Expertise in chess

This chapter provides an overview of research into chess expertise. After an historical background and a brief description of the game and the rating system, it discusses the information processes enabling players to choose good moves, and in particular the trade-offs between knowledge and search. Other topics include blindfold chess, talent, and the role of deliberate practice and tournament experience

WCSC 2019: the 9th World Chess Software Championship

The 'WCSC 2019' World Chess Software Championship was the ICGA's ninth experimental test of computer chess software in a neutral hardware environment. Held in Macau, this event was won by KOMODO with JONNY and CHIRON scarcely separable in second and third

WSCC 2019: the World Speed Chess Championship

WSCC 2019 was ICGA's continuation of its investigation of top chess engines playing at Blitz tempo with the consequential loss of accuracy. It was held in Macau in parallel with the 'WCCC' classical tempo and 'WCSC' neutral-hardware events. The ICGA demonstrated that, even so, the engines play at super-GM level. On this occasion, JONNY proved incisive to win while KOMODO sustained two losses

On the limits of engine analysis for cheating detection in chess

The integrity of online games has important economic consequences for both the gaming industry and players of all levels, from professionals to amateurs. Where there is a high likelihood of cheating, there is a loss of trust and players will be reluctant to participate — particularly if this is likely to cost them money. Chess is a game that has been established online for around 25 years and is played over the Internet commercially. In that environment, where players are not physically present “over the board” (OTB), chess is one of the most easily exploitable games by those who wish to cheat, because of the widespread availability of very strong chess-playing programs. Allegations of cheating even in OTB games have increased significantly in recent years, and even led to recent changes in the laws of the game that potentially impinge upon players’ privacy. In this work, we examine some of the difficulties inherent in identifying the covert use of chess-playing programs purely from an analysis of the moves of a game. Our approach is to deeply examine a large collection of games where there is confidence that cheating has not taken place, and analyse those that could be easily misclassified. We conclude that there is a serious risk of finding numerous “false positives” and that, in general, it is unsafe to use just the moves of a single game as prima facie evidence of cheating. We also demonstrate that it is impossible to compute definitive values of the figures currently employed to measure similarity to a chess-engine for a particular game, as values inevitably vary at different depths and, even under identical conditions, when multi-threading evaluation is used

WCCC 2019: the 25th World Computer Chess Championship

WCCC 2019, the 25th World Computer Chess Championship, continued the ICGA's longitudinal computer chess experiment begun in 1974. This event was held in Macau, featured six chess engines and was won by KOMODO which thereby retained its title of World Champion. CHIRON and SHREDDER were respectively second and third

Rise of human intelligence: Comments on Howard (1999)

Based upon the evidence that the best chessplayers in the world are becoming increasingly represented by relatively young individuals, Howard (1999) claimed that human intelligence is rising over generations. We suggest that this explanation has several difficulties, and show that alternative explanations relating to changes in the chess environment, including increased access to chess knowledge, offer better explanations for the increased presence of young players at top-level chess