Real Chess

Players get thrilled with computer games when the computer cooperates well or is reliable. And with plays like chess, they have to look if not for the best, the smartest chess computer. What is the smartest chess computer then?

Deep Blue is referred to be the one. Why? Is it because the machine won twice over the hailed world chess champion Garry Kasparov by a match comprised of six games on 1997? Is it why Kasparov had to accuse the creator of the machine of cheating and had to demand for rematch?

Deep Blue is a chess computer (one that that plays chess). It is a product of IBM. It has previous versions before it defeated Kasparov and one of which the grandmaster has beaten earlier in 1996.

The origin of the machine is traceable from Carnegie Mellon University where the project was conducted first by Feng Hsiung Hsu as a “Chip Test”. Deep Thought succeeded it and together with Thomas Anantharaman and Murray Campbell, IBM Research employed Hsu to create a chess machine to beat world champions. Arthur Joseph Hoane whose task is programming and Jerry Brody joined the team after Anantharaman left.

Deep Thought had a match against Kasparov in 1989 and after then, the chess machine was renamed “Deep Blue.” Grandmaster Joel Benjamin played with its scaled down version, the Deep Blue Jr., thereby IBM Research hiring him for the opening book assistance and preparation of the match against Kasparov.

For PR reasons, Deep Thought was renamed again “Deep Blue prototype” or Deep Thought II and it was played in the 8^th World Computer Chess Championship in 1995. Wchess was a computer program it played with and this resulted to a draw. It lost a match against the computer program Fritz and ranked second to another computer program Junior.

Under regular time controls, the so-called success of the chess machine Deep Blue was its victory against the world chess champion Kasparov in 1996. This made famous the game Deep Blue – Kasparov, 1996, Game 1. Nevertheless, Kasparov had a rematch with it and this concluded to two draws and three wins during the same year.

The machine was upgraded and then had an unofficial nickname “Deeper Blue”. The heavy upgrade resulted to another match with Kasparov in 1997. This match was known worldwide for the defeat of Kasparov under time controls of standard chess tournaments by a computer system.

The brute force computing power is where the main playing strength of the system derived. With a base system RS/6000 SP Thin P2SC having 30 nodes, it was massively parallel. Each node of the system has 120 MHz P2SC microprocessor equipped with VLSI chess chips for special purpose. The C-written chess program under an operating system called AIX, has the capability of evaluating positions reaching two hundred million per second, twice faster than the 1996 version. According to the Top 500 List, Deep Blue then became the supercomputer most powerful at 259^th after it has achieved 11.38 GFLOPS on the High-Performance LINPACK benchmark.

A depth of six to twelve plies is a typical search of the chess machine and sometimes, it’s maximized to forty. The playing strength is increased by 50 – 70 points with one additional ply according to Levy and Newborn.

A number of parameters to be determined comprise a generalized form of the evaluation function of the smartest chess computer yet. The determination of parameters is done by the system itself, usually by analysis..

Chess is a thinking game and calls for serious thinking and attention on the part of the player to say “checkmate” to the opponent. There is no short-cut or any specific formula to win the game and one has to learn the game only by practice and thorough understanding of the basic tenets or guiding principles of the game.

There is no room for luck or chance in this game, and, as a player, you will decide the fate of the outcome. Put in simple terms, you can win a chess game only if the opponents commits a mistake and you can lose the game only when you make the mistake.

This leads to the conclusion that one should not only have a thorough grasp of the basics of the game, but also needs to play a number of games. It is quite natural that, as a novice, one would invariably hear the “checkmate” more than braving to say one to the opponent. There is nothing wrong in losing a game, but it would be a crime if nothing is learnt from the loss and ensured that mistakes are not made again in the subsequent games.

As long as the passion for the game and the will to learn from the mistakes is there, one can speed-up the process of learning by playing more number of games. The concept of Online Chess – playing with a virtual partner using the World Wide Web or the Internet using the computer and the broadband network – has further eased the process of learning this noble game. Using online chess, one can play with different types of partners or the same partner, separated by distance, at any time. The physical presence of the player across the board will be the only disadvantage in online chess.

Play with experienced players

If you are in the early stages of learning the game, try to play the game as many times as possible and if an experienced player in comparison with you offers to play a game, never refuse the offer even though you may be aware that you will most probably hear the word “checkmate” from the experienced player. It is this play with the experienced players that teach you practical lessons about the pieces, their importance in the board and many such invaluable lessons that books will not teach.

Avoid playing with novices or players less experienced than you

It might sound harsh to suggest this tip to you, since you are still a novice. But, if the first tip is followed, you will be playing with experienced players and would have gained some sort of understanding and expertise relative to the initial stage. If, with that new experience, you indulge in playing with amateurs, it is quite possible that you will be saying “checkmate” to your less-experienced opponent, and this moments of pleasure or joy might lead to neglect or indolent habit of playing on false sense of expertise and will impact your further progress in gaining expertise.

Do not move your hand over the board

Unless and until you have decided to zero-in on a specific move of a piece, do not hover your hands on the board. If you keep moving your hands around the board, though not touching any of the pieces, unable to decide which one to move, you are sending a signal to the opponent about your uncertainty and indecision, which may prove fatal to success.

Be patient or do not exhibit impatience

It is quite possible that the opponent takes time to make a move. He might be reading the board closely or analyzing the tactics to be deployed. Sometimes it so happens that he or she takes inordinate time to make the move. In such circumstances, you, as a player, have no other alternative but to wait for his move. Do not express any sort of impatience while you were made to wait for your turn. You should exercise patience and use the valuable time to study the board more critically.

As a novice, it is better that you learn to play the game slowly or do not exhibit haste or impatience. Remember that you can lose the game only when you make a mistake and traits of haste and impatience are barriers to thought process and might lead you to make mistakes.

There are also a lot of great chess strategies available on different blogs and I highly recommend the 50 chess strategies at mychessblog.