Computer Chess Compendium

For many years I have been interested in computer chess and have collected almost every learned paper and article on the subject that I could find. My files are now quite large, and a considerable amount of time, effort and expense has been required to build up this collection. I have often thought how difficult it must be for many computer chess enthusiasts to acquire copies of articles that they see referenced in some other work. Unless one has access to a good reference library, the task is almost impossible. I therefore decided to try to make available, in one volume, as many as possible of the most interesting and important articles and papers ever written on the subject. Such a selection is naturally somewhat subjective, and I hope that I will not offend authors whose works have been excluded. In particular I have decided to exclude any material which has appeared in the Journal of the International Computer Chess Association (ICCA), or in its precursor, the ICCA Newsletter. The reason is simply that the ICCA itself is in the process of compiling a compendium containing the most important material published in those sources. For further information on ICCA membership and publications the reader is invited to contact: Professor H. 1. van den Herik, or Dr Jonathan Schaeffer University of Limburg, Computing Science Dcpaitment, Department of Computer Science University of Alberta, 6200 MD Maastricht Edmonton Netherlands Alberta, Canada T6G 2HI.

Table of Contents:
1 Introduction.- 1.1 Programming a Computer for Playing Chess.- 1.2 Chess.- 1.3 The Chess Machine: An Example of Dealing with a Complex Task by Adaptation.- 2 Famous Chess Programs.- 2.1 Chess Playing Programs and the Problem of Complexity (excerpt).- 2.2 Computer v Chess Player.- 2.3 A Chess Playing Program for the ibm 7090.- 2.4 The Greenblatt Chess Program.- 2.5 The Technology Chess Program.- 2.6 chess 4.5 — The Northwestern University Chess Program.- 2.7 Cray Blitz.- 3 Position Evaluation 112.- 3.1 Statistics for the Chess Computer and the Factor of Mobility.- 3.2 A Five-Year Plan for Automatic Chess (excerpt).- 4 Tree Searching Techniques.- 4.1 Tree-Searching and Tree-Pruning Techniques.- 4.2 Some Methods of Controlling the Tree Search in Chess Programs.- 4.3 The Heuristic Search and the Game of Chess. A Study of Quiescence, Sacrifices and Plan Oriented Play.- 4.4 A Theory of Evaluative Comments in Chess with a Note on Minimaxing.- 5 Analysis.- 5.1 The Sequence of Phases.- 5.2 Skill in Chess.- 5.3 Decision Making and Computers.- 5.4 A Chess Mating Combinations Program.- 5.5 Robot Chess.- 6 Writing a Chess Program.- 6.1 A Computer Chess Tutorial.- 6.2 Using Patterns and Plans in Chess.- 6.3 Mate at a Glance.- 7 Special Purpose Software and Hardware.- 7.1 Some Ideas for a Chess Compiler.- 7.2 Robots.- 7.3 CHEOPS: A Chess-orientated Processing System.- 7.4 BELLE: Chess Hardware.- 8 The Endgame.- 8.1 Co-Ordinate Squares: A Solution to Many Chess Pawn Endgames.- 8.2 Goal-Directed Search in Chess Endgames.- 8.3 Computer Analysis of a Rook End-Game.- 9 Games Played by Chess Programs.- 9.1 Games from the ACM Tournaments.- 9.2 Games from the World Computer Championships.- 9.3 Blitz Games between Computers and Human Players.- 9.4 Simultaneous Games between ComputerPrograms and Human Players.- 9.5 Games Played by Computer Programs in Human Tournaments.- 9.6 Miscellaneous Games played by Computer Programs.- 9.7 The World Microcomputer Championships.