. While the evaluation is the same as regular Komodo, the way it searches is with Monte Carlo tree search instead of A/B minimax. While not quite as strong as regular Komodo, it is improving more quickly.

Houdini is a private commercial chess engine published by Robert Houdart. It has a very fast search and performs well in faster time controls. It loses very few games, and can escape from difficult positions (like its namesake). It is currently the third-strongest traditional chess engine.

Fire is a private non-commercial chess engine by Norman Schmidt. It was originally released in 2010.

Ethereal is a relatively new open-source chess engine by Andrew Grant, developed mostly as a way to learn and improve his programming. It was created in 2016, and was inspired by Stockfish and other chess engines.

Shredder (or Deep Shredder) won many tournaments and titles in the 1990s and went commercial in 1996. Stefan Meyer-Kahlen is the author.

Laser is an open-source chess engine created in 2015 by the brothers Jeffrey and Michael An, technology students in California.

Lc0 (Leela Chess Zero) is an open-source, community-driven neural network engine. Lc0 has a net based on reinforcement learning, which means it has played itself more than 200 million games, and learns only from playing itself. When it first starts its training, Lc0 knows nothing more than the rules of chess.

It uses a Monte Carlo tree search to choose its moves. Lc0 is currently the strongest chess engine in the world, winning the Chess.com Computer Chess Championship in 2019. Lc0 plays a very different kind of chess from Stockfish. It creates exciting, attacking play, and makes moves that traditional chess engines do not understand. Lc0 tends to play endgames in a strange way, often giving up material on purpose to simplify the game instead of choosing the quickest win.

Leelenstien uses most of the code of Lc0, but has a different neural net based on supervised learning, being fed millions of previously-played chess games from chess engines, as opposed to learning from its own games. This net has proved to not be quite as strong as Lc0s net.

Antifish also uses most of Lc0s code, but has a neural net based solely on games played between Lc0 and Stockfish, in an effort to beat Stockfish. Antifish is not as strong as Lc0 or Leelenstein.

Allie is a unique NN engine written by Adam Treat. Allie uses its own Monte Carlo search, move selection, and time management code. Allie can be used with any net, and does not have a net of its own. The Allie author is looking to add A/B search to his engine.

Do you have any questions about computer chess engines? Let us know in the comments.

If you want to watch some of the world's top computer engines play right now, tune in to the Chess.com Computer Chess Championship here.

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Computer Chess Engines: A Quick Guide - Chess.com