Chess in Science Magazines

Chess in Science Magazines
by Bill Wall
Here are a few articles

and research papers Bill Wall
about chess in science
magazines.
There was an article

called "The Chess
Palladium and Chess, like love, like
Mathematical Sphinx." music, has the power to
It was a review of a make men happy. —
monthly magazine with Tarrasch
that same name, edited
by Napoleon Marache
(1815-1875). (source:
Scientific American,
Nov 14, 1846, Vol. 2, #
8, p. 63)
In 1847, a quantity of
splendid furniture was
made in Birmingham,
England, for Isabella II
(1830-1904), queen of
Spain. Some of the
items made were chess
tables for the Queen.
(source: Scientific
American, Jun 5, 1847,
Vol 2, #37, p. 296)
There is an article on
William Caxton (1422-
1491), thought to be the
first person to introduce
a printing press into
England. He came to
England in 1447 and set
up a press in
Westminster under the
patronage of the
Westminster abbot. The
first book he produced
was a book related to
the game of chess. It
was a translation from a
Latin compilation
entitled Dicetes and
Sayings. Altogether, he
produced 64 works.
(source: Scientific
American, Jul 3, 1847,
Vol 2, #41, p. 326)
An article appeared on
automatons. For a
while, Wolfgang von
Kempelen (1734-1804)
overshadowed the fame
of Jacques de
Vaucanson (1709-
1782), but Kempelen
relied on trickery more
than mechanical
invention, which were
the characteristics of the
automaton chess player.
The real chess player
was a living one.
Vaucanson create a
number of impressive
and innovative
automata. He was also
the first man to design
an automatic loom, but
never developed the
idea. (source: Scientific
Vol 3, # 37, p. 296)
An article appeared on
the invention of chess.
Mr. de Basterot, of
France, edited a work
upon the game of chess.
Among other
particulars, he informed
his readers, on good
authority, that chess was
invented during the 6th
century, by an Indian
Brahmin, called Sissa,
who presented his
invention to the
reigning monarch,
Sirham. Sissa requested,
as a reward, on grain of
wheat for the first
square, two grains for
the second, and four for
the third, and so on, in
geometric progression,
up to the 64th square.
To reach the amount of
this humble request, the
author informed his
readers, would require
the entire wheat crop of
France for 140 years.
Instead of 140 years, it
would take over
360,000 years for the
purpose, allowing the
annual wheat crop of
France to be 100
million bushels.
(source: Scientific
American, Apr 16,
1853, Vol 8, # 31)

called "Some of the
Wonders of Chess-
Playing." A
correspondent gives an
interesting account of
the astonishing
performances of Paul
Morphy, including his
blindfold play. (source:
Oct 30, 1858, Vol 14, #
8, p. 62)

called "The Great Chess
Contest." It was an
article on the match
between Paul Morphy
and Adolf Anderssen in
which Morphy won 7
games, lost 2, and drew
2. (source: Scientific
American, Jan 29, 1859,
Vol 14, # 21, p. 167)

called "Chess-Playing
Excitement." The article
begins about how Paul
Morphy defeated all of
his European
competitors and how
Morphy was being
praised in America. The
author continued,
"...some of our
scientific friends rather
overdid the thing by
their adulations; yet all
this might be
overlooked if such
influences extended no
further than the time
and place when and
where these effusions
were uttered. But we
regret to state that this is
not the case, for a
pernicious excitement to
learn and play chess has
spread all over the
country...Why should
we regret this? It may
be asked. We answer,
chess is a mere
amusement of a very
inferior character, which
robs the mind of
valuable time that might
be devoted to nobler
acquirements, while at
the same time, it affords
no benefit whatever to
the body. Chess has
acquired a high
reputation as being a
means to discipline the
mind, because it
requires a strong
memory and peculiar
powers of combination.
It is also generally
believed that skill in
playing it affords
evidence of a superior
intellect. These
opinions, we believe,
are exceedingly
erroneous... A game of
chess does not add a
single new fact to the
mind; it does not excite
a single beautiful
thought; nor does it
serve a single purpose
for polishing and
improving the nobler
faculties. Persons
engaged in sedentary
occupations should
never practice this
cheerless game; they
require out-door
exercises for recreation
— not this sort of
mental gladiatorship.
Those who are engaged
in mental pursuits
should avoid a chess-
board as they would as
adder's nest, because
chess misdirects and
exhausts their
intellectual energies... It
is a game which no man
who depends on his
trade, business or
professional, can afford
to waste time
practicing; it is an
amusement — and a
very unprofitable one
— which the
independently wealthy
alone can afford time to
lose its pursuit... No
young man who designs
to be useful in the world
can prosecute it without
danger to his best
interests. A young
gentleman of our
acquaintance, who had
become a somewhat
skillful player, recently
pushed the chess-board
from him at the end of a
game, declaring, 'I have
wasted too much time
upon it already; I cannot
afford to do this any
longer; this is my last
game.' We recommend
his resolution to all
those who have been
foolishly led away by
the present chess-
excitement, as skill in
his game is neither a
useful nor graceful
accomplishment."
(source: Scientific
American, Jul 2, 1859,
Vol 1, #1, p. 9)
A portable writing
apparatus designed for
soldiers was patented. It
was an apparatus
combining amusement
and utility for the
soldier. It was a light tin
cylinder, 9 inches in
length, and less than 3
inches in diameter. It
contained a writing
table, paper, ink, pen,
pencil, postage stamps
and envelopes, a chess
board, and chessmen.
The apparatus was
patented (Patent No.
34,168) through the
Scientific American
Patent Agency on
January 14, 1862. The
inventor was H. C.
Small of East
Limington, Maine.
(source: Scientific
American, Mar 1, 1862,
Vol 6, # 9, p. 129)
A reader to the editor of

Scientific American
repeated the story of the
Indian who invented
chess and wanted one
grain of wheat for the
first square on the chess
bard, two grains for the
second square, four
grains for the third
square, etc. The reader
calculated the number
of grains for all 64
squares, and it came to
18,446,744,073,709,551
,615 grains. This,
reduced to bushels, at
the rate of 560,000
grains to the bushel,
made
32,940,614,417,338
bushels. These bushels
would form square
pyramid pile 4 miles
high and 14 miles
square at the base. This
would allow more than
five and a half bushels
per annum to every
man, woman, and child
that existed since the
creation. If paid for in
American gold coin, at
the price of $1 per
bushel, it would require
54,200,755 tons of gold.
(source: Scientific
American, Apr 11,
1863, Vol. 8, # 15, p.
230)
An article appeared
about Paul Morphy. It
mentioned that he just
returned from Paris to
New Orleans. He went
to Paris about 4 years
ago as a loyal man, beat
all the Europeans at
chess, and was flattered
and honored immensely.
He made has late visit
as a rebel, got beaten at
chess, and attracted no
attention whatever.
(source: Scientific
American, Apr 9, 1864,
Vol. 10, # 15, p. 227)
There was an article on

the electric telegraph.
The first newspaper
report by electric
telegraph appeared in
the Morning Chronicle
on May 8, 1845,
detailing a railway
meeting held at
Portsmouth on the
preceding evening. A
chess match was played
in April, 1845, between
amateurs in London and
Howard Staunton and
Captain Kennedy in
Gosport. The contest
began at 11:30 a.m. and
ended at 7 p.m., the
time take by the
consideration of the
players over the moves.
The square of the board
and the men were
numbered, and the
electric fluid traveled
10,000 miles during the
contest. (source:
Sep 24, 1870, Vol. 23, #
13, p. 197)
There was an article on

automata. It mentioned
that Johann Maelzel
(1772-1838) came to
this country in 1830,
bring with him an
automaton trumpeter
and this chess player.
He went to
Philadelphia, then to
Havana, where he took
the chess player
automaton. Maelzel's
health failed and he
tried to return to
America from Havana,
but died on shipboard.
All of his effects,
including the chess-
playing automaton,
were sold to pay his
passage. A number of
gentlemen, among
whom were Dr.
Mitchell, Constant
Guillou (1812-1872),
and Robert Cornelius
(1809-1893), purchased
the chess player, which
was placed on
exhibition in the
Chicago Museum, at
Ninth and Sansom
streets. The chess-
playing automaton was
lost in the fire which
destroyed that building.
(source: Scientific
American, May 27,
1876, Vol. 34, # 22, p.
342)

called "Chess" that
mentioned that Samuel
Loyd (1841-1911) of
Elizabeth, NJ, would be
writing a weekly chess
column for Scientific
American Supplement.
The article went on to
say, "It is a curious fact,
that the most
distinguished inventors,
mechanics, scientists,
lawyers, clergymen,
musicians, and
statesmen, find
recreation in the
practice of this superior
amusement. There
appears to be something
about it that both
delights the mind and
sharpens the
understanding. The
ablest men are found
among its devotees, and
confess to its beneficial
influences." (source:
Aug 11, 1877, Vol. 37, #
6, p. 51)
The first chess column

in Scientific American
Supplement by Sam
Loyd introduced a few
chess problems and
some chess history.
Loyd said that chess
had been termed the
essence of ingenuity
and science, whose
origin dated with the
earliest arts. Chess had
been the recreation, if
not the school, of the
greatest intellects. He
wrote that Robert
Fulton (1765-1815) was
passionately fond of the
game, Benjamin
Franklin wrote essays
upon the subject, and
Elias Howe (1819-
1867) and Samuel
Morse (1791-1872)
were skillful chess
players. Loyd wrote that
he would give portraits
and sketches of leading
chess problemists and
players. Loyd wrote that
chess, as a diversion,
was the most scientific,
if not the oldest, having
originated in India
about 5,000 years ago.
(source: Scientific
American Supplement #
84, Aug 11, 1877, p.
1342)
Sam Loyd had several

entries in a recent
Centennial Problem
Tournament. There were
300 chess problems
entered, the largest
number an any Problem
Tournament. There were
17 prizes, of which
Loyd won eight of
them, winning $334
($7,000 in today's
currency). (source:
Scientific American
Supplement # 85, Aug
18, 1877, p. 1358)
In Scientific American
Supplement # 87, there
was a sketch and an
article on Mrs. John W.
Gilbert (1837-1900) of
Hartford, Connecticut,
considered the Queen of
Chess. She was
considered the most
accomplished lady
chess player living.
Several of her
correspondence games
were included. (source:
Scientific American
Supplement # 87, Sep 1,
1877, p. 1390)
was a sketch of chess
problemist W.
Ballantine and two of
his chess problems. A
Paulsen-Morphy game
was annotated. Loyd
called the 1857 chess
congress the Third
American Chess
Congress, when it was
the first American
Chess Congess. (source:
Scientific American
Supplement # 88, Sep 8,
1877)
was an article on the
Leipzig Chess
Congress, won by Louis
Paulsen. There was also
a sketch of Adolph
Anderson (it should
have been Adolf
Anderssen) and one of
his games (source:
Scientific American
Supplement # 89, Sep
15, 1877)
Supplement #90, there
was a column called
"Scientific American
Chess Record." It was
column on Wilhelm
Steinitz with a portrait
of Steinitz playing
chess. The drawing had
the chess board reversed
(black square to the
right instead of the
white square to the
right). (source:
Scientific American
Supplement #90, Sep
29, 1877)
Supplement #117, Sam
Loyd described Louis
Charles de la
Bourdonnais and his
plaster cast of his head,
along with a sketch.
(source: Scientific
American Supplement
#117, Apr 6, 1878)
Supplement, No. 126,
there is an article called
"The New Automaton
Chess Player." It
described a new chess
automaton built by Mr.
C.G. Gumpel of
London, called
"Mephisto." (source:
Scientific American
Jun 1, 1878)
there is an article called
"Rousseau As a Chess
Player." It described
Jean Jacques Rousseau's
daily chess play at the
Café de la Regence and
elsewhere. (source:
Scientific American
Jul 6, 1878)
An article called
"Memory in Chess
Playing," appeared in
Scientific American. It
stated that wonderful as
are the feats of chess-
players who can work
out a game or a series of
games without seeing
the board, there is
nothing really
remarkable in them.
When once mastered,
the trick is not only
fairly easy of
performance, but the
fact that the process is
purely mental rather
facilitates than impedes
the action of the mind.
To the "blindfold"
chessplayer, there is
present a mental picture
of the board with the
pieces in position. He
can change the position
of the men as easily as
he can think, and after
he has mastered the
difficulty of fixing the
mental picture, it is
distinctly before him.
As a rule, chess-players
are mental-picture-
readers, and can at
pleasure call up any one
of several pictures of
boards as they last
conceived them. The
most difficult feat is to
play two or three games
simultaneously
blindfold, the moves
made by their
opponents being told
them in close sequence
and their own moves
being directed after all
the reports of the
proceedings of their
opponents have been
received. (source:
Dec 10, 1881, Vol. 45, #
24, p. 378)

called "The Automaton
Chess Player" in
mentioned that the
police in Bordeaux,
France had forbidden
the exhibition of the
automaton Az Rah at
the Exhibition Theater
because an 18-year-old
youth was discovered
inside it, and that his
health was gravely
compromised by this
daily torture. It then
went on to describe the
history of The Turk
chess automaton. It was
thought the hidden
chess player in
Kempelen's automaton
was a Polish officer
who, having been
compromised in the
revolt against Catharine
the Great, and having
lost his two legs in
fighting, was received
by Kempelen, who thus
hid him so well from
the searches of the
Russian police that he
could go to conquer his
sovereign in the game
in the midst of her
court. (source:
Feb 17, 1883, Vol. 48, #
7, p. 103)
Dr Wurstenberger of
Zurich, Switzerland,
constructed an electrical
machine that records the
movement of chess men
on the usual board as
the game of chess is
being played. The
record (reference
figures and numbers) is
printed on an article
strip. A print is made
when a chessman is
taken up or removed
from the board; also,
when set down on the
board. The pieces are
provided with plugs
which fit
correspondingly in
holes of the board. The
plugs of the white
pieces are made of
wood, and those of the
black pieces are made
of metal. The record is
transmitted to the
printing apparatus by
means of electricity,
there being 64-sparate
wires joined into a cable
(source: Scientific
American, Feb 18,
1888, Vol. 58, # 7, p. 97
and Western Electrician,
Feb 4, 1888, pp. 57-58)
An article called "The

Antiquity of Chess" was
published in Scientific
American. The latest
excavations on the
pyramid field of
Saqqara show relief
painting of a high
official (vizier) playing
chess. North of the
pyramid of King Teti,
two grave chambers
were discovered which
were erected for two
high officials of that
rule. One of the names,
Mereruka (Meri or
Mera) is shown playing
chess with his wife on
one of the well-
preserved walls. The
bass reliefs and pictures
are dated to 3300 B.C.,
making chess known
5,200 years ago (source:
Feb 20, 1897, Vol. 76, #
8, p. 116). We now
know the board game is
called senet.
There is an article in
Scientific American
called "Chess in Three
Dimensions." It was
called a new chess
variant, designed by Dr.
Ferdinand Maack, a
Hamburg medical
doctor, with an
illustration in the
magazine. The game
was introduced at the
International Chess
Tournament at Carlsbad
and used 8 chess boards
(512 squares). The
game was called
tridimensional or cubic
chess. (source:
Feb 1, 1908, Vol. 98, #
5, p. 76)
An article appeared in a
Scientific American
supplement called
"Torres and His
Remarkable Automatic
Devices: He Would
Substitute Machinery
for the Human Mind." It
described the electrical
connections of an
automatic chess player
designed by Leonardo
Torres y Quevedo
(1852-1936). He called
it El Ajedrecista, which
first appeared in public
in 1914. It used a
mechanical arm to
makes its moves and
electrical sensors to
detect its opponent's
replies in a King vs.
King + Rook endgame.
The writer of the article
was worried that
machinery might
someday substitute for
the human mind.
(source: Scientific
American, Supplement
80, Nov 6, 1915, p.
296)
Dr. Ernest Jones (1879-

1958) published an
article called "The
problem of Paul
Morphy — A
Contribution to the
psycho-analysis of
chess." Jones wrote,
"Perhaps a general
conclusion emerges
from contemplating this
tragic story. It would
seem to afford some
clue to the well-
recognized association
between genius and
mental instability. It
may well be that
Morphy's case is a
general one. Genius is
evidently the capacity to
apply unusual gifts with
intense, even if only
temporary,
concentration. I would
suggest that this, in its
turn, depends on a
special capacity for
discovering conditions
under which the
unconscious guilt can
be held in complete
abeyance. This is
doubtless to be
connected with the
well-known rigour, the
sincerity and the purity
of the artistic
conscience. It is
purchased, however, at
the cost of the psychical
integrity being at the
mercy of any
disturbance of these
indispensable
conditions. And that
would appear to be the
secret of 'artistic
sensitiveness'. The story
also lends itself to a
discussion of some
important
psychoanalytical
considerations which I
have scarcely time here
to adumbrate. It will
have been noticed that,
for the sake of
simplicity, I have
throughout referred to
Morphy's gifts as a
mark of his capacity for
sublimation, and the
question may well be
asked whether this is a
just description of a
disguised way of
gratifying hostile, e.g.
parricidal, impulses. In
answer I would admit
that the impulses behind
the play are ultimately
of a mixed nature, but
the essential process
seems to me to be a
libidinal one. I conceive
that the parricidal
impulses were bound by
an erotic cathexis,
actually a homosexual
one, and that this in its
turn was sublimated.
The enormous value of
the process to Morphy's
mental health is evident
from the considerations
adduced above, and this
I take to be an example
of an important general
law, namely that the
process of sublimation
has ultimately a
defensive function.10
By discharging id
energy along a deflected
path, and particularly by
transforming a
sexualized aggressivity
it protects against the
dangers to the ego
which we know to
proceed from excessive
accumulation of that
energy. Finally, it is
worth pointing out that
when one speaks
clinically of the
'breakdown of a
sublimation one really
means the cessation of
its defensive function.
Morphy could play
chess as well after as
before his mental
failure, as may be seen
from his occasional
games with Maurian: in
most such cases,
perhaps in all, the actual
capacity acquired in the
sublimating process
remains intact in itself.
What is lost is the
ability to use this talent
as a means of guarding
against overwhelming
Id impulses, and this is
really what patients are
fearing when they
express the anxiety lest
'psycho-analysis will
take their sublimations
away from them.
(source: International
Journal of
Psychoanalysis, Vol. 12,
1931)
Harold Holck published

an article called "Effect
of caffeine upon chess
problem solving." There
was a slight but
insignificant increase in
efficiency after
injections of 0.4 ml.
containing 200
milligrams of caffeine
sodium benzoate.
Injections of saline
solution were used for
control purposes. The
author, who served as
the subject, did not
know when he was
injected with saline
solution and when he
was injected with
caffeine. The
improvement following
caffeine was 7 to 9%
(source: Journal of
Comparative
Psychology, Jan 1933)
Ernest Jones published
an article called
"Psychoanalysis and
Chess and Paul
Morphy." Jones
attributed Morphy's
mental breakdown and
the accompanying
paranoia to an inability
to stand up under too
great success and a
repressed hostility
toward his father.
(source: The Journal of
Nervous and Mental
Disease, Nov 1933, Vol.
78, # 5, pp. 534-539)
Dr. Ben Karpman

published an article
called "The Psychology
of Chess." (source:
Psychoanalytic Review,
Vol. 24, Jan 1937, pp.
54-69)
Marston Morse (1892-

1977) published an
article called "A
Solution of the problem
of infinite play in
chess." The rules of
chess include a
description of
admissible moves,
together with rules
which define a victory
or a draw. Among the
latter rules is one which
proclaims a draw if any
given sequence of
moves is repeated twice
in succession and is
immediately followed
by the first move of a
third repetition. The
author looks into the
possibility of an
unending game of
chess, that is a game
which never leads to a
victory or a draw. One
of the conditions on the
game is that it never
lead to an undisputed
superiority of one side,
for in such a case the
game is ordinarily
required to end in a
prescribed number of
moves, or else become a
draw. An unending
sequence of symbols,
first used by the author
to establish the
existence of recurrent
motions in dynamics,
was used here to
establish the possibility
of infinite play in chess.
(source: Bulletin of
American Mathematical
Society, Vol. 44, 1938,
p. 632)
Isador H. Coriat (1875-

1943) published an
article called "The
Unconscious Motives of
Interest in Chess." He
wrote, "The
unconscious motive
which actuates chess
players is not the
pugnacity which
characterizes
competitive games, but
the grimmer one of
father-murder. The King
is not actually captured,
as was customary in the
original purpose of
earlier games, but the
goal of modern chess is
"sterilizing him into
immobility." The game
is pre-eminently of an
anal-sadistic nature and
so gratifies the
aggressive aspects of
the antagonism between
father and son; its
unconscious motivation
is the symbolic
expression of a "wish to
overcome the father in
an acceptable way." It
seems from the material
cited that the chief
symbolic feature of
chess can be compared
with the aggressive
aspect of the Oedipus
complex. The capture of
the King by checkmate
eliminates him from the
combat, it ends the
game, the King is dead
or castrated into
immobility, an end
result which
corresponds with what
Oliver Wendell Homes
terms "the brutality of
an actual checkmate."
The English word
"checkmate" is derived
from the Persian or
Arabic and means
literally that the "King
is dead," paralyzed,
helpless and defeated,
which is synonymous
with murder or
castration." (source:
Psychoanalytic Review,
1941)
Joan Fleming and

Samuel Strong
called "Observations on
the Use of Chess in the
Therapy of an
Adolescent Boy."
Improvement in an
isolated, schizoid youth
of sixteen took place
after he became
interested in chess. It
provided an outlet for
his hostile impulses in a
nonretaliatory situation.
The authors stressed the
dynamics in the use of
the game, showing that
it is a social experience
which necessitates
abiding by rules, taking
into consideration the
wishes and acts of
another person, and
wherein intense
interpersonal relations
are possible in a brief
period. Good use was
made of the patient's
digressions from the
game and his newly
acquired ability to speak
about his feelings,
fantasies and dreams
which the particular
emotional situation of
the game touched off.
The report also
demonstrated how the
fact that chess is a
game, and not real,
enabled the patient to
exert some conscious
control over his feelings
and thus learn to master
them to a limited extent.
(source: Psychoanalytic
Review, 1943, pp. 399-
416)
N. Gibbins published an
article called "Chess in
Three and Four
Dimensions." (source:
The Mathematical
Gazette, May 1944,
pp.46-50)
R. Pakenham-Walsh
called "Chess as a Form
of Recreational
Therapy." Although
chess sets are usually to
be found in the games
cupboards of the male
wards of a mental
hospital, it is a rare
sight to see two patients
indulging in this game.
Nevertheless, it may be
a humiliating
experience for any
medical officer to
challenge a patient to a
match unless he is a
fairly good player.
(source: Journal of
Mental Science, Jan
1949, Vol. 95, # 398,
pp. 203-204)
A Scientific American
article called "A Chess-
Playing Machine" by
Claude E. Shannon
(1916-2001) was
published. The article
was concerned with the
problem of constructing
a computing routine or
"program" for a
computer to enable it to
play chess. This was the
first appearance of
Shannon's technical
paper on computer
chess. It was the earliest
appearance of an
attempt to understand
the necessities of a
computer for playing
chess. A more technical
and longer article,
"Programming a
Computer for Playing
Chess," by Shannon
appeared in the
Philosophical
Magazine, March 1950.
(source: Scientific
American, Feb 1, 1950,
Vol. 182, # 2, pp. 48-
51)
W. Ross Ashby (1903-

1972) published an
article called "Can a
mechanical chess-player
outplay its designer?"
At the time, the
question was not only
of philosophic interest,
but was fast
approaching practical
importance. Ashby felt
compelled to
demonstrate the full
significance and
implications of this
possibility to an
audience beyond the
handful of psychiatrists
and cyberneticians with
whom he had contact.
To do this, he developed
a clear and compelling
problem through which
audiences could grasp
this significance. Ashby
was concerned with the
ability of a machine, in
this case a chess-
playing machine, to
acquire knowledge and
skill beyond the
knowledge and skill
built into it. (source:
British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science,
Vol. 3, No. 9, pp. 44-57,
May, 1952)
Eliot Slater (1904-1983)

called "Statistics for the
Chess Computer and the
Factor of Mobility."
Shannon argued that the
problem of providing a
program for a chess-
playing computer is of
theoretical interest, and
its use might lead to a
wide range of practical
developments. The
problem was also
interesting
psychologically. If the
human and the
mechanical players are
to play the same game,
they will each have to
be directed by concepts
which have a certain
equivalence. But the
concepts used by the
skilled human chess-
player are both subtle
and complex, and for
the purpose of
programming a
computer they will have
to be reduced to their
simplest form. Chess-
masters are, as a class,
men of considerable
general intellectual
ability, and come from
the ranks of
professional men,
mathematicians,
scientists, lawyers, etc.
They have in addition a
special ability. Very few
chess-masters, who
began the game early,
did not show unusual
excellence at it at a very
early age. The specific
chess ability begins to
show itself, given the
opportunity, at about the
age of eleven.
Furthermore, there are
few, if any, chess-
masters who cannot
play blindfold, and play
many games at once,
achievements which are
entirely beyond the
powers of the ordinary
player. The order of
intellectual activity
which we are required
to reduce to simple
terms is therefore of a
superior kind. (source:
Transactions of the IRE
Professional Group on
Information Theory, Vol
1, # 1, Feb 1953)
Allen Newell (1927-

1992), of the RAND
Corporation, published
an article called "The
chess machine: an
example of dealing with
a complex task of
adaptation." The
modern general-purpose
computer was
characterized as the
embodiment of a three-
point philosophy: (1)
There shall exist a way
of computing anything
computable; (2) The
computer shall be so
fast that it does not
matter how complicated
the way is; and (3) Man
shall be so intelligent
that he will be able to
discern the way and
instruct the computer.
(source: Proceedings of
AFIPS Western Joint
Computer Conference,
pp. 101-108, March
1955)
Grandmaster Reuben
Fine (1914-1993)
called "Psychoanalytic
observations on chess
and chess masters." The
literature showed
agreement that a
combination of
homosexual and hostile
impulses was
sublimated in chess.
Chess became a means
of working out the son-
father rivalry. Chess lent
itself to conflicts
surrounding aggression.
Chess offered libidinal
and ego gratifications.
There was no clear-cut
type of chess player.
The ego of the chess
player was in many
respects the opposite of
that of the overt
homosexual. The ego
weakness of the chess
player was mainly in an
accentuation of the
narcissistic factor. The
all-important and weak
King stood for the boy's
penis in the phallic
stage, the self-image of
the man, and the father
cut down to the boy's
size. Chess players were
men drawn chiefly from
intellectual and
scientific fields. The
personalities of nine
world chess champions
of the past century were
described. (source:
Psychoanalysis, Vol 4, #
3, pp. 7-77, 1956)
In the 1950s, IBM was

looking for computer
programmers. IBM put
an ad in the December
1956 issue of Scientific
American and the New
York Herald Tribune
newspaper seeking
anyone interested in
computer programming.
The ad featured a black
knight chess piece, and
said that "those who
enjoy playing chess or
solving puzzles will like
this work." One of the
applicants that
responded to the ad was
US chess champion
Arthur Bisguier (1929-
2017). Bisguier was
then hired as an IBM
programmer. Another
applicant was Sidney
Noble, who claimed he
was the chess champion
of the French Riviera.
Another applicant was
Alex Bernstein, a U.S.
Intercollegiate
champion who
developed the first
complete chess
program. Another
applicant was Don
Schultz, who became
president of the United
States Chess Federation.
He was with IBM from
1957 to 1987.
J. Kister, P. Stein, S.
Ulam, W. Walden, and
M. Wells (all from Los
Alamos Scientific Lab)
called "Experiments in
Chess." The aim of the
article was to report on
some experiments
performed on a fast
computing machine, the
MANIAC I, on the
coding of computers to
play the game of chess.
It was not their belief
that a machine would be
made in the near future
which could be coded to
beat a strong player.
(source: Journal of the
ACM, Vol. 4 # 2, April
1957, pp. 174-177)

called "Computer v.
Chess-Player" by
Michael de V. Roberts
and Alex Bernstein in
showed a picture of
Alex Bernstein playing
chess using an IBM 704
computer. Bernstein
also present an article
on the chess playing
program at a computer
conference in 1958.
(source: Scientific
Vol. 198, # 6, pp. 96-
105 and "A Chess
Playing Program for the
IBM 704," Proceedings
of the Western Joint
Computer Conference,
1959)
In 1959, Martin
Gardner (1914-2010)
wrote a column in
Scientific American
called "Sam Loyd:
America's Greatest
Puzzlist." Gardner
wrote, "For ten years
Loyd apparently did
little except push chess
pieces about on a
chessboard. At that time
chess was enormously
popular... During the
next five years his
output of chess puzzles
was so prodigious that
he became known
throughout the chess
world... In 1877 and
1878 Loyd wrote a
weekly chess page for
Scientific American
Supplement, beginning
each article with an
initial letter formed by
the pieces of a chess
problem.
Martin Gardner wrote

Scientific American's
Mathematical Games
columns for 25 years
(1956 to 1981), often
including chess in his
column. He was a
lifelong chess fan.
In a Scientific American
article, Martin Gardner,
in his Mathematical
Games column,
mentioned hexapawn.
Gardner invented the
game using a 3x3
chessboard. (source:
Mar 1, 1962)
Allen Newell (1927-

1992), John C. Shaw
(1922-1991), and
Herbert Simon (1916-
2001) published an
article called "Chess-
playing programs and
the problem of
complexity." This paper
traced the development
of digital computer
programs that play
chess. The work of
Shannon, Turing, the
Los Alamos group,
Bernstein, and the
authors was treated in
turn. The efforts to
program chess provided
an indication of current
progress in
understanding and
constructing complex
and intelligent
mechanisms. (source:
IBM Journal of
Research and
Development, Vol 2
Issue 4, pp. 320-335,
October 1962)
Herbert Simon and

Peter Simon published
an article called, "Trial
and error search in
solving difficult
problems: Evidence
from the game of
chess." To lesser souls
who have difficulty
remembering their own
telephone numbers, the
grandmasters of chess
seem intellectual
prodigies, who perform
feats of memory and
discovery unachievable
by ordinary mortals.
The great chess players
are also a puzzle to
psychologists, who find
it difficult to reconcile
these exploits with
current theories about
the problem?solving
process. This paper
attempted to clear away
some of the mythology
which surrounded the
game of chess by
showing that successful
problem solving was
based on a highly
selective, heuristic
"program" rather than
on prodigies of memory
and insight. (source:
Behavioral Science,
Volume 7 Issue 4, pp.
425-429, October
1962)
Richard Bellman (1920-

1984), of the RAND
Corporation, published
an article called "On the
application of dynamic
programming to the
determination of
optimal play in chess
and checkers." A great
deal of effort was
expended in connection
with the use of digital
computers to play chess
or checkers. The paper
tried to show how the
theory of dynamic
programming could be
used to determine
optimal play in the great
majority of pawn-king
end games in chess,
with computers
currently available, and
to determine the optimal
play for the entire game
of checkers. (source:
Proceedings of the
National Academy of
Sciences, Feb 1965,
Vol. 53, # 2, pp. 244-
247)
George Baylor and

Herbert Simon
called "A Chess Mating
Combinations
Program." The program
reported in this paper
was not a complete
chess player; it did not
play chess games.
Rather, it was a chess
analyst limited to
searching for
checkmating
combinations in
positions containing
tactical possibilities. A
combination in chess is
a series of forcing
moves with sacrifice
that ends with an
objective advantage for
the active side. A
checkmating
combination, then, is a
combination in which
that objective advantage
is check-mate. Thus, the
program described in
this paper — dubbed
mater — given a
position, proceeded by
generating that class of
forcing moves that put
the enemy King in
check or threaten mate
in one move, and then
by analyzing first those
moves that appear most
promising. (source:
Proceedings of AFIPS
Joint Computer
Conference, pp. 431-
447, April 1966)
There was a Scientific

American article called
"System Analysis and
Programming" by
Christopher Strachey. It
was reprinted in the
August 23, 2011 issue.
It discussed how
positions on a chess
board could be
represented by a
computer. This article
was about how to get a
computer to do what
you want, and why it
almost always takes
longer than you expect.
It was not a detailed
report on the state of the
art of programming but
an attempt to show how
to set about writing a
program. The process of
writing a program was
primarily intuitive
rather than formal. The
author was more
concerned with the
guiding principles that
underlie programming
than with the particular
language in which the
program wass to be
presented to the
machine. (source:
Vol. 24, #3, Sep 1,
1966, pp. 112-124)
In Scientific American,
there was a column,
written by Martin
Gardner, called
"Mathematical Games"
which covered
problems that were built
on the knight's move in
chess. (source:
Oct 1, 1967, Vol. 217, #
4)
Richard Greenblatt,
Donald Eastlake, and
Stephen Crocker (all
from MIT) published a
paper called "The
Greenblatt chess
program." Since mid-
November 1966 a chess
program was under
development at the
Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory of Project
MAC at M.I.T. This
paper described the
state of the program as
of August 1967 and
gave some of the details
of the heuristics and
algorithms employed.
the AFIPS Computer
Conference, pp. 801-
810, November 1967)
F. L. Moullen wrote an
article called "Chess
and the Computer."
(source: Datamation,
Vol. 14, # 4, April 1968,
pp. 52-68).
In 1969, Martin
Gardner wrote a column
in Scientific American
called "The Eight
Queens and Other
Chessboard
Diversions."
Alex G. Bell published

an article called, "How
to Program a Computer
to Play Legal Chess."
(source: Computing
Journal, Vol. 13, # 2,
1970, pp. 209-219)
Hans Berliner (1929-

2017) published a paper
called, "Experiences
Gained in Constructing
and Testing a Chess
Program." This paper
was an attempt to
document the structure
of one chess program,
and to shed some light
on the pitfalls of
developing a competent
chess program. Berliner
advocated a program
that selected a move as
likely to be best under
lengthy examination,
and only rejects this
notion based upon
finding in the depth
search. This process
would then be
continued until there no
longer appears to be a
move that could better
than the best found thus
far. (source:
Proceedings of the
IEEE Symposium on
Systems Science and
Cybernetics, 1970, pp.
216-223)
Martin Scurrah and

Daniel Wagner wrote an
article called,"
Cognitive Model of
Problem-Solving in
Chess." By performing
a series of five
experiments with two
subjects, several aspects
of one of the subject's
behavior in solving
chess problems were
found to be predictable,
and a model was
developed to explain
this predictability. The
heuristics used in this
model may be
applicable in developing
future computer
programs for chess play.
The cover of Science
magazine for this issue
featured a chess board
and pieces. (source:
Science, Vol. 169, #
3941, Jul 10, 1970, pp.
209-211)
Herbert Simon wrote a

letter to the editors of
Science magazine
called, "Computers as
Chess Partners." He
mentions that computer
chess programs began
in 1957-58 when Alex
Bernstein constructed
the first complete chess-
playing program for a
computer. He also
pointed out that the
Greenblatt program
won a Class C USCF
rating. (source: Science,
Vol. 169, # 3946, Aug
14, 1970, pp. 630-631)
there was a column,
written by Martin
Gardner, called
which discussed lessons
from Dr. Matrix in
chess and numerology.
(source: Scientific
American, Jan 1, 1971,
Vol. 224, # 1)
Daniel Wagner and

Martin Scurrah wrote an
article called, "Some
Characteristics of
Human Problem-
Solving in Chess."
Following the design of
de Groot (1965) and
Newell and Simon
(1965), the authors were
asked to produce a total
of six verbal chess
protocols over a variety
of conditions involving:
middle and end game
positions; real and
artificial board
positions; and differing
time constraints. The
analysis of these
protocols yielded
problem-solving
episodes similar to
those described by
Newell and Simon. To
account for these data, a
modification of the
Newell and Simon
model was developed.
The modified model
gave a good account
both of the data
obtained in this study
and also those described
by Newell and Simon.
(source: Cognitive
Psychology, Vol. 2, # 4,
1971, pp. 454-478)
Martin Gardner's
column included
challenging chess tasks.
(source: Scientific
American, May 1,
1972)
Donald Michie (1923-

2007) wrote an article
called, "Programmer's
Gambit." He noted that
chess computers fall far
short of international
grandmaster
performance. But, if fed
with the right kind of
"knowledge," they
should far exceed it. At
the time, the best chess
programs were rated
around 1500. The
author wagered several
thousand dollars against
International Master
David Levy, that a chess
computer would be able
to beat Levy by 1978.
Mitchie lost that bet.
(source: New Scientist,
Aug 17, 1972, pp. 329-
332)
Jasia Reichardt wrote an

article about art and
chess and the evolution
of the shape of chess
pieces. She also
discussed examples of
recent improvements of
the chess pieces by
artists. (source: New
Scientist, Oct 5, 1972,
p. 51)
An article called
"Perception in Chess,"
by William Chase and
Herbert Simon appeared
in Cognitive
Psychology. The
authors developed a
technique for isolating
and studying the
perceptual structures
that chess players
perceive. Three chess
players of varying
strength - from master
to novice - were
confronted with two
tasks: ( 1) A perception
task, where the player
reproduces a chess
position in plain view,
and (2) short-term recall
task, where the player
reproduces a chess
position after viewing it
for 5 sec. The
successive glances at
the position in the
perceptual task and long
pauses in the memory
task were used to
segment the structures
in the reconstruction
protocol. The size and
nature of these
structures were then
analyzed as a function
of chess skill. By
analyzing an expert
player's eye movements,
it had been shown that,
among other things, he
is looking at how pieces
attack and defend each
other. But we know
from other
considerations that he is
seeing much more. The
authors' work was
concerned with just
what the expert chess
pIayer perceives.
(source: Cognitive
Psychology, Jan 1973,
Vol. 4, # 1, pp. 55-81)
there was an article
called "An Advice-
Taking Chess
Computer" by Albert
Zobrist and Frederic
Carlson. The cover of
Scientific American had
a chess problem on the
cover. (source:
Jun 1, 1973, Vol. 228, #
6, pp. 92-105)
William Chase and

Herbert Simon wrote an
article called "Skill in
Chess." Experiments
with chess-playing tasks
and computer
simulation of skilled
performance throw light
on some human
perceptual and memory
processes. Chess has
proved to be an
excellent model
environment around
which knowledge and
understanding could
cumulate. Practice
interacts with talent, and
certain combinations of
basic cognitive
capacities may have
special relevance for
chess. There is no
evidence, however, that
chess masters
demonstrated more than
above-average
competence on basic
intellectual factors: their
talents are chess
specific. The acquisition
of chess skill depends
on building up
recognition memory for
many familiar chess
patterns. (source:
American Scientist, Jul-
Aug 1973, Vol. 61, # 4,
pp. 394-403)
Hans Berliner wrote an

article called "Some
Necessary Conditions
for a Master Chess
Program." (source:
IJCAI '73 Proceedings
for the 3rd International
Joint Conference on
Artificial Intelligence,
August 1973, pp. 77-
85)
D. Cooper and E.
Kozdrowski wrote an
article called, "COKO
III: The Cooper-
Kozdrowicki Chess
Program." This paper
discussed the "tree-
searching catastrophe"
as a natural
phenomenon that
plagued selective tree
searching for both man
and machine. In
addition, so-called
"interminimal-game
communication" was
considered as a natural,
powerful procedure
frequently used by
humans to guide their
selective search and as a
point of emphasis for
future development. It
was concluded that
COKO's development
was just beginning, with
no immediate barriers to
progress, and no lack of
ideas for improvement.
Journal of Man-
Machine Studies, # 6,
1974, pp. 627-699)
Martin Gardner
reported a computer
program had been
running for months at
MIT and had
determined the best first
move in chess was
"Pawn to Queen Rook
Four." It was an April
Fool's joke. (source:
Apr 1, 1975, Vol 228, #
4)
Martin Gardner, in his
Mathematical Games
column, posed the
following problem:
"What is the smallest
number of queens you
can put on an n x n
chessboard such that no
queen can be added
without creating three in
a row, a column, or a
diagonal?" (source:
Oct 1, 1976)
David Levy wrote an
article called,
"Computers Are Now
Chess Masters." He
gave a history of chess
computers and how
computers have
different strengths and
weaknesses. He also
discussed how he
played against
computers. (source:
New Scientist, Jul 27,
1978, pp. 256-258)
Hans Berliner wrote an

article on computer
chess and its history.
Because of its obvious
intellectual content,
chess has long
presented computer
scientists with a
challenge to their
ingenuity. The
development of the
attempt to program
computers to play chess
at human Grand master
level had raised some
interesting points about
the strategies that men
and machines used to
solve problems
'intelligently'. (source:
Nature, Vol. 274, Aug
24, 1978, pp. 745-748)
there was a column,
written by Martin
Gardner, called
that discussed chess
problems on a higher
plane, including mirror
images, rotations, and
the superqueen.
(Scientific American,
Jun 1, 1979, Vol. 270)
Arthur L. Robinson
wrote an article called,
"Tournament
Competition Fuels
Computer Chess." A
chess diagram was
produced wrong, with a
missing pawn. (source:
4400, Jun 29, 1979, pp.
1396-1398)
In 1979, David Lane

and Lauren Roberton,
both from Rice
University, tested the
hypothesis that memory
for chess positions is a
function of the depth of
processing and,
particularly, of the
richness of stimulus
elaboration afforded by
the combination of task
and skill-level
conditions. They tested
non-rated beginners and
rated chess players and
could not find a
relationship between
chess skill and recall
under formal orienting
instructions or no
chess skill and memory
for random positions.
Only when the subjects
were able to perceive
the 64 squares and
various pieces as a
meaningful
configuration does the
player with the better
understanding of chess
show any superiority.
In addition to being
familiar with more
patterns of chess pieces,
stronger players are
better that weaker
players at integrating
familiar configurations
into a coherent whole.
(source: "The generality
of the levels of
processing hypothesis:
An application to
memory for chess
positions," Memory &
Cognition, Vol. 7, # 4,
pp. 253-256, 1979)
Monroe Newborn wrote

an article called,
"Recent Progress in
Computer Chess."
There was much
progress in software
technology, making
programming,
debugging, and testing
chess programs much
easier. The author
details CHESS 4.7's
first victory over a
chess master. The paper
looks at computer
endgame play, speed
chess by computers, and
chess on
microcomputers.
(source: Advances in
Computers, Vol 18,
1979, pp. 59-117)
Thomas Saaty and Luis

Vargas wrote an article
called, "Hierarchical
Analysis of Behavior in
Competition: Prediction
in Chess." In this paper
the authors used the
analytic hierarchy
process to combine
technical and behavioral
characteristics of chess
players and predict the
outcome of a
championship match.
The method also
applied to decision
making in living
systems at the level of
the group. Their
approach to prediction
dealt with the inputs
(know?how of the
players) of a system
(the chess board and its
psychological
surrounding
environment), the
transformation of the
input within the system
through actual play, and
with its outputs
(outcome of the match).
Their task was to assess
the quality of the input
by deriving a relative
index of power of the
players by identifying
(with the assistance of
grandmasters through a
questionnaire) the
relevant factors whose
totality may determine
the outcome. They then
used this index to assess
the kind of output (win,
draw, or loss) that it
would produce over a
set of several
encounters in a match.
The outcome of their
analysis was an estimate
of the total number of
games that two given
players would play,
together with the
numbers of games won
by each player. They
also analyzed the
sensitivity of the results
to changes in the
expectations of the
competitors. (source:
Behavioral Science,
Vol. 25, # 3, 1980, pp.
180-191)
Arthur Robinson wrote

an article called
"Computer Chess: Belle
Sweeps the Board."
Belle won the 3rd world
championship in
computer chess in Linz,
Austria in September
1980. The next
challenge was to win a
$100,000 prize that was
offered to beat the
human world chess
champion. (source:
4467, Oct 17, 1980, pp.
293-294)
N. Charness wrote an
article called, "Search in
Chess: Age and Skill
Differences." 34 chess
players 16—64 years
old, varying in skill,
generated think-aloud
protocols for each of 4
chess positions. The
findings indicated that
(a) more skilled players
search more extensively
and deeply; (b) older
players search less
extensively, though
equally deeply; (c) rate
of search did not
generally vary with age
or skill; and (d) the
quality of the selected
move varied only with
skill. Results suggested
that the ability to
remember changes in
piece positions and the
ability to evaluate
positions reached in
search differs with skill
level. (source: Journal
of Experimental
Psychology Human
Perception and
Performance, Vol. 7, #
2, 1981, pp. 467-476)
Gina Kolata wrote an

article called, "Chess-
Playing Computer
Seized by Customs."
Customs at New York's
Kennedy Airport seized
a small crated
containing Belle, a
chess computer. It was
on its way to Moscow
with Ken Thompson for
a chess match. The
computer was
confiscated by the
Customs Service as part
of its Operation Exodus,
a program to prevent
the illegal export of
high technology items
to the Soviets. (source:
4553, Jun 25, 1982, p.
1392)
Donald Michie wrote an

article about computer
chess and the
humanization of
technology. He included
a short history of
computer chess. Chess
provided the
opportunity for studying
the representation of
human knowledge in
machines, but it took
more than a century
since its conception for
chess playing by
machines to become a
reality. The World
Computer Chess
Championship and
other computer chess
tournaments where
program is matched
against program occur
regularly. The author
asks, "How far can the
less clever but more
intelligent human
master rely on the
computer's brute force
technology?" (source:
Nature, Vol. 299, Sep
30, 1982, pp. 391-394)
James Storer wrote a

paper called "On the
Complexity of Chess."
Most past work
analyzing games from
the point of view of
computational
complexity has dealt
with combinatorial
games on graphs. This
paper showed that for a
wide class of
generalizations of chess
to an NxN board, it is
PSPACE-complete to
determine if a specified
player has a winning
strategy. In order to
study a game like
checkers, GO, or chess
in terms of asymptotic
complexity, it is clearly
necessary to generalize
the game to an NxiV
board. With chess it is
not clear how to
generalize. One can
imagine all sorts of new
pieces and a host of
starting positions. In
addition, the knight of
standard chess poses a
problem. It seems
reasonable that
generalized chess would
have at least one of the
standard queen, rook,
and black and white
bishops. However, as
the board size gets
large, standard knights
seem to become
worthless since they can
only travel a distance of
three squares on a given
move, whereas a bishop
can travel diagonally
across the board.
(source: Journal of
Computer and System
Sciences, Vol. 27, # 1,
Aug 1983, pp. 77-100)
Thomas Saaty and Luis

Vargas wrote an article
called, "Modelling
Behavior in
Competition: The
Analytic Hierarchy
Process." This paper
offered an approach for
dealing with prediction
of the outcome of World
Chess Championship
matches based on
players experience and
attitude towards the
game. The paper dealt
with both the overall
outcome and the
sequence of game by
game outcomes. A
method for predicting
the overall outcome was
advanced and
illustrated. Methods for
predicting game by
game outcomes were
examined and compared
according to strengths
and weaknesses. The
analysis was supported
by the data on World
Championship matches
since their beginning
125 years ago. (source:
Applied Mathematics
and Computation, Vol
16, # 1, Jan 1985, pp.
49-92)
Robert Hyatt, Harry

Nelosn, and Albert
Gower wrote an article
on Cray Blitz, the 1984
World Computer Chess
Program. The program
has also played in
human chess
tournaments and was a
chess master. At speed
chess, where its ability
to perform very
accurate analysis was
particularly important, it
has maintained a
performance rating of
over 2600 for the past
two years. This
indicated that at speed
chess, the program was
one of the top players,
electronic or human, in
the world. It ran on a
Cray XMP-48 computer
system and has was
designed around the
parallelism that the
XMP architecture
provides. (source:
Telematics and
Informatics, Vol. 2, # 4,
1985, pp. 299-306)
there was a column
called "Computer
Recreations: The King
(A Chess Program) is
Dead, Long Live the
King (A Chess
Machine)" by
Alexander Dewdney. It
was an article about the
1985 North American
Computer Chess
Championship, held in
Denver. The computers
were: Awit, Bebe,
Chaos, Cray Blitz,
Hitech, Intelligent
Software, Lachex,
Ostrich, Phoenix, and
SPOC. Hitech won that
year. (source: Scientific
American, Feb 1, 1986)
Robert Cannon and Stan

Dolan wrote an article
on the knight's tour. The
classical problem of the
knight's tour consists of
moving a knight over a
chess board in such a
manner that it moves
successively on to every
possible square once
and only once. If the
initial and final squares
of this tour are a
knight's move away
from each other, then
for obvious reasons the
tour is termed re-
entrant. The problem
has a long and
interesting history.
Solutions due to De
Moivre, Euler,
Vandermonde,
Warnsdorff and Roget,
together with further
references can be found
in this article. (source:
Mathematical Gazette,
June 1986)
A. Avni, D. Kipper, and

S. Fox wrote an article
called, "Personality and
Leisure Activities: An
Illustration with Chess
Players." This article
investigated the
personality and
involvement in a leisure
activity: chess playing.
The participants
comprised three groups
of highly competitive
chess players,
moderately competitive
chess players, and a
comparison group of
non-players (n = 20
each). The results
showed that of the six
personality
characteristics under
investigation all chess
players differed from
the comparison group in
terms of unconventional
thinking and
orderliness. In addition,
highly competitive
players differed from
non-players in being
also significantly more
suspicious. The three
groups did not differ
significantly on
neuroticism, aggressive
tendency, and hostility.
Implications concerning
future studies of the
personality and
involvement in
competitive leisure
activities are discussed.
(source: Personality and
Individual Differences,
Vol. 8, # 6, 1987, pp.
715-719)
Jane Seymour wrote an

article called, "What are
Chess Masters Made
Of?" She wrote about
her experiences as the
only woman in chess
tournaments that she
participated in. She
hoped that as old
traditions break down,
more women will start
playing chess. (source:
New Scientist, Mar 3,
1988, pp. 72-73)
called "Deep Thought."
(source: Scientific
American, Apr 1, 1989,
Vol. 260, # 4)
Greg Wilson wrote an

Computers Make Their
Move." He predicted in
a few years, a machine
could be the world
chess champion. He
noted that chess
computers were finally
capable of beating all
but the world's best
chess players. The best
chess programs were
written for
microcomputers,
supercomputers, or
those machines built
using special circuitry.
Aug 5, 1989, pp. 50-
53)
A. Robison, B. Hafner,
and S. Skiena published
an article called, "Eight
Pieces Cannot Cover a
Chess Board." The
problem of maximizing
the number of squares
on a chess board which
can be attacked by a
configuration of the 8
main pieces was first
posed in 1849. The
paper reported on a
computer search which
proves that at most, 63
squares can by
simultaneously
attacked, and the
authors give results for
other variations of the
problem. (source: The
Computer Journal, Vol.
32, # 6, 1989)
Monroe Newborn wrote

an article called,
"Computer Chess: Ten
Years of Significant
Progress." Since 1979,
there have been a
number of new
developments including
special-purpose
hardware, parallel
search on
multiprocessing
systems, windowing
techniques, and
increased use of
transposition tables. The
article described these
advances. It reviewed
various search
techniques that
improved chess
programs: the minimax
algorithm; depth-first
search and the basic
data structures for chess
trees; the alpha-beta
algorithm; move
generation, the principal
continuation, and the
killer heuristic; pruning
techniques and variable
depth quiescence
search; transposition
tables; iterative
deepening; windows,
parallel search
techniques; special-
purpose hardware; and
time control and
thinking on the
opponent's time. The
article also presented a
brief history of
computer chess play
and relation between
computer speed and
program strength—
faster computers play
better chess. (source:
Advances in
Computers, vol. 29,
1989, pp. 197-250)
H. Berliner, G. Goetsch,
M. Campbell, and C.
Ebeling wrote an article
called, "Measuring the
Performance Potential
of Chess Programs."
Chess programs can
differ in depth of search
or in the evaluation
function applied to leaf
nodes or both. Over the
past 10 years, the notion
that the principal way to
strengthen a chess
program is to improve
its depth of search has
held sway. Improving
depth of search
undoubtedly does
improve a program's
strength. However,
projections of potential
gain have time and
again been found to
overestimate the actual
gain. The authors
examined the notion
that it is possible to
project the playing
strength of chess
programs by having
different versions of the
same program (differing
only in depth of search)
play each other. Their
data indicated that once
a depth of "tactical
sufficiency" was
reached, a
knowledgeable program
could beat a
significantly less
knowledgeable one
almost all of the time
when both are searching
to the same depth. This
suggested that once a
certain knowledge gap
has been opened up, it
could not be overcome
by small increments in
searching depth. The
conclusion from this
work was that extending
the depth of search
without increasing the
present level of
knowledge would not in
any foreseeable time
lead to World
Championship level
chess. (source: Artificial
Intelligence, Vol. 32, # 1
(special issue on
computer chess), April
1990, pp. 7-20).
Helmut Horacek wrote

a paper called,
"Reasoning with
Uncertainty in
Computer Chess." This
paper aimed at an
improvement of
decision making under
conditions of
uncertainty. An overall
analysis was given of
how manifestations of
uncertainty are dealt
with in the field of
computer chess. A new
method of expressing
uncertainty was
presented which is done
on the basis of a pair of
point values associated
with a weighting factor
that indicated a
preference between
them. The reasoning
process aiming at
decisions among
problem states
associated with such a
weighted pair is
embedded in a
traditional environment
which required point
values. Essential
components of this
process are the overall
(general) state of the
critical position in terms
of the degree of
advantage and the
competence of the
system to judge the
category of the domain-
specific feature which
causes the uncertainty.
Finally, the author
presented further
improvements of the
reasoning process
which can be achieved
when the requirement to
back up point values is
removed. (source:
Artificial Intelligence,
Vol. 32, # 1 (special
issue on computer
chess), April 1990, pp.
37-56).

"A Grandmaster Chess
Machine" by Hsu,
Anantharaman,
Campbell, and
Nowatzyk. It is about
Deep Though, a chess-
playing machine using a
combination of software
and customized
hardware. The
conclusion of the
authors was that the
system would be strong
enough, by virtue of its
speed alone, to mount a
serious challenge to the
world champion. They
further believed that the
addition of a long list of
other planned
improvements would
enable the machine to
prevail, perhaps as soon
as 1992. (source:
Oct 1, 1990, Vol. 263, #
4)
Pertii Saariluoma wrote

an article called "Visuo-
Spatial Interference and
Apperception in Chess."
Chess players'
calculation cannot be
based on perception
alone, because chess
players generate moves
in chess protocols that
are never made on the
board. This is not
possible without some
mediating
representation. Direct
object perception is not
sufficient but the visible
positions must be
transformed into some
format that allows
players to distance
themselves from current
visual input. This article
focused on what this
format could be and
what is the processing
system that supports
these cognitive
operations. The
experiments on visual
search for chess pieces
show only that
information intake is
impaired by concurrent
visuo-spatial
suppression, but such
evidence does not
provide direct proof that
visuo-spatial processing
is involved in thought
processes. Only
protocol analysis can
provide direct evidence
for the involvement of
visuo-spatial working
memory in thinking in
chess. (source:
Advances in
Psychology, Vol. 80,
1991, pp. 83-94)
Robert Levinson and

Richard Snyder wrote
an article, "Adaptive
Pattern-Oriented
Chess." Psychological
evidence indicates that
human chess players
base their assessments
of chess positions on
structural/perceptual
patterns learned through
experience. Morph is a
computer chess
program that has been
developed to be more
consistent with the
cognitive models. The
learning mechanism
used by Morph
combines weight-
updating, genetic,
explanation-based and
temporal-difference
learning to create,
delete, generalize and
evaluate chess
positions. An
associative pattern
retrieval system
organized the database
for efficient processing.
The main objectives of
the project were to
demonstrate capacity of
the system to learn, to
deepen the
understanding of the
interaction of
knowledge and search,
and to build bridges in
this area between AI
and cognitive science.
To strengthen
connections with the
cognitive literature
limitations had been
place on the system,
such as restrictions to 1-
ply search, to little
domain knowledge, and
to no supervised
training. (source:
Machine Learning
Proceedings, June 1991,
pp. 85-89)
Perti Saariluoma wrote

an article called,
"Aspects of Skilled
Imagery in Blindfold
Chess." Blindfold chess
is a very good task
environment to study
skill-based mental
images or skilled
imagery. Seven
experiments providing
information on different
aspects of skilled
imagery in blindfold
chess were made. In all
experiments, very clear
skill-related differences
in the operation of
chess-specific materials
could be found. It was
also argued that chess-
specific patterns or
chunks are important in
skilled subjects'
construction of images
and the operation of
these images relies on
the cooperation of
visual working memory
and long-term memory.
(source: Acta
Psychologica, Vol. 77, #
1, Aug 1991, pp. 65-
89)
an article by Lewis
Stiller showed that a
computer found a
solution of a king, rook,
and bishop checkmating
a king and two knights
in 223 moves. The
computer worked 5
hours, considering 100
billion moves by
retrograde analysis —
working backward from
a winning position.
(source: Scientific
American, Nov 1,
1991)
Ingo Althoefer wrote an

article called, "Data
Compression Using an
Intelligent Generator:
The Storage of Chess
Games as an Example."
Computer chess has
been called the
drosophila of Artificial
Intelligence, and
currently chess
computers are in some
sense the most
impressive results of AI.
In this article, the author
presented a robust
method of compressing
chess master games
with help of a fast-
deterministic chess
program. This is the
first example where a
concrete product of AI
has been used for data
compression purposes.
(source: Artificial
Intelligence, Vol. 52, #
1, Nov 1991, pp. 109-
113)
S. Fried published an
article called "Chess: a
psychoanalytic tool in
the treatment of
children." The author
proposed a theoretical
rationale for the clinical
application of chess
instruction to the
psychoanalytic process
in working with inner
city children and
adolescents who may
present particular
resistance to the focus
on verbal
communication in
traditional therapy. The
chess pieces were seen
as embodying parental
symbols and the
competition of the game
was seen as
symbolizing Oedipal
issues. Transference
phenomena in the
relationships of students
to the instructor were
discussed and learning
effective strategies of
play was related to
developing impulse
control. A case study
was described of an
aggressive male pre-
adolescent special
education student who
benefited from this
intervention. (source:
International Journal of
Play Therapy, Vol. 1, #
1, pp. 43-51, 1992)

Impact of Chess
Research on Cognitive
Science" appeared in
Psychological Research.
The chess research of de
Groot (1965) and Chase
and Simon (1973) have
accumulated over 250
citations each. Chess
playing has provided a
model task environment
for the study of basic
cognitive processes,
such as perception,
memory, and problem
solving. It also offers a
unique opportunity for
the study of individual
differences (chess
expertise) because of
Arpad Elo's
development of a chess-
skill rating scale. Chess
has also enjoyed a
privileged position in
Artificial-Intelligence
research as a model
domain for exploring
search and evaluation
processes. (source:
Psychological Research,
Mar 1992, Vol. 54, # 1,
pp. 4-9)
W. Schneider, H.
Gruber, A. Gold, and K.
Opwis wrote an article
called, "Chess Expertise
and Memory for Chess
Positions in Children
and Adults." The major
goal of this study was to
explore the effects of
the following task
characteristics on
memory performance:
(1) Familiarity with the
constellation of chess
pieces (i.e., meaningful
versus random
positions) and (2)
familiarity with both the
geometrical structure of
the board and the form
and color of chess
pieces. The tasks
presented to the four
groups of subjects (i.e.,
child experts and
novices, adult experts
and novices) included
memory for meaningful
and random chess
positions as well as
memory for the location
of wooden pieces of
different forms on a
board geometrically
structured by circles,
triangles, rhombuses,
etc. (control task 1).
Further, a digit span
memory task was given
(control task 2). The
major assumption was
that the superiority of
experts should be
greatest for the
meaningful chess
positions, somewhat
reduced but still
significant for the
random positions, and
nonsignificant for the
board control task. Only
age effects were
expected for the digit
span task. The results
conformed to this
pattern, showing that
each type of knowledge
contributed to the
experts? superior
memory span for chess
positions. (source:
Journal of Experimental
Child Psychology, Vol.
56, # 3, Dec 1993, pp.
328-349)
Linda Hope wrote an

article called, "Mission
Possible: Computers in
Chess and A-Level
Mathematics." The
author discussed
whether a computer
defeating the world
chess champion made
chess obsolete for
humans. (source:
Mathematical Gazette,
Vol. 78, # 481, March
1994, pp. 11-17)
Claire O'Brien wrote an

article called
"Checkmate for Chess
Historians." A set of
chess pieces turned up
in a third century
Roman grave at
Venafro, in southern
Italy. The controversial
Venafro chess pieces
were later shown to
come from the 10th
century after
radiocarbon dating.
How the pieces came to
be in a Roman grave
remains a mystery.
(source: Science, Vol.
265, # 5156, Aug 26,
1994, pp.1168-1169)
I. Rivin, I. Vardi, and P.

Zimmerman published
an article called, "The
n-Queens Problem."
The n-queens problem
asks how many ways
can one put n queens on
an n x n chessboard so
that no two queens
attach each other. Gauss
conjectured that there
were 72 solutions. Soon
after this, 92 solutions
were published, which
convinced Gauss that he
had been incorrect.
(source: The American
Mathematical Monthly,
Vol 101, # 7, Aug-Sep
1994, pp. 629-639)
there was an article by
Ian Stewart in its
mathematical recreation
department called
"Playing Chess on a Go
Board." The Puzzles
and Games Ring of the
Archimedean Society at
the University of
Cambridge invented a
way to play chess on a
go board. (source:
Nov 1, 1994, Vol. 271, #
5, pp. 108-111)
there was an article in
the Mathematics
Recreations Department
called "The Never-
Ending Chess Game" by
Ian Stewart. It talks
about recent computer
analysis that can force a
win in the endgame, but
involves making more
than 50 moves without
capturing any pieces or
moving pawns. (source:
Oct 1, 1995)
Barry Cipra wrote an

article called, "Artificial
Intelligence: Will a
Computer Checkmate a
Chess Champion at
Last?" In a series of
games in Philadelphia
beginning on February
10, 1996, chess master
Gary Kasparov will go
face-to-interface with
Deep Blue, a computer
chess program
developed at IBM.
Some experts think that
for the first time, a
computer has a chance
of beating a human
champion. Building on
the latest techniques,
Deep Blue's strategy is
not to outsmart its
opponent but to
outsearch him, by
looking many moves
ahead and ferreting out
what looks like the best
line of play (source:
5249, Feb 2, 1996, p.
599). Deep Blue did
win the first game in 37
moves, but Kasparov
did win three games and
drew two games to min
the match.
Deep Blue—Kasparov,
game 1, Feb 10, 1996,
1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.exd5
Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3
Bg4 6.Be2 e6 7.h3 Bh5
8.0-0 Nc6 9.Be3 cxd4
10.cxd4 Bb4 11.a3 Ba5
12.Nc3 Qd6 13.Nb5
Qe7 14.Ne5 Bxe2
15.Qxe2 0-0 16.Rac1
Rac8 17.Bg5 Bb6
18.Bxf6 gxf6 19.Nc4
Rfd8 20.Nxb6 axb6
21.Rfd1 f5 22.Qe3 Qf6
23.d5 Rxd5 24.Rxd5
exd5 25.b3 Kh8
26.Qxb6 Rg8 27.Qc5 d4
28.Nd6 f4 29.Nxb7 Ne5
30.Qd5 f3 31.g3 Nd3
32.Rc7 Re8 33.Nd6
Re1+ 34.Kh2 Nxf2
35.Nxf7+ Kg7 36.Ng5+
Kh6 37.Rxh7+ 1—0
called "The Deep Blue
Team Plots Its Next
Move" by John Horgan.
Horgan interviewed the
Deep Blue team at IBM
for Scientific American.
(source: Scientific
American, Mar 8,
1996)
Santos Lazzeri and

Rachelle Heller wrote a
paper called, "An
Intelligent Consultant
System for Chess." This
paper dealt with the
problem of teaching
chess. The authors
describe the ideal
characteristics for a
learning environment
for chess and discussed
a partial implementation
of such an environment
called An Interactive
Consultant for Chess
Middlegames
(ICONCHESS). Most
research on computer
chess has focused on
creating highly
competitive chess
playing programs,
regardless of the means
used to achieve this
goal. Because of the
success obtained by
programs based on
search algorithms, little
effort has been put on
chess playing programs
that play using high
level strategies, which
are necessary in human
chess players. This lack
of strategic foundations
makes most chess
playing programs
inadequate as chess
tutors too. This paper
presented a new
approach for computer
chess in general and
specifically for a
learning environment
for chess. This approach
combined the
techniques of fuzzy
logic and case-based
reasoning in order to
produce high level
advice for chess
positions. The authors
also presented the
results of the empirical
experiments used to test
ICONCHESS and
suggested some ways in
which the approach can
be applied to other
domains. (source:
Computers &
Education, Vol. 27, # 3-
4, Dec 1996, pp. 181-
196)
In 1996, Fernand Gobet

and Herbert Simon
looked at the hypothesis
of chess masters'
superiority in recalling
meaningful material
from their domain of
expertise vanished when
random material is
used. However, they
found that strong
players generally do
maintain some
superiority over weak
players even with
random positions,
although the relative
difference between skill
levels is much smaller
than with game
positions. With
thousands of hours of
intense practice and
study, one would expect
a master to have stored
numerous chunks in
their long term memory,
including some unusual
features, which would
allow them to
recognize, more often
than weak players,
familiar chunks that
occur in random
positions, thereby
obtaining an advantage
in recall. It is also
possible that masters
have developed
strategies to cope with
uncommon situations,
which occur sometimes
in practice. In addition,
their familiarity with the
materials (better
knowledge of the
topology of the chess
board and its attributes)
could give them some
advantage in
comparison with non-
experts. Gobet's and
Simon's findings
showed that the recall of
a random position
varies somewhat as a
function of chess skill.
This could be due to
three possibilities: (1) a
large database of
chunks in long-term
memory, occasionally
allowing the recognition
of stored patterns that
occur by chance in
random positions; (2)
the possession of
strategies for coping
with uncommon
positions; (3) better
knowledge of the
topology of the
"Recall of rapidly
presented random chess
positions is a function
of skill," Memory &
Cognition, Vol. 24, pp.
493-503, 1996)
Corey Powell called
"Kasparov vs. Deep
Blue." The latest Deep
Blue computer was an
IBM RS/6000 SP* that
incorporated 32
processors effectively
functioning as 512; the
company claimed an
evaluation speed of 200
million moves per
second. In a further
attempt to humanize the
computer's chess
moves, the Dee Blue
team brought in GM
Joel Benjamin, a former
U.S. champion, as a
consultant and mentor.
His strategic advice was
being folded into the
computer's updated
software in an attempt
to blunt the intuitive
skills that enabled
Kasparov to defeat the
computer last time
around. Before the
match, Kasparov said,
"The computer will
calculate better than any
human being in the
world. But there is
something beyond
calculation--it's your
nature of chess."
(source: Scientific
American, Apr 21,
1997)
In 2000, Reingold,
Charness, Pomplun, and
Stampe employed eye
movement-monitoring
techniques in order to
provide direct evidence
for the hypothesis that a
perceptual advantage is
a fundamental
component of chess
skill. They predicted
that the perceptual
advantage accruing to
master chess players
would be reflected in a
larger view span for
chess-related visual
patterns, but not for
patterns unrelated to
chess. The encoding of
chunks rather than
individual pieces by
chess masters would
result in fewer fixations,
and fixations between
rather than on
individual pieces. Prior
research on eye
fixations in chess has
shown differences in
variables such as
fixation duration and
coverage of the
chessboard. Previous
studies showed that the
chess master has an
advantage in immediate
memory for chess-
related information
following a very brief
exposure to an
unfamiliar position.
This study extended the
findings by showing
that masters have an
advantage in extracting
perceptual information
in an individual
fixation. For check-to-
the-king detection, the
master extracts the
necessary interpiece
relations from both the
foveal (part of the retina
that permits 100%
visual acuity) and
parafoveal (region of
the retina that covers 10
degrees radius around
the fovea) regions.
Advanced chess skill
attenuates change
blindness by improving
target detection in
meaningful, but not
scrambled, chess
configurations, and this
effect is due to greater
span size relative to
less-skilled chess
players. (source:
"Visual Span in expert
chess players: Evidence
From Eye Movements,"
Psychological Science,
Vol. 12, # 1, January
2001)
called "Brain Study
Shows Grandmaster
Chess Players Think
Differently Than
Amateurs Do" by
Harald Franzen. The
conclusion was that
grandmaster chess
players tap into
different parts of their
brains than amateurs do
when plotting their next
move. (source:
Scientific American
Online, Aug 9, 2001)
Pertti Saariluoma of the

University of Helsinki
called "Chess and
content-oriented
psychology of
thinking." In this paper
a number of principles
for content-oriented
cognitive psychology
was presented in the
context of research into
chess players'
information processing.
It will be argued that
modern theoretical
concepts of attention,
imagery and memory
are based on underlying
concepts of capacity
and format and that
these concepts are not
sufficiently powerful to
express all phenomena
associated with mental
contents. Instead, one
must develop a
genuinely content-
oriented theoretical
language to discuss, for
example, contents and
their integration into
thinking. The main
problem is how to
explain the contents of
representations. Why do
representations have
precisely the contents
that they have? Here the
main attention was
focused on the question
how can one explain the
selection of content
elements in
representations? To
formulate the basic
concepts of content-
oriented thought
research several issues
were discussed. Firstly,
it was shown that
traditional attention and
memory research is
capacity-oriented and
therefore unable to
express mental contents.
Secondly, it was argued
that there are content
phenomena which must
be explained by
properties of other
content phenomena.
Thirdly, it was shown
that in chess, people
integrate information
into representations by
using functional rules or
reasons, i.e. concepts
and rules, which tell
why some information
contents must be
included in a
representation. It was
then shown that people
integrate information
around learned 'thought
models' whose contents,
together with functional
rules or reasons, explain
and clarify the content-
structure of a mental
representation. (source:
Psicologica, Vol. 22, pp.
143-164, 2001)
A news article in
Science, entitled
"CERN Wins Atomic
Lab Chess Crown,"
mentioned that CERN's
scientists were several
times better in chess
than Fermilab
physicists. The CERN
chess team beat the
Fermilab chess team
over the Internet in
November 2001,
scoring 11.5 to 5.5.
(source: SCIENCE, Vol
294, # 5549, Dec 7,
2001, p. 2087)
J. Joireman, C. Fick,
and J. Anderson wrote
an article called,
"Sensation Seeking and
Involvement in Chess."
The study examined the
scores on the Sensation
Seeking Scale, and
involvement in chess
within a sample of 112
college students.
Students who reported
having played chess,
and those with more
chess experience,
evidenced higher scores
on both the Total SSS
and the Thrill and
Adventure Seeking
(TAS) subscale, effects
which were independent
of gender. Higher scores
on Disinhibition were
also associated with
greater chess
experience. The results
provided further support
for the validity of the
TAS scale with regard
to involvement in
sports, and suggested
that more attention be
directed to the link
between sensation
seeking and
involvement in low-
risk, but theoretically
relevant, sporting
activities. (source:
Personality and
Vol 32, # 3, Feb 2002,
pp. 509-515)
Christian Ewerhart
wrote a paper called,
"Backward Induction
and the Game —
Theoretic Analysis of
Chess." This paper
scrutinized various
stylized facts related to
the minmax theorem for
chess. The author first
pointed out that, in
contrast to the prevalent
understanding, chess is
actually an infinite
game, so that backward
induction does not
apply in the strict sense.
Second, the author
recalled the original
argument for the
minmax theorem of
chess—which is
forward rather than
backward looking. Then
it was shown that,
alternatively, the
minmax theorem for the
infinite version of chess
could be reduced to the
minmax theorem of the
usually employed finite
version. (source: Games
and Economic
Behavior, Vol. 39, # 2,
May 2002, pp. 206-
214)
Christopher Chabris and

Eliot Hearst wrote an
article called,
"Visualization, Pattern
Recognition, and
Forward Search: Effects
of Playing Speed and
Sight on the Position on
Grandmaster Errors." A
new approach examined
two aspects of chess
skill, long a popular
topic in cognitive
science. A powerful
computer-chess
program calculated the
number and magnitude
of blunders made by the
same 23 grandmasters
in hundreds of serious
games of slow
("classical") chess,
regular "rapid" chess,
and rapid "blindfold"
chess, in which
opponents transmit
moves without ever
seeing the actual
position. Rapid chess
led to substantially
more and larger
blunders than classical
chess. Perhaps more
surprisingly, the
frequency and
magnitude of blunders
did not differ in rapid
versus blindfold play,
despite the additional
memory and
visualization load
imposed by the latter.
The authors discuss the
involvement of various
cognitive processes in
human problem-solving
and expertise, especially
with respect to chess.
Prior opposing views
about the basis of
general chess skill have
emphasized the
dominance of either (a)
swift pattern
recognition or (b)
analyzing ahead, but
both seem important
and the controversy
appears currently
unresolvable and
perhaps fruitless.
(source: Cognitive
Science, Vol. 27, # 4,
Jul-Aug 2003, pp. 637-
648).
Celete Biever wrote a
news article called,
"Man Versus Machine
Chess Match Drawn."
The article was about
the match between
former world champion
Garry Kasparov and the
chess program X3D
Fritz. The match score
between the two was 2
— 2. (source: New
Scientist, Nov 19,
2003)
In 2004, an article
called "Chess Masters'
Hypothesis Training,"
written by Michelle
Cowley and Ruth
Byrne, was published.
The article deals with
the way in which chess
experts gain the edge
over opponents by
falsifying their own
ideas, while chess
novices'' optimism
usually leads to a
crushing defeat. The
two cognitive scientists
decided to study how
different chess players
decide whether their
move strategies will be
winners or losers. They
found that novices were
more likely to convince
themselves that bad
moves would work out
in their favor, because
they focused more on
the countermoves that
would benefit their
strategy while ignoring
those that led to the
downfall of their
cherished hypothesis.
Chess masters were
readily able to falsify
their plans. They
generated move
sequences that falsified
their plans more readily
than novice chess
players, who tended to
confirm their plans.
the Annual Meeting of
the Cognitive Science
Society, Vol. 26, 2004)
Mark Peplow wrote an

online news article
called "Science Secret
of Grand Masters
Revealed." He wrote
that a team of cognitive
scientists had worked
out how to think like a
chess grandmaster. He
quoted from the work of
cognitive scientists
Cowley and Byrne.
(source: Nature, Aug 6,
2004)
L. Bourzutschky, J.
Tamplin, and G.
Haworth wrote an
Endgames: 6-Man Data
and Strategy." While
Nalimov's endgame
tables for chess are the
most used today, their
Depth-to-Mate metric is
not the most efficient or
effective in use. The
authors have developed
and used new programs
to create tables to
alternative metrics and
recommend better
strategies for endgame
play. (source:
Theoretical Computer
Science, Vol. 349, # 3,
Dec 14, 2005, pp. 140-
157)

Expert Mind:
Overview/Lessons from
Chess" by Philip Ross
was published in
Scientific American.
Because skill at chess
can be easily measured
and subjected to
laboratory experiments,
chess has become
important in cognitive
science. Researchers
have found evidence
that grandmasters rely
on a vast store of
knowledge of game
positions, and that GMs
organize the
information in chunks.
GMs are motivated by
competition and the joy
of victory. (source:
Scientific American
Online, Jul 24, 2006)
In the August 1, 2006

issue of Scientific
American (multiple
chess sets are on the
cover), there was an
article called "The
Expert Mind" by Philip
Ross in which studies of
the mental processes of
chess grandmasters
have revealed clues to
how people become
experts in some other
fields as well. The
article summarizes the
research that has been
done in an attempt to
explain such feats of the
human mind as
grandmaster play. He
mentions Capablanca's
quick simultaneous play
and concludes that the
chess master's
advantage over the
novice derives from the
first few seconds of
thought. Researchers
have found evidence
that chess grandmasters
rely on a vast store of
knowledge of game
positions. Some
scientists have theorized
that GMs organize the
information in chunks,
which can be quickly
retrieved from long-
term memory and
manipulated in working
memory.(source:
Vol. 295, Aug 1, 2006,
pp. 64-71, and
ChessBase, Aug 14,
2006)
called "Flipping Colors"
by Dennis Shasha. It
discussed the knight's
tour and a new puzzle
with the knight moving
two squares vertically
and one horizontally
without jumping. The
walk flips the colors of
all the squares. (source:
Scientific American
Online, Oct 20, 2006)
R. Grabner, E. Stern,
and A. Neubauer wrote
a research articled
called, "Individual
Differences in Chess
Expertise: A
Psychometric
Investigation." Starting
from controversies over
the role of general
individual
characteristics
(especially intelligence)
for the attainment of
expert performance
levels, a comprehensive
psychometric
investigation of
individual differences in
chess expertise was
presented. A sample of
90 adult tournament
chess players of varying
playing strengths (1311
—2387 ELO) was
screened with tests on
intelligence and
personality variables; in
addition, experience in
chess play, tournament
participation, and
practice activities were
assessed. Correlation
and regression analyses
revealed a clear-cut
moderate relationship
between general
intelligence and the
participants' playing
strengths, suggesting
that expert chess play
does not stand in
isolation from superior
mental abilities. The
strongest predictor of
the attained expertise
level, however, was the
participants' chess
experience which
highlights the relevance
of long-term
engagement for the
development of
expertise. Among all
analyzed personality
dimensions, only
domain-specific
performance motivation
and emotion expression
control incrementally
contributed to the
prediction of playing
strength. In total,
measures of chess
experience, current
tournament activity,
intelligence, and
personality accounted
for about 55% of
variance in chess
expertise. The present
results suggested that
chess expertise are
multifaceted and cannot
be reduced to
differences in domain
experience. (source:
Acta Psychologica, Vol.
124, # 3, March 2007,
pp. 398-420)
M. Bilalic, P. McLeod,
and F. Gobet wrote an
article called,
"Personality Profiles of
Young Chess Players."
Although the game of
chess has often featured
in psychological
research, we know very
little about people who
play chess, especially
about children who take
up chess as a hobby.
This study presented the
personality profiles of
219 young children who
play chess and 50 of
their peers who do not.
Children who score
higher on
Intellect/openness and
Energy/extraversion
were more likely to play
chess while children
who score higher on
Agreeableness were less
likely to be attracted to
chess. Boys with higher
scores on Agreeableness
were less likely to take
up chess than boys with
lower scores.
Considering that girls
score higher on
Agreeableness, this
factor may provide one
of the possible reasons
why more boys are
interested in chess. A
sub-sample of 25 elite
players had
significantly higher
scores on
Intellect/openness than
their weaker chess
playing peers. (source:
Personality and
Vol. 42, # 6, April 2007,
pp. 901-910)
A. de Bruin, R. Rikers,
and H. Schmidt wrote
Effect of Self-
Explanation and
Prediction on the
Development of
Principled
Understanding of Chess
in Novices." The study
was designed to test the
effect of self-
explanation and
prediction on the
development of
principled
understanding of
novices learning to play
chess. First-year
psychology students,
who had no chess
experience, first learned
the basic rules of chess
and were afterwards
divided in three
conditions. They either
observed, predicted, or
predicted and self-
explained the moves of
the computer playing a
chess endgame of King
and Rook against King.
Finally, in the test
phase, participants had
to play the endgame
against the computer
and were required to
checkmate the opponent
King. Apart from their
test performance, the
conditions were
compared on quality of
move predictions in the
learning phase. The
self-explanation
condition showed better
endgame principles than
the two other
conditions, as indicated
by the move predictions
in the learning phase
that more often
exemplified correct
application of chess
principles. Moreover,
participants in the self-
explanation condition
more often checkmated
the black King in the
test phase than
participants in the two
other conditions.
However, no differences
emerged between the
prediction and
observation condition.
This study showed that,
even for novices,
providing self-
explanations stimulates
the discovery of domain
principles of chess.
(source: Contemporary
Educational
Psychology, Vol. 32, #
2, Apr 2007, pp. 188-
205)
called "Silicon
Smackdown." It was
about a new Go
algorithm that would be
able to beat humans. It
started out, "A decade
ago IBM's chess
program, Deep Blue,
beat world champion
Garry Kasparov in a
six-game match. The
event marked a
milestone, forcing to
yield dominance of yet
another strategic
diversion — Go."
(source: Scientific
American Online, Jun 1,
2007)
M. Bilialic, P. McLeod,
article called, "Does
Chess Need
Intelligence? — A
Study with Young
Chess players."
Although it is widely
acknowledged that
chess is the best
example of an
intellectual activity
among games, evidence
showing the association
between any kind of
intellectual ability and
chess skill has been
remarkably sparse. One
of the reasons is that
most of the studies
investigated only one
factor (e.g.,
intelligence), neglecting
other factors relevant
for the acquisition of
chess skill (e.g., amount
of practice, years of
experience). The
present study
investigated the chess
skill of 57 young chess
players using measures
of intelligence (WISC
III), practice, and
experience. Although
practice had the most
influence on chess skill,
intelligence explained
some variance even
after the inclusion of
practice. When an elite
subsample of 23
children was tested, it
turned out that
intelligence was not a
significant factor in
chess skill, and that, if
anything, it tended to
correlate negatively
with chess skill. This
unexpected result is
explained by a negative
correlation between
intelligence and practice
in the elite subsample.
The study demonstrated
the dangers of focusing
on a single factor in
complex real-world
situations where a
number of closely
interconnected factors
operate. (source:
Intelligence, Vol 35, # 5,
Sep-Oct 2007, pp. 457-
470)
Joao Duro and Jose

Oliveira wrote an article
called, "Particle Swarm
Optimization Applied to
the Chess Game." The
paper investigated the
applicability of particle
swarm optimization
(PSO) to a chess player
agent endowing it with
learning abilities, i.e.,
allowing the agent to
improve its
performance based on
experience. PSO is a
computational method
that optimizes a
problem by iteratively
trying to improve a
candidate solution with
regard to a given
measure of quality.
(source: 2008 IEEE
Congress on
Evolutionary
Computation)
M. Bilalic, P. McLeod,
article called,
"Inflexibility of Experts
— Reality or Myth?
Quantifying the
Einstellung Effect in
Chess Masters." How
does the knowledge of
experts affect their
behavior in situations
that require unusual
methods of dealing?
One possibility is that
an increase in expertise
can lead to inflexibility
of thought due to
automation of
procedures. Yet another
possibility, based on
expertise research, is
that experts' knowledge
leads to flexibility of
thought. The authors
tested these two
possibilities in a series
of experiments using
the Einstellung (set)
effect paradigm. Chess
players tried to solve
problems that had both
a familiar but non-
optimal solution and a
better but less familiar
one. The more familiar
solution induced the
Einstellung (set) effect
even in experts,
preventing them from
finding the optimal
solution. The presence
of the non-optimal
solution reduced
experts' problem-
solving ability was
reduced to about that of
players three standard
deviations lower in skill
level by the presence of
the non-optimal
solution. Inflexibility of
thought induced by
prior knowledge (i.e.,
the blocking effect of
the familiar solution)
was shown by experts
but the more expert they
were, the less prone
they were to the effect.
Inflexibility of experts
is both reality and myth.
But the greater the level
of expertise, the more of
a myth it becomes.
(source: Cognitive
Psychology, Vol. 56, #
2, Mar 2008, pp. 73-
102)
Awani Kumar wrote an

article on the magic
knight's tour for chess
in three dimensions.
(source: Mathematical
Gazette, March 2008)
A. Fernandez and A.
Salmeron wrote an
article called,
"BayesChess: A
Computer Chess
Program Based on
Bayesian Networks. In
this paper, the authors
introduce a chess
program able to adapt
its game strategy to its
opponent, as well as to
adapt the evaluation
function that guides the
search process
according to its playing
experience. The
adaptive and learning
abilities have been
implemented through
Bayesian networks (a
type of probabilistic
graphical model). The
authors show how the
program learns through
an experiment
consisting on a series of
games that point out
that the results improve
after the learning stage.
(source: Pattern
Recognition Letters,
Vol. 29, # 8, June 1,
2008, pp. 1154-1159)
G. Campitelli and F.
Gobet wrote an article
called, "The Role of
Practice in Chess: A
Longitudinal Study."
The authors
investigated the role of
practice in the
acquisition of chess
expertise by submitting
a questionnaire to 104
players of different skill
levels. Players had to
report their chess rating,
the number of hours of
individual and group
practice, their use of
different learning
resources and activities,
and whether they had
been trained by a coach.
The use of archival data
enabled the authors to
track the rating of some
of the players
throughout their career.
The authors found that
there was a strong
correlation between
chess skill and number
of hours of practice.
Moreover, group
practice was a better
predictor of high-level
performance than
individual practice. The
authors also found that
masters had a higher
chess rating than expert
players after only three
years of serious
dedication to chess,
although there were no
differences in the
number of hours of
practice. The difference
that may explain the
variation in rating is
that masters start
practicing at an earlier
age than experts.
Finally, the authors
found that activities
such as reading books
and using computer
software (game
databases, but not
playing programs) were
important for the
development of high-
level performance.
Together with previous
data and theories of
expert performance, the
authors' results
indicated limits in the
deliberate practice
framework and made
suggestions on how best
to carry out learning in
chess and in other
fields. (source: Learning
and Individual
Differences, Vol. 18, #
4, 4th Quarter 2008, pp.
446-458)
called "Men's Chess
Superiority Explained"
by Karen Hopkin. A
study by the Royal
Society found that
men's superiority over
women at chess at the
top levels could be
explained by population
size. (source: Scientific
American Online, Dec
29, 2008)
N. Troubat, M. Fargeas-
Gluck, M. Tulppo, and
B. Dugue wrote an
article called, "The
Stress of Chess Players
as a Model to Study the
Effects of Psychological
Stimuli on
Physiological
Responses." The
authors studied the
physiological
consequences of the
tension caused by
playing chess in 20
male chess players, by
following heart rate,
heart rate variability,
and respiratory
variables. They
observed significant
increase in the heart rate
(75—86 beats/min), in
the ratio low frequency
(LF)/high frequency
(HF) of heart rate
variability (1.3—3.0)
and also a decrease in
mean heart rate
variability with no
changes in HF
throughout the game.
These results suggested
a stimulation of the
sympathetic nervous
system with no changes
in the parasympathetic
system. The respiratory
exchange ratio was
rather elevated (over
0.89) at the start and
significantly decreased
during the game (0.75 at
the end), indicating that
energy expenditure
progressively switched
from carbohydrate to
lipid oxidation. The
changes in substrate
oxidation and the
sympathetic system
seem to be due to high
cognitive demands and
bring new insight into
adaptations to mental
strain. (source:
European Journal of
Applied Physiology,
Feb 2009, Vol. 105, # 3,
pp. 343-349)
Laura Vanderkam called
"Tamir Druz: From
Risking Check in Chess
to Checking Risk in
Energy Futures." A
1989 Westinghouse
finalist, Tamir Druz,
studied how elite chess
players choose moves
and if creativity could
predict chess expertise.
Now he advised
companies on how to
think about the price of
power. (source:
Scientific American
Online, Apr 20, 2009)
Charles Moul and John

Nye wrote an article
called, "Did the Soviets
Collude? A Statisitcal
Analysis of
Championship Chess,
1940-1978." The
authors expand the set
of outcomes considered
by the tournament
literature to include
draws and used games
from post-war chess
tournaments to see
whether strategic
behavior could be
important in such
scenarios. In particular,
the authors examined
whether players from
the former Soviet Union
acted as a cartel in
international all-play-all
tournaments —
intentionally drawing
against one another in
order to focus effort on
non-Soviet opponents
— to maximize the
chance of some Soviet
winning. Using data
from international
qualifying tournaments
as well as USSR
national tournaments,
the authors considered
several tests for
collusion. Their results
were inconsistent with
Soviet competition but
consistent with Soviet
draw-collusion that
yielded substantial
benefits to the cartel.
Simulations of the
period's five premier
international
competitions (the FIDE
Candidates
tournaments) suggested
that the observed Soviet
sweep was a 60%-
probability event under
collusion but only a
25%-probability event
had the Soviet players
not colluded. (source:
Journal of Economic
Behavior &
Organization, Vol. 70,
#1-2, May 2009, pp. 10-
21)
In Cognitive Science,
M. Bilalic and F. Gobet
entitled, "The Influence
of Instruction on Chess
Expert Perception."
When expert chess
players were instructed
to match problems
based on similarities at
the abstract level
(analogy), they
produced more abstract
pairs than pairs based
on concrete similarity.
However, the same
experts produced more
concrete pairs than
abstract one when
instructed to match the
problems base on
concrete similarity.
(source: Cognitive
Science, Vol 33, # 5, pp.
753-747, 2009)
R. Solak and V,
Vuckovic published an
article called, "Time
Management During a
Chess Game." During a
chess game, there are
two important resources
that each player
possesses. One is
material i.e., the pieces
that are at his disposal.
The other is the time
shown on the clock.
Until now, efforts that
have been invested in
the development of
chess programs were
mostly directed towards
evaluation functions
and algorithms for
searching the state
space, while time
management did not
receive much attention.
In this article, the
authors considered six
models for time
management. They
experimented with them
and succeeded in
improving the
performance of such
sophisticated programs
as RYBKA and
SHREDDER. (source:
ICGA Journal, Vol. 32,
# 4, pp. 206-220, 2009)
Francis Mechner
called "Chess as a
Behavioral Model for
Cognitive Skill
Research." This work
on chess played without
sight of the pieces was a
psychologist's
examination of this
topic and of chess skill
in general, including a
detailed and
comprehensive
historical account. This
review built on Hearst
and Knott's assertion
that chess can provide a
uniquely useful model
for research on several
issues in the area of
cognitive skill and
imagery. A key issue
was the relationship
between viewing a
stimulus and mental
imagery in the light of
blindfold chess masters'
consistent reports that
they do not use or have
images. This review
also proposed a
methodology for
measuring and
quantifying an
individual's skill
shortfall from a
theoretical maximum.
This methodology,
based on a 1951
proposal by Claude
Shannon, was
applicable to any choice
situation in which all
the available choices are
known. The proposed
"Proficiency" measure
reflected the equivalent
number of "yes—no"
questions that would
have been required to
arrive at a best choice,
considering also the
time consumed. (source:
Journal of the
Experimental Analysis
of Behavior, Vol. 94, #3,
2010, pp. 373-386)
S. Vollstaedt-Klein, O.
Grimm, P. Kirsch, and
M. Bilalic wrote an
article called,
"Personality of Elite
Male and Female Chess
Players and its Relation
to Chess Skill."
Whereas a lot of studies
examine cognitive
processes in chess
players, personality
profiles of elite chess
players are still not
described well. The aim
of this study was to
examine personality of
strong chess experts and
its influence on chess
skill. The authors tested
elite male and female
chess players with
Freiburg Personality
Inventory Revised (FPI-
R), which also provides
population norms for
males and females. Elite
male players'
personality profile did
not significantly differ
from the population
norms. Female players
were more satisfied
with life, had less
physical complaints and
higher achievement
motivation in
comparison with female
population norms.
Personality was also
related with chess skill
but showed different
patterns in males and
females. Stronger male
players were more
introverted, while the
authors found the
opposite pattern in
female players. These
results indicated that
personality plays an
important role in the
highest level of
complex intellectual
activities. (source:
Learning and Individual
Differences, Vol. 20, #
5, Oct 2010, pp. 517-
521)
Christer Gerdes and

Patrick Graensmark
wrote a paper called,
"Strategic Behavior
Across Gender: A
Comparison of Female
and Male Expert Chess
Players." This paper
aimed to measure
differences in risk
behavior among expert
chess players. The study
employed a panel data
set on international
chess with 1.4 million
games recorded over a
period of 11 years. The
structure of the data set
allowed the authors to
use individual fixed-
effect estimations to
control for aspects such
as innate ability as well
as other characteristics
of the players. Most
notably, the data
contained an objective
measure of individual
playing strength (Elo
rating). In line with
previous research, the
authors found that
women are more risk-
averse than men. A
novel finding is that
men choose more
aggressive strategies
when playing against
female opponents even
though such strategies
reduce their winning
probability. (source:
Labour Economics, Vol
17, # 5, Oct 2010, pp.
766-775)
In the January 10, 2011

blog of Scientific
American, there was an
article called "Could
chess-boxing defuse
aggression in Arizona
and beyond?" Chess-
boxing made its first
appearance in a science
fiction comic book
(graphic novel) called
Cold Equator (Froid
Equator) by Enki Bilal.
The blog covers the
history of chess-
boxing.
An article appeared in
New Scientist called,
"Chess Players Use
Both Side of Brain."
Expert chess players get
ahead by using both
sides of their brain to
process chess tasks, in
contrast to amateurs
who use just one.
Vol 209, # 2795, Jan 15,
2011, p. 17)
David Barrett and Wade

Fish published an article
called "Our Move:
Using Chess to Improve
Math Achievement for
Students Who Receive
Special Education
Services." This causal-
comparative study
evaluated a 30-week
chess instructional
program implemented
within special education
math classes for
students in the sixth,
seventh, and eighth
grades in a suburban
middle school located in
the southwestern United
States. An analysis of
covariance was utilized
to compare the adjusted
means for the
comparison and
treatment groups on the
students' math
achievement as
measured by end-of-
year course grades and
state assessment scores,
the Texas Assessment of
Knowledge and Skills.
Pretest scores and grade
levels served as
covariates. Results
indicated a significant
difference on four of the
measures in favor of the
treatment group: end-
of-year course grades,
overall TAKS math
scale scores, and
percentage scores on
two specific TAKS
math objectives:
Numbers, Operations,
and Quantitative
Reasoning and
Probability and
Statistics. No significant
differences were found
between the groups on
the other four TAKS
math objectives:
Patterns, Relationships,
and Algebraic
Reasoning, Geometry
and Spatial Reasoning,
Concepts and Uses of
Measurement, and
Underlying Processes
and Mathematical
Tools. Causation and
generalizability were
difficult due to the
narrow scope of this
study. However, these
results were
encouraging and
suggest chess is a
potentially effective
instructional tool for
students who receive
special education
services in math.
Journal of Special
Education, Vol. 26, # 3,
pp 181-192, 2011)
L. Sajo, Z. Ruttkay, and

A. Fazekas wrote a
papercalled, "Turk-2, a
Multi-Modal Chess
Player." In this paper
the authors presented
Turk-2, a hybrid multi-
modal chess player with
a robot arm and a
screen-based talking
head. Turk-2 can not
only play chess, but can
see and hear the
opponent, can talk to
him and display
emotions. The authors
were interested in
finding out if a simple
embodiment with
human-like
communication
capabilities enhanced
the experience of
playing chess against a
computer. First, the
authors gave an
overview of the
development road to
multi-modal
communication with
computers. Then the
authors motivated their
research with a hybrid
system, introduced the
architecture of Turk-2,
and then described the
human experiments and
its evaluation. The
results justified that
multi-modal interaction
made game playing
more engaging,
enjoyable — and even
more effective. These
findings for a specific
game situation provided
yet another evidence of
the power of human-
like interaction in
turning computer
systems more attractive
and easier to use.
Journal of Human-
Computer Studies, Vol.
69, # 7-8, July 2011, pp.
483-495.)
D. Krawczyk, A.
Boggan, M.
McClelland, and J.
Bartlett wrote an article
called "The Neural
Organization of
Perception in Chess
Experts." The human
visual system responds
to expertise, and it has
been suggested that
regions that process
faces also process other
objects of expertise
including chess boards
by experts. The authors
tested whether chess
and face processing
overlap in brain activity
using fMRI. Chess
experts and novices
exhibited face selective
areas, but these regions
showed no selectivity to
chess configurations
relative to other stimuli.
The authors next
compared neural
responses to chess and
to scrambled chess
displays to isolate areas
relevant to expertise.
Areas within the
posterior cingulate,
orbitofrontal cortex, and
right temporal cortex
were active in this
comparison in experts
over novices. The
authors also compared
chess and face
responses within the
posterior cingulate and
found this area
responsive to chess only
in experts. These
findings indicated that
the configurations in
chess were not strongly
processed by face-
selective regions that
are selective for faces in
individuals who have
expertise in both
domains. Further, the
area most consistently
involved in chess did
not show overlap with
faces. Overall, these
expert visual processing
may be similar at the
level of recognition, but
need not show the same
neural correlates.
(source: Neuroscience
Letters, Vol 499, # 2,
July 20, 2011, pp. 64-
69)
Nathan Ensmenger
"Is Chess the
Drosophila of Artificial
Intelligence? A Social
History of an
Algorithm." This paper
explored the emergence
of chess as an
experimental
technology, its
significance in the
developing research
practices of the AI
community, and the
unique ways in which
the decision to focus on
chess shaped the
program of AI research
in the 1970s. (source:
Social Studies of
Science, Vol. 42# 1, Feb
2012, pp. 5-30)
A. Linhares, A. Freitas,
A. Mendes, and J. Silva
"Entanglement of
Perception and
Reasoning in the
Combinatorial Game of
Chess: Differential
Errors of Strategic
Reconstruction." The
autors questioned Chase
and Simon's (1973)
study concerning the
content of the chess
chunks, and they
conduct a new variation
of the classic chess
reconstruction
experiments, analyzing
25 types of possible
reconstruction errors of
grandmasters, masters,
and beginners. The
differences between the
errors conducted in
poor, intermediate, and
strategically perfect
reconstructions
provided insights
concerning the encoding
of experts. The results
obtained shed clear light
into the debate
concerning the
importance of abstract
thought (i.e., forward
search) vs. perceptual
processes (i.e., pattern
recognition). The
authors claimed that a
clear solution to this
debate is ultimately
unfeasible, as their
experiments
demonstrate high
entanglement of
perception and
reasoning. Their results
provided additional
evidence that analogy is
central to strategic
thought in chess.
(source: Cognitive
Systems Research, Vol.
13, # 1, Mar 2012, pp.
72-86)
In the March 24, 2012

Scientific American
blog, there was a letter
called "Deep Thought is
Dead, Long Live Deep
Thought."
Patrik Graensmark
wrote an article called
"Masters of our Time:
Impatience and Self-
Control in High-Level
Chess Games." This
paper presented
empirical findings on
gender differences in
time preference and
inconsistency based on
international, high-level
chess panel data with a
large number of
observations, including
a control for ability.
Due to the time
constraint in chess, it is
possible to study
performance and
choices related to time
preferences. The results
suggested that men play
shorter games on
average and pay a
higher price to end the
game sooner. They also
performed worse in
shorter game compared
to women but better in
longer games.
Furthermore, women
performed worse in
time pressure. The
results were consistent
with the interpretation
that men are more
impatient (with a lower
discount factor) but also
more inconsistent in the
sense that they tend to
be too impatient.
Women, on the other
hand, were more
inconsistent as they tend
to over-consume
reflection time in the
beginning, leading to
time pressure later.
(source: Journal of
Economic Behavior &
Organization, Vol. 82, #
1, April 2012, pp. 179-
191)
C. Bueren, B. Frank, S.
Krabel, and A. Werner
"Decision-making in
Competitive Framings
— Strategic Behavior in
Chess Players in Mini-
Ultimatum Game Chess
Puzzles." The authors
introduce a competitive
framing in the mini-
ultimatum game
utilizing chess puzzles.
Therein, their chess-
playing participants
accepted low offers
significantly more often
compared to a neutral
framing. The authors
concluded that in
familiar competitive
surroundings egoistic
behavior is more
acceptable. (source:
Economics Letters, Vol.
115, # 3, June 2012, pp.
356-358)
Neil Charness wrote an

article called, "Patterns
of Theorizing About
Chess Skill." The
conceptual approach of
Linhares and Freitas
(2010) on "experience-
recognition"-driven
problem-solving points
to the need to
incorporate analogical
reasoning mechanisms
into explanations of
how chess players
choose the best move in
chess. The Lane and
Gobet (2011)
commentary and the
cognitive simulation
models that they
espouse consisted of
plausible mechanisms
to support choosing a
good move, but need
additional development
to incorporate
abstract/semantic
information. One
possible avenue for
future exploration will
be to produce hybrid
models that use both
"piece-on-square"
chunk and template
representations and
abstract high-level
representations to guide
search in chess. (source:
New Ideas in
Psychology, vol. 30, #
3, Dec 2012, pp. 322-
324)
F. Kazemi, M. Yeklayer,
and A. Abad wrote an
article called
"Investigation the
Impact of Chess Play on
Developing Meta-
Cognitive Ability and
Math Problem-Solving
Power of Student at
Different Levels of
Education." The aim of
this study was to
analyze the effect of
learning of chess play
on developing meta-
cognitive ability and
mathematical problem-
solving capability of
students at various
levels of schooling. To
this end, 86 school-boy
students were randomly
selected and they were
taught chess for six
months, and another
group of 94 students
randomly selected for
the control group. The
subjects were assessed
via meta-cognitive
questionnaire of
Panaoura, Philippou,
and Christou (2003) and
mathematics exams.
The results indicated
that chess player
students showed more
achievement in both
meta-cognitive abilities
and mathematical
problem-solving
capabilities than other
non-chess player
students. In addition, a
positive and significant
relationship was found
between students' meta-
cognitive ability and
their mathematical
problem-solving power.
These results suggested
that chess can be used
as an effective tool for
developing higher order
thinking skills. (source:
Procedia — Social and
Behavioral Sciences,
Vol. 32, 2012, pp. 372-
379)
Mark Cannice wrote an

Right Moves: Creating
Experimental
Management Learning
with Chess." This paper
described the objectives
and process for using a
"chess simulation," an
experiential learning
method, that some
faculty may consider
using to help introduce
or illustrate important
management concepts
to their students. This
simulation required
numerous levels of
involvement from
students (e.g., planning
and analysis, discussion
and negotiation,
teaching and learning,
seeing and touching,
feedback and
application), and, thus,
may provide an
enduring lesson to
participants. The
simulation objectives
and debrief points
correlated the activities
that the students
experience during the
chess match to specific
management principles.
As the simulation
unfolded, students
applied most of these
principles, and, during
the debrief, students
discovered that they had
been utilizing
management principles
in the game, and, thus,
had gained experience
in the application of
these principals. Chess
simulation proved to be
an effective and
enjoyable method for
illustrating and
reinforcing management
concepts in the
classroom. (source: The
Management Education,
Vol. 11, # 1, March
2013, pp. 25-33)
Barry Kaufman called
"From Chess to
Dreams: Interview on
the Creative Writing
Process with Fred
Waitzkin." (source:
Scientific American
Online, Apr 1, 2013)
A. Dreber, C. Gerdes,
and P. Graensmark
"Beauty Queens and
Battling Knights: Risk
Taking and
Attractiveness in
Chess." The authors
explored the
attractiveness and risk
taking in chess. They
used a large
international panel
dataset on high-level
chess competitions
which includes a control
for the players' skill in
chess. This data was
combined with results
from a survey on an
online labor market
where participants were
asked to rate the photos
of 626 expert chess
players according to
attractiveness. The
authors' results
suggested that male
chess players choose
significantly riskier
strategies when playing
against an attractive
female opponent, even
though this does not
improve their
performance. Women's
strategies were not
affected by the
attractiveness of the
opponent. (source:
Journal of Economic
Behavior &
June 2013, pp. 1-18)
E. Vazquez-Fernandez,
C. Coello, and F.
Troncoso wrote an
article called, "An
Evolutionary Algorithm
with a History
Mechanism for Tuning
a Chess Evaluation
Function." The authors
proposed an
evolutionary algorithm
for tuning the weights
of a chess engine. Most
of the previous work in
this area has normally
adopted co-evolution
(i.e., tournaments
among virtual players)
to decide which players
will pass to the
following generation,
depending on the
outcome of each game.
The authors' method
adjusted the weights of
the evaluation function
of a chess engine
through a database of
chess grandmaster
games. The authors
found that the best
evolved virtual player
without the historical
mechanism played at
2249 rating points. They
found that the best
evolved virtual player
with the historical
mechanism played at
2397 rating points. With
the historical
mechanism, their virtual
players could solve
53.08% of the positions
of chess grandmaster
games. (source: Applied
Soft Computing, Vol.
13, # 7, July 2013, pp.
3234-3247)
Bjorn Frank and Stefan

Krabel wrote a paper
called "Gens Una
Sumus?! — Or Does
Political Ideology
Affect Experts' Esthetic
Judgment of Chess
Games?" This paper
presented evidence on
biased voting by jurors
from the Warsaw Pact
countries who ranked
high-level chess games.
This bias was observed
only for jurors from
Eastern countries, not
for those from the West
(NATO), and most
interestingly, it
disappeared after the
collapse of the Warsaw
Pact in 1989. (source:
Journal of Economic
Behavior &
Aug 2013, pp. 66-78)
Mehdi Mhalla and

Frederic Prost wrote an
article called,
"Gardner's Minichess
Variant is Solved." A
5x5 board is the
smallest board on which
one can set up all kind
of chess pieces as a start
position. The authors
considered Gardner's
minichess variant in
which all pieces are set
as in a standard
chessboard (from Rook
to King). This game has
roughly 9x10^{18}
legal positions and was
comparable in this
respect with checkers.
The authors weakly
solve this game, that is
they prove its game-
theoretic value and give
a strategy to draw
against best play for
White and Black sides.
Their approach required
surprisingly small
computing power. They
give a human readable
proof. The way the
result is obtained is
generic and could be
generalized to bigger
chess settings or to
other games. (source:
International Computer
Games Association
(ICGA) Journal, Vol 36,
# 4, 2013)
An article on
recognizing mental
stress in chess players
was published in one of
the IEEE Proceedings.
The authors presented a
platform for
psychological stress
detection using
physiological sensors
during a chess match.
The sensors were inside
an unobtrusive chest
strap that was worn by a
player during a match.
By playing games on an
Android phone, the
system could apply
machine learning
techniques to the
player's vital sign data
to give important
feedback such as which
moves caused the player
to become stressed
during a match. (source:
2013 Proceedings of
IEEE Southeastcon)
K. Spoerer, T.
Sirivichayakul, and H.
Iida wrote an article
called "Homogeneous
Group Performance in
Chess." The authors
performed experiments
on groups of chess
programs to test the
effect of group size on
performance. They
studied homogeneous
groups (copies of the
same chess program), as
opposed to
heterogeneous groups
(different chess
programs). Groups were
made up of Stockfish.
Simple Majority Voting
was used to
mechanically combine
the individual chess
program's decisions into
a group decision.
Games of chess were
played between groups
of increasing size, and
individual Stockfish
was used as an
opponent. Results
showed that winning
rate increases with
group size. (source:
Procedia Technology,
Vol. 11, 2013, pp. 1272-
1276)
A. Schaigorodsky, J.
Perotti, and O. Billoni
wrote a research paper
called, "Memory and
Long-Range
Correlations in Chess
Games." In this paper
the authors reported the
existence of long-range
memory in the opening
moves of a
chronologically ordered
set of chess games
using an extensive chess
database. They used two
mapping rules to build
discrete time series and
analyzed them using
two methods for
detecting long-range
correlations; rescaled
range analysis and
detrended fluctuation
analysis. They found
that long-range memory
is related to the level of
the players. When the
database was filtered
according to player
levels, they found
differences in the
persistence of the
different subsets. For
high level players,
correlations were
stronger at long time
scales; whereas in
intermediate and low-
level players they
reached the maximum
value at shorter time
scales. This can be
interpreted as a
signature of the
different strategies used
by players with
different levels of
expertise. These results
were robust against the
assignation rules and
the method employed in
the analysis of the time
series. (source: Physica
A: Statistical Mechanics
and its Applications,
Vol. 394, Jan 15, 2014,
pp. 304-311)
In a Scientific American
blog, there was an
article by Barry
Kaufman called "The
Mind of the Prodigy." It
discusses chess, art, and
music prodigies before
the age of 10. (source:
Feb 10, 2014)
P. Flesner and F. Gliga

"Cognitive Benefits of
Chess Training in
Novice Children." The
study aimed to
demonstrate the role
chess training has on
school performance,
memory, sustained
attention and creativity.
A group of 20 novice
primary school students
took part in 10 blended
learning chess lessons
and in a final chess
competition. Eighteen
control students
participated in 10 fun
math lessons. Most
cognitive skills
increased from pretest
to posttest in both
groups but the School
Performance Test
increased significantly
more in the chess group.
Resistance to monotony
and not IQ at pretest
predicted success in the
chess contest. (source:
Procedia — Social and
Behavioral Sciences,
Vol 116, Feb 21, 2014,
pp. 962-967)

"Why Good Thoughts
Block Better Ones."
This article discussed
cognitive bias
preventing strong chess
players from finding the
fastest way to
checkmate. The
Einstellung effect is the
brain's tendency to stick
with solutions it already
knows rather than look
for potentially superior
ones. (source: Scientific
American, Mar 1,
2014)

"Are Girls Bad at
Chess?" by Dr. Daisy
Grewal of Stanford
University. It discusses
the "stereotype threat"
as an explanation for
real-world performance
gaps. Psychology
professors looked at
whether stereotype
threat affects young
girls who play in chess
tournaments.
Psychologists have
hypothesized that
repeated exposure to
stereotype threat might
cause people to avoid
the activities that are
causing the threat.
(source: Scientific
American, Apr 15,
2014)
A. de Bruin, E. Kok, J.
Leppink, and G. Camp
"Practice, Intelligence,
and Enjoyment in
Novice Chess Players:
A Prospective Study at
the Earliest Stage of a
Chess Career." Previous
studies have generally
found no relation
between IQ and chess
skill in chess experts.
This lack of a relation
could be due to the
influence of practice
being more important
than IQ in chess
expertise. An alternative
explanation is that IQ is
relatively high and
might therefore be
restricted in range in
chess experts. The
current study
investigated the
contribution of practice,
IQ and motivation to
chess performance
prospectively in a group
of young, novice chess
players in which IQ
restriction of range did
not play a role. Children
who entered their first
chess course were asked
to complete weekly
diaries indicating the
amount of practice and
their enjoyment of the
course. IQ and
motivation were
measured using
standardized tests.
Using path analysis, the
authors found that IQ
and practice
independently predicted
chess performance on a
chess test at the end of
the course. Motivation
influenced performance
indirectly, by
moderating the amount
of practice that was
undertaken. The results
indicated that, at the
early stages of expertise
development, IQ and
motivation influence
chess performance.
(source: Intelligence,
Vol 45, July-August
2014, pp. 18-25)
Roland Grabner wrote

an article called, "Going
Beyond the Expert-
Performance
Framework in the
Domain of Chess." The
Expert-performance
framework cannot
account for current
evidence in chess
experts. Selection
processes are
questionable in the
expertise domain of
chess. The extended
expert—novice
paradigm is a powerful
research approach.
(source: Intelligence,
Vol 45, July-August
2014, pp. 109-111)
drug and alcohol
dependence journal
called, "Motivational
Interviewing Combined
with Chess Accelerates
Improvement in
Executive Functions in
Cocante-Dependent
Patients: A One-Month
Prospective Study." In
cocaine-dependent
individuals, executive
function deficits are
associated with poor
treatment outcomes.
Psychological
interventions and
pharmacological
approaches have
produced only modest
effect sizes. The aim of
this study was to
examine the effects of a
new model of
intervention, which
integrated chess and
motivational
Interviewing, called
Motivational Chess.
The improvement in
working memory was
more significant in the
Motivational Chess
Group than other
groups. The
Motivational chess
intervention was
associated with greater
improvements in
executive functions,
especially working
memory, suggesting that
tailored interventions
focusing on complex
executive functions
accelerated the process
of cognitive recovery
during the initial period
of abstinence. (source:
Drug and Alcohol
Dependence, Vol. 141,
Aug 2014, pp. 79-84)
Soren Riis wrote an
article called, "What
Makes a Chess Program
Original? Revisiting the
Rybka Case." In this
article, the author
considered the
controversial Rybka
chess engine case,
which created a
considerable stir in the
computer chess
community in 2011.
Rybka was, from its
initial public release in
2005 until it was
surpassed in 2010, by
far the strongest chess
engine ever seen. The
question of whether
Rybka was substantially
or slightly copied from
other sources, or a
completely original
work, was still being
debated on forums and
blogs. Since the actual
source code was not
available, the
determination of
whether or not the
program was original
was complex and
involved technical
topics such as reverse
engineering, program
analysis, the abstraction
—filtration—
comparison test and
black box testing such
as ponder-hit analysis.
The question related to
practices for software
development, legal
issues like copyright
law and touches on
innovation and market
leadership. Drawing on
this array of topics, the
author reviewed the
question if and to what
extent Rybka was a
clone/derivative. The
main conclusion was
that the view computer
experts take on this
question was colored by
two different views of
software development,
one that fits
programming in an
academic environment,
one that fits
programming in an
industry environment.
(source: Entertainment
Computing, Vol 5, # 3,
Aug 2014, pp. 189-
204)
J. Hanggi, K. Bruetsch,
A. Siegel, and L.
Jaencke wrote an article
called, "The
Architecture of the
Chess Player's Brain."
The game of chess can
be seen as a typical
example for an
expertise task requiring
domain-specific training
and experience. Despite
intensive behavioral
studies, the neural
underpinnings of chess
performance and
expertise are not
entirely understood. A
few functional
neuroimaging studies
have shown that expert
chess players recruit
different psychological
functions and activate
different brain areas
while they are engaged
in chess-related
activities. Based on this
functional literature, the
authors predicted to find
morphological
differences in a network
comprised by parietal
and frontal areas and
especially the occipito-
temporal junction,
fusiform gyrus, and
caudate nucleus. Twenty
expert chess players and
20 control subjects were
investigated using
voxel-based and
surface-based
morphometry as well as
diffusion tensor
imaging. There was
negative correlation
between caudate
nucleus volume and
years of chess
experience. There was
increased mean
diffusivity in the
superior longitudinal
fasciculus in chess
players. There was
negative correlation
between mean
diffusivity of the
superior longitudinal
fasciculi (SLF) and the
Elo score. To the best of
their knowledge, the
authors showed for the
first time that there are
specific differences in
grey and white matter
morphology between
chess players and
control subjects in brain
regions associated with
cognitive functions
important for playing
chess. (source:
Neuropsychologia, Vol.
62, Sep 2014, pp. 152-
162)
Robert Howard wrote

an article called,
"Learning Curves in
Highly Skilled Chess
Players: A Test of the
Generality of the Power
Law of Practice." The
power law of practice
holds that a power
function best
interrelates skill
performance and
amount of practice.
Some researchers argue
that it is an artifact of
averaging individual
exponential curves
while others question
whether the law
generalizes to complex
skills and to
performance measures
other than response
time. The present study
tested the power law's
generality to
development over many
years of a very complex
cognitive skill, chess
playing, with 387
skilled participants,
most of whom were
grandmasters. A power
or logarithmic function
best fit grouped data but
individuals showed
much variability. An
exponential function
usually was the worst fit
to individual data.
Groups differing in
chess talent were
compared and a power
function best fit the
group curve for the
more talented players
while a quadratic
function best fit that for
the less talented. After
extreme amounts of
practice, a logarithmic
function best fit
grouped data but a
quadratic function best
fit most individual
curves. Individual
variability is great and
the power law or an
exponential law are not
the best descriptions of
individual chess skill
development. (source:
Acta Psychologica, Vol.
151, Sep 2014, pp. 16-
23)
Aek Thanatipanonda
"Rook Endgame
Problems in m by n
Chess." The author
considered chess played
on an board (with m and
n arbitrary positive
integers), with only the
two Kings and the
White Rook remaining,
but placed at arbitrary
positions. Using the
symbolic finite state
method, developed by
Thanatipanonda and
Zeilberger, the author
proved that on a 3 x n
board, for almost all
initial positions, White
can checkmate Black in
less than or equal to n +
2 moves, and that this
upper bound is sharp.
He also conjectured that
for an arbitrary m x n
board, with m, n equal
or greater than 4,
(except for (m, n) — (4,
4) when it equals 7), the
number of needed
moves is less than or
equal to m + n, and that
this bound is also sharp.
(source: Advances in
Applied Mathematics,
Vol. 61, Oct 2014, pp.
19-24.
U. Chakraborty and D.
Sharma published an
article called "An
Improved Chess
Machine based on
Artificial Neural
Networks." Numerous
published studies
revealed that various
researchers have
attempted to build a
program that learns to
play cognitive games,
given little or no earlier
knowledge about the
rule of the game. A
usual chess playing
machine thoroughly
explores the moving
possibilities from a
chessboard
configuration to choose
what the next best move
to make. The brute-
force searching
technique used by the
Deep Blue chess engine
made vast impact in the
ground of artificial
intelligence, but still
found to be resource
hungry. This paper, with
the concept of Artificial
Neural Networks
presented a very simple
and efficient approach
to develop an intelligent
chess engine which can
assist and hint the
possible move within
the game using the
evolutionary and
adaptive computing
technique on learning
from the human
grandmasters. (source:
Computer Applications,
2014)
YoungCul Kim,
GueeSang Lee, Tam
Nguyen, and Quang Vo
called "Tensor voting,
hough transform and
SVM integrated in
chess playing robot."
the 9th International
Conference on
Ubiquitous Information
Management and
Communication, Article
No. 67, 2015)
Pawel Stepien
called "Nonlinear
analysis of EEG in
chess players." The
chess game is a good
example of cognitive
task which needs a lot
of training and
experience. The aim of
this work was to
compare applicability of
two nonlinear methods -
Higuchi Fractal
Dimension and
Empirical Mode
Decomposition - in
analysis of EEG data
recorded during chess
match. The author
analyzed data of three
master chess players
registered during their
matches with a
computer program.
(source: EPJ Nonlinear
Biomedical Physics
Journal, 2015, Vol. 3, #
1)
Ivan Bratko, Matej

Guid, and Simon
Stoiljkovikj published
an article called "A
Computational Model
for Estimating the
Difficulty of Chess
Problems." In
educational setting, it is
often desirable to
anticipate how difficult
a given problem will be
fora student. Assessing
difficulty is also very
difficult for human
experts. It is an open
question how to assess
the difficulty
automatically. In this
paper, the authors
presented experiments
with a computational
approach to estimating
the difficulty for
humans of
combinatorial problems
such as chess. The
approach was based on
heuristic search by a
computer to solve a
given problem.
Importantly, this search
mimics human's
problem solving taking
into account the
human's domain-
specific knowledge. In
this paper, the authors
investigated this
approach in assessing
the difficulty for
humans of chess tactical
problems. In the
experiments, the authors
used chess tactical
problems supplemented
with statistic based
difficulty ratings
obtained from the Chess
Tempo website. The
authors assumed these
ratings as true
difficulties. A
"meaningful" search
tree was generated by
computer game tree
search which attempted
to emulate human's
problem solving.
Automatic detectors of
difficulty were then
induced with machine
learning techniques
from properties of
meaningful trees. In the
experiments, a number
of selected chess
problems were
classified into difficulty
classes by human
experts and by the
authors' automatic
detector of difficulty.
The accuracy of
classifications by
computer models
compare favorably with
the accuracy of human
experts. (source:
Proceedings of the
Third Annual
Conference on
Advances in Cognitive
Systems, Article 7,
2015)
D. Barnes and J.
Hernandez-Castro wrote
an article called, "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. Allegations of
cheating even in over-
the-board (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, the authors
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. Their
approach was to deeply
examine a large
collection of games
where there is
confidence that cheating
has not taken place, and
analyze those that could
be easily misclassified.
They concluded that
there was a serious risk
of finding numerous
"false positives" and
that, in general, it was
unsafe to use just the
moves of a single game
as prima facie evidence
of cheating. They also
demonstrated that it was
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. (source:
Computers & Security,
Vol. 48, Feb 2015, pp.
58-73)
M. Bertoni, G.
Brunello, and L. Rocco
wrote an article called
"Selection and the Age
— Productivity Profile.
Evidence from Chess
Players." The authors
used data on
professional chess
tournaments to study
how endogenous
selection affects the
age and mental
productivity in a brain-
intensive profession.
The authors then
corrected for selection
using an imputation
procedure. The authors
showed that less
talented players are
more likely to drop out,
and that the age-
productivity gradient is
heterogeneous by
ability, making fixed
effects estimators
inconsistent. The
authors found that the
median productivity
increases by close to 5
percent from initial age
(15) to peak age (21),
and declines
substantially after the
peak. (source: Journal
of Economic Behavior
& Organization, Vol
110, Feb 2015, pp. 45-
58)
A. Ericsson, Y. Gong,
and J Moxley published
an article called "Recall
of Briefly Presented
Chess Positions and Its
Relation to Chess
Skill." Individual
differences in memory
performance in a
domain of expertise
have traditionally been
accounted for by
previously acquired
chunks of knowledge
and patterns. These
accounts have been
examined
experimentally mainly
in chess. The role of
chunks (clusters of
chess pieces recalled in
rapid succession during
recall of chess
positions) and their
relations to chess skill
are, however, under
debate. By introducing
an independent chunk-
identification technique,
namely repeated-recall
technique, this study
identified individual
chunks for particular
chess players. The study
not only tested chess
players with increasing
chess expertise, but also
tested non-chess players
who should not have
previously acquired any
chess related chunks in
memory. For recall of
game positions
significant differences
between players and
non-players were found
in virtually all the
characteristics of
chunks recalled. Size of
the largest chunks also
correlates with chess
skill within the group of
rated chess players.
(source: Public Library
of Science, March
2015)
V. Gupta, A. Kumar, et
al, published an article
called "Autonomous
Chess Playing Robot."
The authors looked
across various
algorithms and theories
across the glove to
make a chess engine.
For the mechanical part,
they were inspired by
the moving mechanism
used in 3D printers.
Journal of Engineering
Research & Technology,
Vol 4, Issue 3, March
2015)
M. Chhangani and R.
Sushir published an
article called "Wireless
Powered Chess: - A
Review." (source:
Engineering Research
and General Science,
Vol 3, Issue 2, March-
April 2015)
Mensure Aydin
called "Examining the
impact of chess
instruction for the visual
impairment on
Mathematics." (source:
Educational Research
and Reviews, April
2015, Vol. 10, # 7, pp.
907-911)
Manish Chhangani
called, "Arduino based
Wireless Powered
Chess." This paper
concentrated on
designing of chess
boards using Arduino
mega and Reed
Switches. The Arduino
is the open source
platform. The wireless
powered chess has
solutions of all the
problems. Already built
system requires
computer and laptop to
enjoy the game which
affects cost and
complexity. In the result
and simulation part this
paper focused on how
to enjoy the game at a
distance. Chess is an
activity in which we
deploy almost all our
available cognitive
resources; therefore, it
makes an ideal
laboratory for
investigation into the
working of human
mind. This study
focused on an
automatically operated
chess board with the
help of Bluetooth and
Arduino Processesor. In
this process two chess
boards were connected
with the help of
Bluetooth and by using
Arduino processors the
interfacing between the
two boards is done. The
complete operation was
done at RF frequency
and the moves done on
computer and
performed on the board
as well. In the proposed
wireless powered chess
project, since both the
chess boards were
connected with the
Arduino
Microprocessor, the
move performed on the
manually attended
boards was also seen on
other boards without
being operated by the
player. (source:
Innovative Research in
Computer and
Communications
Engineering, Vol. 3, # 4,
April 2015)
Abdullah Al-Saedi and

Alu Mohammed
called "Design and
Implementation of
Chess-Playing Robotic
System." This paper
introduced a chess-
playing robotic system
that was designed to
autonomously play
board games against
human opponents. The
control of the robotic
arm manipulator was
addressed in terms of
speed and position
control. A complete
control system was
proposed to control the
Lab-Volt 5150 robotic
manipulator which is a
five degree of freedom
(DOF) robotic
manipulator arm. A
smart chessboard was
built for tracking
opponent's movement.
Board representation
and search techniques
were provided by using
the free and open source
chess application the
"SharpChess". It was
modified under VC#
environment to fulfill
the project requirement.
The implemented
control was a networked
control system (NCS)
scheme, the network
exchanges the necessary
information between the
system parts. The
proposed systems with
all of their parts were
tested in a real time
with a real chess
tournament and the
system gave satisfactory
results. (source:
Computer Science &
Engineering
Technology, May 2015,
Vol. 5, # 5, pp. 90-98)
B. ElDaou and S. El-

Shamieh wrote an
Effect of Playing Chess
on the Concentration of
ADHD Students in the
2nd Cycle." The study
examined the effect of
playing chess on the
concentration of
students with Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder. The study
hypothesized that chess
improves concentration
period and listening
language skills. The
sample was chosen
from two schools with
inclusion, students
received chess training
twice per week. Pre-
and post- measurements
of Conner's Teachers
Rating Scale: Revised-
Long version,
concentration tasks, and
scores of school
language listening tests
were the data collection
tools of the study.
Results showed
improvement in
concentration skill and
period, and in listening
score. (source: Procedia
— Social and Behavior
Sciences, Vol 192, June
24, 2015, pp. 638-643)
Philippe Chassey and

Fernand Gobet
called "Risk taking in
adversarial situations:
Civilization differences
in chess experts." To
estimate risk-taking
across civilizations, the
authors examined
strategies used in
667,599 chess games
played over eleven
years by chess experts
from 11 different
civilizations. They
showed that some
civilizations were more
inclined to settle for
peace. Similarly, the
authors show that once
engaged in the battle,
the level of risk taking
varies significantly
across civilizations, the
boldest civilization
using the riskiest
strategy about 35%
more than the most
conservative
civilization. The authors
discuss which
psychological factors
might underpin these
civilizational
differences. (source:
Cognition, Aug 2015,
Vol. 141, pp. 36-40)
Sunandita Sarker
called, "Wizard Chess:
An Autonomous Chess
Playing Robot." Robotic
chess is an emerging
problem domain in the
field of human-robot
interaction. In this
paper, Wizard Chess, an
autonomous chess
playing robotic system
is introduced, which is
capable of recognizing
all possible chess board
states, generating
subsequent moves as
well as executing those
moves. Existing chess
playing robots use
camera for the detection
of game states and
articulated robotic arm
for the movement of
pieces on the board
which make these
robots particularly
complex and highly
expensive. Compared to
these prior works,
Wizard Chess is
architecturally simple,
low-cost and feasible in
case of personal use,
educational and
recreational purposes.
In this system, an X-Y
Cartesian table is used
for moving chess pieces
along the board.
Additionally, sixty-four
magnetic reed switches
are used for determining
the current game state.
A prototype of the
proposed robotic chess
was implemented and
an extensive
performance evaluation
was presented in this
paper which shows the
feasibility of the system
in real-life situations.
(source: 2015 IEEE
International WIE
Conference on
Electrical and Computer
Engineering)
A. Blanch, A. Aluga,
and M. Cornado, wrote
an article called, "Sex
Differences in Chess
Performance: Analyzing
Participation Rates,
Age, and Practice in
Chess Tournaments."
This study analyzed sex
differences in chess Elo
ratings with chess
tournament data. The
authors evaluated
whether sex differences
were due to differential
participation rates of
males and females, and
whether age and
practice were able to
predict differences in
chess ability. There
were meaningful sex
differences in Elo
ratings unrelated to
different participation
rates. Age and practice
predicted sex
differences in Elo chess
ratings for females, but
not for males. The
findings paralleled
those concerning sex
differences in cognitive
ability research, and
supported that biosocial
factors (i.e., age and
practice) rather than
divergences in
males and females in
the domain influenced
the extreme sex
differences in Elo
ratings (source:
Personality and
Vol. 36, Nov 2015, pp.
117-121)
medical journal called,
"Efficacy of Chess
Training for the
Treatment of ADHD: A
Prospective, Open
Label Study." A study
was made to examine
the effectiveness of
playing chess as a
treatment option for
children with ADHD.
Parents of 44 children
ages 6—17 with a
primary diagnosis of
ADHD consented to
take part in the study.
Children with ADHD
improved in both the
Swanson, Nolan, and
Pelham Scale (SNAP)
and the Conner's Rating
Scales (CPRS). If the
authors' results are
replicated in better
designed studies,
playing chess could be
included within the
multimodal treatment of
ADHD. (source:
Revista de Psiquiatria y
Salud Mental, Vol 9, #
1, Jan-Mar 2016, pp.
13-21)
Several psychiatrists
contributed to an article
called, "Bobby Fischer:
Chess, Genius and
Madness at the Height
of the Cold War." The
authors tried to dig a
little in the biography of
Bobby Fischer who
many described as
mentally ill. The authors
tried to figure out what
is reality and what is
just legend about
Fischer. Their goal was
to promote chess, and
also honor Bobby
Fischer. Moreover, the
authors wanted to
explore the scientific
literature published
about the benefits of
playing chess,
especially in childhood.
Their conclusion was
that not all geniuses
were crazy, neither all
crazy are geniuses. A
genius is a person with
extraordinary
capabilities, that
focused on a topic, has
the ability to enlighten
new ways to explain
this complex world,
whether it is to create a
symphony, paint
masterpiece or the next
move on the
European Psychiatry,
Vol.33, Mar 2016, pp.
S634-S635)
Fernand Gobet and

Giovanni Sala
called, "Do the Benefits
of Chess Instruction
Transfer to Academic
and Cognitive Skills? A
Meta-Analysis." In
recent years, pupils'
poor achievement in
mathematics has been a
concern in many
Western countries.
Chess instruction has
been proposed as one
way to remedy this state
of affairs, as well as
improving other
academic topics such as
reading and general
cognitive abilities such
as intelligence. Chess
instruction is thought to
improve children's
cognitive and academic
skills. The aim of this
paper was to
quantitatively evaluate
the available empirical
evidence that skills
acquired during chess
instruction in schools
positively transfer to
mathematics, reading
and general cognitive
skills. The selection
criteria were satisfied
by 24 studies (40 effect
sizes), with 2788 young
people in the chess
condition and 2433 in
the control groups.
Results show a modest
overall effect size. The
duration of chess
training predicts pupils'
achievement. However,
no study had an "ideal
design"; thus, placebo
effects cannot be ruled
out. More than half of
educational
interventions are better
than chess instruction.
(source: Educational
Research Review, Vol
18, May 2016, pp. 46-
57)
JL Zirulnik wrote an
article called "Chess-
Sinthome: A New
Approach to Bobby
Fischer's Psychosis." A
new conceptual model
was proposed to explain
the psychosis of
American chess player
Bobby Fischer. Based
on the pioneering work
of psychoanalysts, the
author introduced the
concept of sinthome,
taken from the Lacanian
topology of the
Borromean knot, with
its three registers: real,
symbolic and imaginary
[RSI], and its fourth
stabilizer knot at the
breaking of the
symbolic. Here, the
author calls it chess-
sinthome to designate
the antipsychotic role
fulfilled the ultra-
competitive chess, in
life and in the minds of
some great players.
(source: Clinical
Depression, May 16,
2016 —
omicsonline.org)
L. Linnemer and M.
Visser wrote an article
called "Self-Selection in
Tournaments: The Case
of Chess Players." Who
self-selects into a
tournament with entry
cost? The authors
considered a simple
tournament model in
which individuals auto-
select into the contest
on the basis of their
commonly known
strength levels, and
privately observed
strength-shocks. The
model predicted that the
participation rate should
increase with the
player's observed
strength, and the total
awarded prize amount.
Furthermore, under
certain conditions self-
selection implied that
participants with high
observed strength levels
have smaller expected
strength-shocks than
those with low levels.
Consequently, the latter
should play better than
predicted and the
former worse (given
their observed strength).
These predictions were
confronted with data
from a large and high-
prize chess tournament
held in the USA. This
tournament is divided
into different sections,
with players being able
to play in the section to
which their current
chess rating (observed
strength) belongs. As
predicted, the authors
found that within each
section the participation
probability increases
with chess rating and
prize amounts, and
players with a relatively
low rating were indeed
the ones who have a
better relative
performance. Low rated
players stop
participating when they
have a negative ability
shock. (source: Journal
of Economic Behavior
& Organization, Vol
126, June 2016, pp.
213-214)
Angel Blanch wrote an

article called, "Expert
Performance of Men
and Women: A Cross-
Cultural Study in the
Chess Domain." This
study addressed the
disparity between men
and women in
performance at the
expert chess level.
Actual sex differences
in chess performance
were contrasted with
differences estimated
from the divergent
men and women chess
players from twenty-
four countries in the
Eurasian region. There
was a male advantage in
chess performance
throughout all countries.
Sex differences in chess
performance emerged
for all the studied
countries, with
remarkable and highly
variable unexplained
gaps that were unrelated
to the men versus
women ratios. The
cross-country variability
about sex differences in
chess performance
indicates differences in
geographical and
cultural factors that
might elicit differential
participation rates,
starting age, and
perseverance in the
domain for men and
women. These
differences were also
likely to underlie the
remarkable disparity in
expert chess
performance of men and
women than only
differential participation
rates. (source:
Personality and
Vol. 101, Oct 2016, pp.
90-97)
A. Burgoyne, G. Sala, F.
Gobet, B. Macnamara,
G. Campitelli, and D.
Hambrick, authored an
Relationship Between
Cognitive Ability and
Chess Skill: A
Comprehensive Meta-
Analysis." Why are
some people more
skilled in complex
domains than other
people? The study
showed that chess skill
correlated positively
with numerical,
visuospatial, and verbal
ability. Chess skill also
correlated positively
and significantly with
fluid reasoning,
comprehension-
knowledge, short-term
memory, and processing
speed. Moreover, the
correlation between
fluid reasoning and
chess skill was
moderated by age, and
skill level. Interestingly,
chess skill correlated
more strongly with
numerical ability than
with verbal ability or
visuospatial ability. The
cognitive ability
contributes
meaningfully to
chess skill, particularly
in young chess players
and/or at lower levels of
skill. The study
reviewed 2,287 relevant
articles on chess.
"Chess is probably the
single most studied
domain in research on
expertise, yet the
evidence for the
chess skill and cognitive
ability is mixed,"
said Alexander
Burgoyne, one of the
authors "We analyzed a
half-century worth of
research on intelligence
and chess skill and
found that cognitive
ability contributes
meaningfully to
chess skill." (source:
Intelligence, Nov-Dec
2016, Vol. 59, pp. 72-
83)
A recent scientific
article by Devika
Bansal suggested that
through chess study,
you make more risky
choices as the day wears
on. Neuroscientists
examined the quality of
moves in more than one
million games of chess
in an online database.
They charted the
decisions of 99 prolific
players by gauging the
time they look for each
move and its usefulness
in leading to a victory
— factors that impact
games like high-speed
tiebreakers in world
chess championships.
As expected, early risers
played more games in
the morning, whereas
night owls were active
at dusk and beyond. But
both sets of chess
players took longer for
each move and made
better games choices
early in the day and
soon after they woke
up. Come evening, their
chess game play
quickened and their
moves grew less
effective. The study
revealed a pervasive
switch in decision
strategy from safe play
in the morning to riskier
— faster and less
successful — moves at
sundown. The finding
shows we may have
greater control over our
decisions earlier in the
day and soon after we
wake up, regardless of
when we prefer to sleep.
As we grow tired, our
bodies' need for sleep
could dictate the quality
of our choices—no
matter how focused we
think we might be.
(source:
sciencemag.org, Dec 2,
2016)
A. Blanch, H. Garcia,
A. Llaveria, and A.
Aluja wrote an article
called, "The Spearman's
Law of Diminishing
Returns (SLODR) in
Chess." This law
contends that a general
factor of cognitive
ability (g) is more
efficient to account for
intellectual performance
in low ability than in
high ability groups. This
study evaluated the
SLODR with data from
the chess domain with
the Amsterdam chess
test (ACT). Chess
ability relates closely
with several cognitive
abilities that load in g,
whereas the Elo chess
rating is a robust
quantitative indicator of
chess skill that is
suitable to determine
differentiated ability
groups. A structural
equation model with
five subtests from the
ACT for low and high
Elo chess rating groups
indicated a better
overall model fit for the
low ability group.
Factor invariance
analyses about the
variance explained by g,
residual variances, and
g-loadings, indicated
that the highest
variation between low
and high chess ability
groups arose in the
model constraining
equal g-loadings
between both groups.
These findings
supported the SLODR
in chess. (source:
Personality and
Vol 104, Jan 2017, pp.
434-441)
A. Rydzewski and P.
Czarnul wrote an article
called, "A Distributed
System for Conducting
Chess Games in
Parallel." This paper
proposed a distributed
and scalable cloud
based system designed
to play chess games in
parallel. Games can be
played between chess
engines alone or
between clusters created
by combined chess
engines. The system has
a built-in mechanism
that compares engines,
based on Elo ranking
which finally presents
the strength of each
tested approach. If an
approach needs more
computational power,
the design of the system
allowed it to scale. The
system was designed
using a loosely coupled
architecture approach
and the master-slave
pattern. It works under
Unix or MacOS
operating systems.
CloudAMQP is an
implementation of
Advanced Message
Queue Protocol and was
used as a message-
oriented middleware.
This layer was created
to split games between
every available
processing node
connected to the system.
This element also
contributes to greater
fault tolerance. The
authors presented
results of games played
between many available
chess engines. (source:
Procedia Computer
Science, Vol. 119, 2017,
pp. 22-29)
An article called
"Methylphenidate,
Modafinil, and Caffeine
for Cognitive
Enhancement in Chess:
A Double-Blind,
Randomised Control
Trial," appeared in a
leading medical journal.
Stimulants and caffeine
have been proposed for
cognitive enhancement
by healthy subjects.
This study investigated
whether performance in
chess — a competitive
mind game requiring
highly complex
cognitive skills — can
be enhanced by
methylphenidate,
modafinil or caffeine. In
a randomized, double-
blind, placebo-
controlled trial, 39 male
chess players received
2×200 mg modafinil,
2×20 mg
methylphenidate, and
2×200 mg caffeine or
placebo in a 4×4
crossover design. They
played twenty 15-
minute games during
two sessions against a
chess program (Fritz 12;
adapted to players'
strength) and completed
several
neuropsychological
tests. Marked substance
effects were observed
since all three
substances significantly
increased average
reflection time per game
compared to placebo
resulting in a
significantly increased
number of games lost
on time with all three
treatments. Only when
controlling for game
duration as well as
when excluding those
games lost on time, both
modafinil and
methylphenidate
enhanced chess
performance as
demonstrated by
significantly higher
scores in the remaining
2876 games compared
to placebo. In
conjunction with results
from
neuropsychological
testing, the authors
concluded that
modifying effects of
stimulants on complex
cognitive tasks may in
particular result from
more reflective decision
making processes.
When not under time
pressure, such effects
may result in enhanced
performance. Yet, under
time constraints more
reflective decision
making may not
improve or even have
detrimental effects on
complex task
performance. (source:
European
Neuropsychopharmacol
ogy, Vol 27, # 3, March
2017, pp. 248-260)
G. Sala, A. Burgoyne,
B. Macnamara, D.
Hambrick, G.
Campitelli, and F.
Gobet, authored an
article called,
"Checking the
'Academic Selection'
Argument. Chess
Players Outperform
Non-chess Players in
Cognitive Skills Related
to Intelligence. A Meta-
Analysis." The
"academic selection
process" hypothesis is
that expert vs. non-
expert differences in
cognitive ability reflect
ability-related
differences in access to
training opportunities.
This difference may be
due to academic
selection processes
(e.g., GRE scores). To
test this hypothesis, the
authors focused on a
domain in which there
are no selection
processes based on test
scores: chess. This
meta-analysis revealed
that chess players
outperformed non-chess
players in intelligence-
related skills. Therefore,
this outcome does not
corroborate the
academic selection
process argument, and
consequently, supports
the idea that access to
training alone cannot
explain expert
performance. This
outcome contradicted
the academic selection
hypothesis. (source:
Intelligence, Vol. 61,
Mar-Apr 2017, pp 130-
139).
Demis Hassabis wrote

an article called,
"Artificial Intelligence:
Chess Match of the
Century." He details the
match in which Garry
Kasparov lost to Deep
Blue in 1997. He also
reviewed Kasparov's
book, Deep Thinking.
(source: Nature, Vol.
544, Apr 27, 2017, pp.
413-414)
Larry Greenemeier
called, "20 Years after
Deep Blue: How AI Has
Advanced Since
Conquering Chess. IBM
AI expert Murray
Campbell reflected on
the machine's long,
bumpy road to victory
over chess champ Garry
Kasparov. (source:
Scientific American, Jul
2, 2017)
J. Powell, D. Grossi, R.
Corcoran, F. Gobet, and
M. Garcia-Finana wrote
Neural Correlates of
Theory of Mind and
Their Role During
Empathy and the Game
of Chess: A Functional
Magnetic Resonance
Imaging Study." Chess
involves the capacity to
reason iteratively about
potential intentional
choices of an opponent
and therefore involves
high levels of explicit
theory of mind, i.e., the
ability to infer metal
states of others. The
neural network
associated with theory
of mind, empathy, and
chess was investigated
by the authors.
Functional magnetic
resonance imaging was
used on 12 healthy male
novice chess players to
identify cortical regions
associated with chess.
For novice chess
players, chess involved
operations that were
involved in inferences
about mental states of
others. (source:
Neuroscience, Vol. 365,
July 4, 2017, pp. 149-
160)
An article called
"Analysis of Chess
Grand Masters"
appeared in the
European Journal of
Physical Education and
Sport Sciences. A study
was made on the age of
becoming a chess
grandmaster. Research
was made on the factors
which have caused the
age of becoming a GM
to fall rapidly in recent
years. Most of chess
studies fall into four
categories: studies
involving the relation of
chess sports and
education; studies on
chess computer
programs and their
effects; studies on
sports psychology; and
studies based on
mathematical
calculations, such as
position calculations or
number of moves in
chess. (source:
European Journal of
Physical Education and
Sport Sciences, Oct
2017)
N. Almeira, A.
Schaigorodsky, J.
Perotti, and O. Billoni
"Structure Constrained
by Metadata in
Networks of Chess
Players." A study was
made of extensive chess
databases and how a
network of games
played over-the-board
(OTB) compared with a
network of games
played in the Internet.
The authors studied the
main topological
characteristics of the
two networks, such as
degree distribution and
correlations, transitivity
and community
structure. They
complemented the
structural analysis by
incorporating players'
level of play as node
metadata. Although
both networks were
topologically different,
they showed that in
both cases players
gather in communities
according to their
expertise and that an
emergent rich-club
structure, composed by
the top-rated players, is
also present. The
authors used a database
of 7.7 million OTB
chess games, and a
database of 15 million
games played between
humans in different
websites, such as
chess.com,
playchess.com, ICC,
etc. The average Elo
rating for OTB play was
1884. The average Elo
rating for portals
(Internet) was 1692.
(source: Scientific
Reports, Nov 9, 2017,
Vol. 7, article # 15186)
K. Barzegar and S.
Barzegar wrote an
article called, "Chess
Therapy: A New
Approach to Curing
Panic Attack." A study
was made to look at the
effect of playing a cell
phone chess game on
treating a panic attack.
A chess game on an
android cell phone was
played by one of the
researchers who was
affected by panic attack
as a post-traumatic
disorder immediately
after or before feeling of
the start of symptoms.
The right level of
difficulty, i.e., levels 2
—4, was selected for
optimal results. Playing
chess game on the
android cell phone
prevented the
manifestation of panic
attack and led to the
cure of this traumatic
condition. Chess
therapy with the right
level of difficulty can be
recommended as a very
effective non-
pharmaceutical method
for the successful
treatment of panic
attacks. (source: Asian
Journal of Psychiatry,
Vol 30, Dec 2017, pp.
118-119)
An 800-year-old 'knight'
chess (shatranj) piece
was recently discovered
in a 13th-century house
in Tonsberg, Norway. It
was a decorated
thimble-shaped object
used as a chess knight
piece. The piece was
made mostly out of
antler. It was analyzed
by a team of
archaeologists for the
Norwegian Institute for
Cultural Heritage
Research. (source:
livescience, Jan 29,
2018 -
https://www.livescience.
com/61552-old-chess-
piece-discovered.html)
Alexander Matros wrote

an article called, "Lloyd
Shapley and Chess with
Imperfect Information."
Shapley was a game
theorist and a lover of
chess. In the paper, the
author analyzes some of
Shapley's chess
problems and his
contributions to the
study of chess and chess
with imperfect
information. (source:
Games and Economic
Behavior, Vol. 108, Mar
2018, pp. 600-613)
Return to Main Page
Please
report broken or duplica
te links to
the Webmaster.
Official Website
Copyright 2017, 2018
by William D. Wall
All Rights Reserved

Chess in Science Magazines

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chess in Science Magazines

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chess in Science Magazines

Here are a few articles

There was an article

There was an article

There was an article

There was an article

A reader to the editor of

There was an article on

There was an article on

There was an article

The first chess column

Sam Loyd had several

There was an article

An article called "The

Dr. Ernest Jones (1879-

Harold Holck published

Dr. Ben Karpman

Marston Morse (1892-

Isador H. Coriat (1875-

Joan Fleming and

W. Ross Ashby (1903-

Eliot Slater (1904-1983)

Allen Newell (1927-

In the 1950s, IBM was

There was an article

Martin Gardner wrote

Allen Newell (1927-

Herbert Simon and

Richard Bellman (1920-

George Baylor and

There was a Scientific

Alex G. Bell published

Hans Berliner (1929-

Martin Scurrah and

Herbert Simon wrote a

Daniel Wagner and

Donald Michie (1923-

Jasia Reichardt wrote an

William Chase and

Hans Berliner wrote an

Hans Berliner wrote an

In 1979, David Lane

Monroe Newborn wrote

Thomas Saaty and Luis

Arthur Robinson wrote

Gina Kolata wrote an

Donald Michie wrote an

James Storer wrote a

Thomas Saaty and Luis

Robert Hyatt, Harry

Robert Cannon and Stan

A. Avni, D. Kipper, and

Jane Seymour wrote an

Greg Wilson wrote an

Monroe Newborn wrote

Helmut Horacek wrote

There was a Scientific

Pertii Saariluoma wrote

Robert Levinson and

Perti Saariluoma wrote

Ingo Althoefer wrote an

An article called "The

Linda Hope wrote an