Chess


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Golden Knight


Bishop

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 Relevant Background: "Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no elements of chance. It is played on a square board consisting of 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. The players, referred to as "White" and "Black", each control sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns, with each type of piece having a different pattern of movement. An enemy piece may be captured (removed from the board) by moving one's own piece onto the square it occupies. The object of the game is to "checkmate" (threaten with inescapable capture) the enemy king. There are also several ways a game can end in a draw...Chess sets come in a wide variety of styles. The Staunton pattern is the most common, and is usually required for competition.[3] Chess sets come with pieces in two colors, referred to as white and black, regardless of their actual color; the players controlling the color sets are referred to as White and Black, respectively. Each set comes with at least the following 16 pieces in both colors: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns.[2]

The game is played on a square board of eight rows (called ranks) and eight columns (called files). Although it does not affect gameplay, by convention the 64 squares alternate in color and are referred to as light and dark squares.[2]Mathematics

See also: Mathematical chess problem and Solving chess

The game structure and nature of chess are related to several branches of mathematics. Many combinatorical and topological problems connected to chess, such as the knight's tour and the eight queens puzzle, have been known for hundreds of years.

Mathematicians Euler, Legendre, de Moivre, and Vandermonde studied the knight's tour.

The number of legal positions in chess is estimated to be (4.59 ± 0.38) × 1044 with a 95% confidence level,[154] with a game-tree complexity of approximately 10123. The game-tree complexity of chess was first calculated by Claude Shannon as 10120, a number known as the Shannon number.[155] An average position typically has thirty to forty possible moves, but there may be as few as zero (in the case of checkmate or stalemate) or (in a constructed position) as many as 218.[156]

In 1913, Ernst Zermelo used chess as a basis for his theory of game strategies, which is considered one of the predecessors of game theory.[157] Zermelo's theorem states that it is possible to solve chess, i.e. to determine with certainty the outcome of a perfectly played game (either White can force a win, or Black can force a win, or both sides can force at least a draw).[158] With 1043 legal positions in chess, however, it will take an impossibly long time to compute a perfect strategy with any feasible technology.[159]

Applied mathematics

A novel methodology in steganography explores the use of chess-based covers (such as puzzles, chess problems, game reports, training documents, news articles, etc.) for concealing data within a selection of moves, each hiding some bits.[160][161] Several proof-of-concept projects have been developed that convert text or files into binary code, which is then converted into a series of legal chess moves, that can then be decrypted and downloaded.[162]

Correspondence chess has been historically suspected of being a potential steganographic medium. Melville Davisson Post documented a chess problem that was used to create a pictorial cipher during World War I.[163][164] During World War II, extensive postal censorship was imposed on military personnel from the United States and Canada that made playing correspondence chess impossible, arising from suspicion that chess could be used to send secret messages to the enemies.[165]

Psychology

There is an extensive scientific literature on chess psychology.[note 6][167][168][169][170] Alfred Binet and others showed that knowledge and verbal, rather than visuospatial, ability lies at the core of expertise.[171][172] In his doctoral thesis, Adriaan de Groot showed that chess masters can rapidly perceive the key features of a position.[173] According to de Groot, this perception, made possible by years of practice and study, is more important than the sheer ability to anticipate moves. De Groot showed that chess masters can memorize positions shown for a few seconds almost perfectly. The ability to memorize does not alone account for chess-playing skill, since masters and novices, when faced with random arrangements of chess pieces, had equivalent recall (about six positions in each case). Rather, it is the ability to recognize patterns, which are then memorized, which distinguished the skilled players from the novices. When the positions of the pieces were taken from an actual game, the masters had almost total positional recall.[174]

More recent research has focused on chess as mental training; the respective roles of knowledge and look-ahead search; brain imaging studies of chess masters and novices; blindfold chess; the role of personality and intelligence in chess skill; gender differences; and computational models of chess expertise. The role of practice and talent in the development of chess and other domains of expertise has led to much empirical investigation. Ericsson and colleagues have argued that deliberate practice is sufficient for reaching high levels of expertise in chess.[175] Recent research, however, fails to replicate their results and indicates that factors other than practice are also important.[176][177] For example, Fernand Gobet and colleagues have shown that stronger players started playing chess at a young age and that experts born in the Northern Hemisphere are more likely to have been born in late winter and early spring. Compared to the general population, chess players are more likely to be non-right-handed, though they found no correlation between handedness and skill.[177]

A relationship between chess skill and intelligence has long been discussed in scientific literature as well as in popular culture. Academic studies that investigate the relationship date back at least to 1927.[178] Although one meta-analysis and most children studies find a positive correlation between general cognitive ability and chess skill, adult studies show mixed results.[179][180]

Online chess

Main article: Online chess

Online chess is chess played over the internet. This is done through the use of internet chess platforms, which use Elo ratings or similar systems to pair up individual players. Online chess saw a spike in growth during the quarantines of the COVID-19 pandemic.[181][182] This can be attributed to both isolation and the popularity of Netflix miniseries The Queen's Gambit, which was released in October 2020.[181][182] Chess app downloads on the App Store and Google Play Store rose by 63% after the show debuted.[183] Chess.com saw more than twice as many account registrations in November as it had in previous months, and the number of games played monthly on Lichess doubled as well. There was also a demographic shift in players, with female registration on Chess.com shifting from 22% to 27% of new players.[184] GM Maurice Ashley said "A boom is taking place in chess like we have never seen maybe since the Bobby Fischer days", attributing the growth to an increased desire to do something constructive during the pandemic.[185] USCF Women's Program Director Jennifer Shahade stated that chess works well on the internet, since pieces do not need to be reset and matchmaking is virtually instant.[186]

Computer chess

Main article: Computer chess
See also: Human–computer chess matches, Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov, and Chess engine

The idea of creating a chess-playing machine dates to the 18th century; around 1769, the chess-playing automaton called The Turk became famous before being exposed as a hoax.[187] Serious trials based on automata, such as El Ajedrecista, were too complex and limited to be useful. Since the advent of the digital computer in the 1950s, chess enthusiasts, computer engineers, and computer scientists have built, with increasing degrees of seriousness and success, chess-playing machines and computer programs.[188] The groundbreaking paper on computer chess, "Programming a Computer for Playing Chess", was published in 1950 by Claude Shannon.[note 7] He wrote:

The chess machine is an ideal one to start with, since: (1) the problem is sharply defined both in allowed operations (the moves) and in the ultimate goal (checkmate); (2) it is neither so simple as to be trivial nor too difficult for satisfactory solution; (3) chess is generally considered to require "thinking" for skillful play; a solution of this problem will force us either to admit the possibility of a mechanized thinking or to further restrict our concept of "thinking"; (4) the discrete structure of chess fits well into the digital nature of modern computers.[190]

1990s chess-playing computer

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) held the first major chess tournament for computers, the North American Computer Chess Championship, in September 1970. CHESS 3.0, a chess program from Northwestern University, won the championship. The first World Computer Chess Championship, held in 1974, was won by the Soviet program Kaissa. At first considered only a curiosity, the best chess playing programs have become extremely strong. In 1997, a computer won a chess match using classical time controls against a reigning World Champion for the first time: IBM's Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov 3½–2½ (it scored two wins, one loss, and three draws).[191][192] There was some controversy over the match,[193] and human–computer matches were relatively close over the next few years, until convincing computer victories in 2005 and in 2006.

In 2009, a mobile phone won a category 6 tournament with a performance rating of 2898: chess engine Hiarcs 13 running on the mobile phone HTC Touch HD won the Copa Mercosur tournament with nine wins and one draw.[194] The best chess programs are now able to consistently beat the strongest human players, to the extent that human–computer matches no longer attract interest from chess players or the media.[195] While the World Computer Chess Championship still exists, the Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC) is widely regarded as the unofficial world championship for chess engines.[196][197][198] The current champion is Stockfish.

With huge databases of past games and high analytical ability, computers can help players to learn chess and prepare for matches. Internet Chess Servers allow people to find and play opponents worldwide. The presence of computers and modern communication tools have raised concerns regarding cheating during games.[199]

Sittuyin, after setup phase. Players elect their own starting setups behind the pawns.

Related games include:

  • direct predecessors of chess, such as chaturanga and shatranj;
  • traditional national or regional games that share common ancestors with Western chess such as xiangqi (Chinese chess), shogi (Japanese chess), janggi (Korean chess), ouk chatrang (Cambodian chess), makruk (Thai chess), sittuyin (Burmese chess), and shatar (Mongolian chess);

In the comparison of chess with games often referred to as national forms of chess, chess may be referred to as Western chess or international chess.[200][201]

Chess variants

Main articles: Chess variant and List of chess variants

There are more than two thousand published chess variants, games with similar but different rules,[202] most of which are of relatively recent origin.[203] They include modern variations employing different rules (e.g. losing chess and Chess960[note 8]), different forces (e.g. Dunsany's chess), non-standard pieces (e.g. Grand Chess), and different board geometries (e.g. hexagonal chess and infinite chess); In the context of chess variants, chess is commonly referred to as orthodox chess, orthochess, and classic chess.[200][201].." (Chess - Wikipedia)

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Relevant Material: "Chess is a popular abstract strategic board game loved around the globe. This game has been played for over a thousand years and has (a lot of) simple rules. Though learning chess might sound simple, mastering the game is not everyone’s cup of tea. Learning to play chess is a great way to keep your mind sharp and even gain some popularity if you are good at it. These luxurious chess sets are collected by chess enthusiasts, collectors, and aristocratic chess players. In this blog, we will discover the world's top 5 most expensive chess sets..." (Discover The 5 Most Expensive Chess Sets in the World)

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