How Computers Play Chess

by David N.L. Levy and Monty Newborn

Book Overview

Levy and Newborn present a broad coverage of computer chess, from its historical development to an analysis of how computers select moves. How Computers Play Chess is an accessible book that opens up... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0716781212
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: W H Freeman & Co
• Length: 246 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.8" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

I know David Levy.

In 2009 I was a member of the Organizing Commitee of the World Computer Chess Championship and I had the honour to know David Levy [...] Is a very interesting man, very kind and a real patriarch of the chess computer. He talks about the computer chess story and was a pleasure listen him. This book is a deep explanation about this subject until the 90's.

Excellent book, now slightly out of date

A great book on computer chess from two of the field's pioneers.

State-of-the-art, clear and entertaining computer chess book

This excellent book was and still is one of the state-of-the-art books in computer chess literature, dealing with both a very interesting history of computer chess, including many rare examples of the play of early programs, and several recent examples of the best actual programs, as well as discussing in sufficient detail the quite complex technical aspects of programming a computer to play chess. In "The Challenge Is World Champion Kasparov", we are introduced to one of the first encounters between Garry Kasparov and the former incarnation of Deep Blue, then called Deep Thought, through the detailed discussion of the proceedings and analysis of both games. A game between Karpov and Deep Thought is also carefully analyzed. Next, "The Early Ideas" present historically the pioneer works of Shannon, Turing, Zuse, and many others, whose theorical works provided the basement for writing procedures to allow a machine to play chess. Then, in "The First Working Programs", we see Bernstein, Kotok, McCarthy, and other AI specialist, as they struggled to implement Shannon's ideas to make Jurassic computers play some passable chess. Several games between both computers and humans are discussed. After these preliminary attemps, "The Formative Years" discusses more advanced programs, such as Greenblatt's MacHack VI program, Botvinnik's Pioneer, and specially Slate & Atkin's Chess program and soviet Kaissa, focusing both on the internal of the programs and on relevant sample games. The following chapter, "The Challenges for the Levy Bet", tells us all the details of the famous Levy bet, nicely commented by co-author David Levy himself. The best games between him and Chess are commented, as well as a particularly beautiful miniature of Blitz against Belle. As the field advances, "The Computer Becomes a Master" discusses the ever increasing achievements of the new generation of stronger hardware-assisted chess programs, such as Belle (written by Ken Thompson, who also has developed many Endgame Databases) and Cray Blitz (written by Bob Hyatt, who is also the author of Crafty, a strong freeware chess program), which use their incredibly fast underlying hardware to compensate for their lack of chess sophistication. We can also read all about how the first International human Masters began to know defeat against them on a regular basis. The next step, the defeat of strong human Grandmasters, is introduced in "Eyeball to Eyeball with Grandmasters", where we see several commented games between the strongest chess programs, such as Deep Thought and Hitech, and human grandmasters such as Miles and Larsen. Also, microprocessor commercial chess program Mephisto has a close encounter of the 3rd kind against macroprocessor non-commercial Deep Thought, and far from ashamed, beats him hands down ! Once those historical details have been dealt with, the book enters into a discussion of the more advanced chess techniques there are, such as "Endgame

A book for the Computer and Chess Enthusiest.

If you like to program computers and you love chess then "How Computers Play Chess" is for you. This easy to read and intuitive book by Chess Master David Levy takes you on a tour guide of man's attempt to create a machine that can master that ancient game of strategy, Chess. You'll gain an introductory view of how computers go about playing the game of chess including the types the algorithms that are used and the general theorys behind these "thinking machines". Levy also introduces some of his own thoughts on the strenghts of computer chess and even includes a few pradictions on when a computer will be able to defeat a human world champion. I read this book in an attemp to satisfy a life long desire I've had to create a computer program that could be me in chess. I've found that this book as gotten me off to an excellent start

Interesting history, technically simple

This book is a definitive history of computers and chess up through Deep Thought in 1990. Largely a survey, it rarely takes a strong point of view of its own. For someone looking for such a history, or for a basic consideration of chess algorithms from alpha-beta pruning through hash tables, killer move tables, and quiesence, it is a fine book. For my money, though, it did not go into enough depth either in technical issues such as the details of even a simple evaluation function or move generator, or in the philosophical issues raised by computer chess.