The Turk

First chess playing machine, made in 1770.

Computing Machines

Begin to appear in 1940's

Claude Shannon

Father of Information Theory & Computer Chess

Position Evaluation

Chess position is evaluated to assign a value

Value = 2.1

Minimax Algorithm

Values propagate up to give better estimate

Type A Strategy

Examine all variations to a fixed depth

Type B Strategy

Examine selected variations to variable depth

First Program

Written in 1957, 7 years after Shannon's paper

Alpha Beta Pruning

Doubles how deep computers can look ahead

First Milestone

Computer defeats 1500 rated player in 1967

The Bet

Levy bet a computer could not beat him in 10 years

Levy Wins

In 1978 Levy wins the bet

Fredkin Prize

$100,000 to beat the world chess champion

Personal Chess Computer

Annual sales of $100 million

Garry Kasparov

Became world chess champion in 1985

Deep Thought

First chip designed to play only chess

Deep Blue

IBM takes interest in computer chess

2010

PC chess programs defeat world champion

Future

Humans will always enjoy chess

Arimaa

Playable with a chess set, but different rules

Bobby Fischer

Proposed random initial setup for chess

Aamir

Arimaa is aamir backwards with a leading A

Arimaa is Difficult

High branching factor, no opening books, few captures

Arimaa Challenge

$10,000 to beat top human players before 2020

Arimaa and AI

Will require a breakthrough in AI before 2020

Questions

More info at www.arimaa.com