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Chess has captured the imagination of humans for centuries due to its strategic beautyan objective, board-based testament to the power of mortal intuition. Twenty-five years ago Wednesday, though, human superiority on a chessboard was seriously threatened for the first time.

At a nondescript convention center in Philadelphia, a meticulously constructed supercomputer called Deep Blue faced off against Garry Kasparov for the first in a series of six games. Kasparov was world chess champion at the time and widely considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of chess. He did not expect to lose. It was perhaps understandable; 1996 was an age of fairly primitive computer beings. Personal computers were only just becoming a more affordable commodity (35 percent of U.S. households owned a computer in 1997, compared with 15 percent in 1990), the USB had just been released, and it would be another five years until Windows XP made its way onto the market.

But Deep Blue was no run-of-the-mill computer. It was a behemoth built with the sole intention of being very good at chess. And it fulfilled that mission. On Feb. 10, 1996, the reigning world chess champion lost a game to a computer for the first time in history. Kasparov would win the 1996 match four games to two, but in May 1997, an upgraded Deep Blue would defeat Kasparov 32.

The 96 match nonetheless demonstrated that the tide was starting to turn in the chess world, and the tide was deep, blue, and electronic. It introduced chess computers to the world, sparking conversations about a rise of automation in the famously romantic field.

Some version of computers had been playing chess even before the emergence of artificial intelligence as an official field in the 1950s. Alan Turing, the famous cryptographer, had developed a handwritten chess algorithm in 1950 called Turochamp. In 1957, Alex Bernstein, a researcher and chess enthusiast from the Bronx, created the first complete chess program with the help of a number of his IBM colleagues.

Computer chess changed in the 80s. says Jonathan Schaeffer, president of the International Computer Games Association and professor of computer science at the University of Alberta. That decade, pioneering American computer scientist Ken Thompson released a paper proving something that now seems intuitive: If your computer was faster, your chess program would perform better. Programs could thus analyze more and more moves per second, increasing their chances of finding the best move possible.

Accordingly, computer chess became about getting the fastest technology. When I started in the [computer chess] game, we were using a single computer. Then it became 16, then 210, and so on to chips and supercomputers, says Schaeffer. In 1988, students at Carnegie Mellon University developed a sophisticated chess computer called Deep Thought. In January of that year, Deep Thought became the first computer to beat a grandmaster in a regular tournament game when it triumphed over Bent Larsen, a Danish GM. The next year, IBM hired three of those Carnegie students, Feng-hsiung Hsu, Thomas Anantharaman, and Murray Campbell, with the express aim of building a chess computer to rival the world champion; they would be joined by Chung Jen-Tan, Joseph Hoane Jr., and Jerry Brody later in the project. In October 1989, Kasparov played two games against Deep Thought, winning both of them with ease.

The first match demonstrated that the tide was starting to turn in the chessworld.

The loss to Kasparov in 1989 demonstrated the amount of work that needed to be done, says Schaeffer, so they took it to the extreme. They went off for seven years and built new computer chips that were faster, building a system that was scaled up to not just four computer chips, but 500. They added more knowledge to it as well as a book of openings, and eventually the brain of chess grandmaster Joel Benjamin helped provide expertise. This was a very long project involving many, many people, and significant financial expense, but it paid off for IBM in the form of media clamor.

The 2,800-pound Deep Blue, complete with special-purpose chess computer chips, was the end product. It was capable of processing 200 million moves per second, or 199,999,997 more than Kasparov could manage, according to IBM. This produced a chess machine that was stronger than any of its automated predecessors, and the outside world was stunned at the eventual resulta human had been outdone by a machine in this game of intellect, wit, and judgment. At the 1997 match, Kasparov and Deep Blue would go toe-to-automated-toe in front of numerous television cameras and a large crowd.

But Kasparovs loss was not as devastating as casual observers might have expected. Computers had beaten grandmasters before; it was inevitable that someone of Kasparovs stature would fall too. And though Kasparovs loss certainly came earlier than expected, the competitive chess world continued to go about its business relatively unfettered.

I dont think it affected chess players too much, says Matthew Sadler, chess grandmaster and co-author of Game Changer, a book about modern chess engine AlphaZero, Firstly, Kasparov was probably stronger than Deep Blue at the time, despite the loss. Secondly, it didnt really inspire any chess players with its play.

It helped that Deep Blue, at the time, was the exception rather than the rulemachines of its strength werent widely available. In 2006, though, a chess computer called Deep Fritz beat thenworld champion Vladimir Kramnik. I think thats really when chess players sort of thought, Oh, my goodness, the machines really are getting stronger than us, says Sadler, when they were beating us not on supercomputers, but on relative commodity hardware.

The change here wasnt just that a computer could win, but that a computer could help human players win if incorporated into their training regimes effectively. Computers were adept at judging the quality of moves and positions accurately, particularly during opening sequences. Some found this easier than others. Sadler says: I think a lot of competitive players took a while to adjust to the new reality. For example, if you werent really computer-literate, and all of a sudden you found yourself in a world where having a computer really makes a difference, thats a difficult thing.

Despite initial resistance from certain parts of the community, the advantages that computers afforded chess players eventually made them impossible to ignore. Sam Shankland gained his international master title in 2008, right around when computers started to become a necessity. There was some backlash, but honestly, those people are mostly gone now, Shankland, now a grandmaster and 2018 U.S. chess champion, says. They either got tired of losing and quit chess or they got tired of losing and adapted.

The sheer wealth of knowledge chess players now had access to meant that determination was increasingly rewarded. I think that chess is essentially a subset of talent and hard work, says Shankland, and as training resources like computers become better and more accessible, talent tends to become less important compared to hard workwhich suits a workhorse like myself.

Such accessibility has also led to chess, once reserved for rich families who could afford tutors and other training, to become a markedly more democratized pursuit. Take India, for example, says Shankland. Apart from Vishy [Anand], they werent a particularly strong chess nation historically. Now, theyre clearly the fastest-growing country in the world in terms of rising stars, and I think a lot of that is down to training resources becoming more widely available.

The availability of advanced chess analysis at the flick of a smartphone has caused a bizarre balance of power in the media and a certain trepidation among top-level players, as Peter Heine Nielsen, coach of current world champion Magnus Carlsen, points out:

When I started working with Vishy Anand, at a postgame press conference the players would explain the games, and everybody would look at them with excitement and think, Wow, these guys are clever. Now, the player in the press conference is a bit nervous because they have only calculated themselves, while all the journalists have been using advanced technology. So they are afraid to say, I thought this wasnt a strong move in case theyre wrong.

So sometimes before a press conference I speak to Magnus and tell him the computer said this or that, just so he knows. The spectator-player dynamic has changed a lotsome of the mystery has gone.

However, while certain human aspects of the games have disappeared, recent developments have caused professional players to rethink what they know about their beloved board game. In 2017, a team of scientists at Google-owned DeepMind created AlphaZero, a self-learning neural network program that surpassed the strongest chess program after just four hours of playing against itself.

Before the computer boom, and before the neural network boom, we were thinking quite dogmatically, says Nielsen. After both occurred, we were forced to rewrite our own solutions. It led to the game becoming more exciting. Moreover, the two strongest chess enginesLeela (which is based on AlphaZero) and Stockfishare available online, which signifies a remarkably more distributive and collaborative approach to chess innovation than that which was pioneered by Deep Blue, a closed circuit.

Despite all their progress, there are still some goals to which innovators in the chess world can aspire. The next step is for engines to explain what theyre doing, says Sadler, so that the average player can understand why an engine says, No, trading that piece is a bad idea. The relationship remains one of reciprocity.

One thing is certain: Chess programs will remain the most important piece of a professional players preparatory arsenal. Not using a computer to do chess would be like not using a calculator to do math, says Nielsen, I like itbut it doesnt matter if I like it or not. Its the right way to do it.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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25 Years Ago, Chess Changed Forever When Deep Blue Beat Garry Kasparov - Slate

Wherever Sultan-Diego LeBlond goes, a chess club follows. Or maybe thats just how it feels. Chess is that significant a part of the 25-year-olds identity.

Instead of asking his parents for video games for his birthday in middle school, LeBlond wanted a new chess board. At Northwest High School in Germantown, joining the chess team helped LeBlond make friends and competing in tournaments took him out of Maryland for the first time. While studying for his associates degree in business at Montgomery Colleges Germantown campus, LeBlond revived the schools dormant chess club and became the teams president. In 2015, he co-founded the Germantown Library chess club, where he would teach the game to children.

I know what chess has done for me in my life, LeBlond says. And I knew what it has done for me, it could do for other people.

By the time he arrived at Howard University as a transfer student in the fall of 2017, LeBlond had established himself as a seasoned chess player and organizer, but he didnt immediately join the schools chess club. Thats because one didnt exist. It didnt take long for LeBlond to change that.

In the spring of 2019, he helped Howard University officially re-activate its chess club, which had not been operating for years, with assistance from Nisa Muhammad, the schools assistant dean for religious life (who is now the clubs adviser), and other chess enthusiasts LeBlond met on campus.

Last month, the fledgling team competed at the 2020-2021 Pan American Intercollegiate Championship, the biggest collegiate chess tournament of the year, and finished at the top of its division and 45th out of 59 teams overall. The three-day event was held virtually on chess.com and at a later date than usual. One of Howards members, senior Azeezah Muhammad, an unrated player heading into the tournament, scored the largest upset of the championships by beating a player with a rating in the 1200s. The United States Chess Federation uses a rating system ranging from 100 to nearly 3000; the higher the number, the stronger the player.

It came by like a shock, says LeBlond, who graduated from Howard last year and now serves as the clubs volunteer head coach. We were just playing to have fun and coming in with no expectations. And so we was caught like way off guard. But at the same time, I was confident in everybodys capabilities Anything can happen in a game of chess.

The history of chess at Howard University dates back more than a half-century. Digital copies of the schools yearbook, The Bison, reveal that students participated in a chess club as early as the 1940s. Theres been an official chess club at the school off and on for decades, says David Mehler, president and founder of the nonprofit U.S. Chess Center located in Silver Spring.

Mehlers father taught at Howard and Mehler himself has seen several iterations of the Howard chess club, including a team that reached reasonably high levels in the early 2000s. That club eventually dissolved due to lack of interest, Mehler says. And according to the university, before this year the team last competed at the Pan-Am Championship in 2005.

Im hopeful that with the success that the team just had, that will generate a lot more interest, Mehler says.

Michele Bennett didnt know about this history when she arrived at Howard University. Bennett, a sophomore, learned how to play chess from her father around the age of 8 and competed in a couple tournaments in her hometown of Las Vegas while in elementary school. She didnt play once she got to middle school and hadnt really thought about chess until she started college.

During her freshman year, Bennett was reading messages on the schools GroupMe when a post about a chess club caught her attention. She reached out for more information and eventually attended the weekly practices. Less than a year later, she was elected the clubs president.

I kind of forgot how much I love chess, she says. It awakened my love for chess.

What started as a group of around a half-dozen members has evolved into a club with a group chat of more than 100 people and weekly meetings and practices that draw around 20 active members, Bennett says. Even during the pandemic, the club has held weekly gatherings on Google Meet that last more than an hour.

Bennett was one of the four players who competed at the Pan-Am Championship, along with Azeezah Muhammad and seniors Toni Anthony and Malcolm Wooten, the vice president of the club. Shortly before the tournament, organizers at the Pan-Am Championship contacted Nisa Muhammad about Howard participating in the virtual event. The club put together a team within a months time and called its former coach, Zahir Muhammad, for help.

Zahir is a celebrity in the D.C. chess world. A Ward 7 native, his father taught him how to play chess when he was 3 by defeating him like 500 times in a row, Zahir recalls. His competitiveness motivated him to keep playing. Zahirs singular goal at the time was to beat his dad and finally, four years later, it happened. He was just getting started.

In 2018, the D.C. Council presented Zahir with a ceremonial resolution after he won the District of Columbia Scholastic Cup Chess Tournament the year prior. During his senior year at DeMatha Catholic High School, Nisa, a family friend, asked if he could help coach the newly re-activated Howard University Chess Club.

Having grown up in D.C., Zahir enjoyed visiting the Howard campus during festivals or homecoming and was familiar with the school. At 6-foot-4, he blended in with the college students. He happily agreed to be the chess clubs coach and soon became the expert voice that the players relied on.

Zahir, a Class A-rated player with a rating in the 1800s, hasnt been as involved this past school year but was pulled in to act as a barometer for the team in preparation for the Pan-Am Championship. He watched the games online with pride. Throughout the tournament, Zahir thought back to the weekly practices, where members would often ask him to stay longer so they could practice more.

It would be dark outside, cold and dark, he says. And we would be playing.

As Zahir has gotten older, his motivations for playing chess have evolved. It began with wanting to beat his father. Then, Zahir wanted to win tournaments. And now, the freshman at Louisiana State University hopes that he can inspire other Black kids to pick up chess to compete in an environment that doesnt have many Black faces. Howard University was the only HBCU that participated at the Pan-Am Championship.

The fact that the school exceeded expectations at the tournament gives him joy. Zahir believes it will inspire other Black students to pick up chess.

It makes me feel, I would say validated, but not for me personally, but for them, because theyre all extremely talented. And theyre extremely smart, he says. And it makes me feel validated for them, because they can show on their level that, yeah, Im Black, and Im talented, and Im smart.

Daaim Shabazz has been writing about Black chess players for 20 years for his online magazine, The Chess Drum. An associate professor of business at Florida A&M University, Shabazz is considered by some to be an amateur historian of Black chess.

Being in D.C. gives the Howard University Chess Club certain advantages that other HBCUs may not have, Shabazz says. The chess tables at Dupont Circle have drawn some of the games most legendary players, and beyond that, the D.C. area has a chess culture that few cities rival.

You have a chess history in the D.C.-Maryland area that is very well-established in terms of producing master-level players, Shabazz says. Particularly in the Maryland area, but D.C. as well. D.C. has a lot of pockets of activity. So Howard has an advantage in that they have the infrastructure. If they want to play in local tournaments, they can do that. It wouldnt be a problem.

Members of the Howard University Chess Club hope that will be the case.

Their success at the Pan-Am Championship has led to a spike in interest from students. Fascination in chess has increased during the pandemic, and the recent popular Netflix series The Queens Gambit contributed an even bigger boost. YouTube and Twitch have also given the centuries-old game a modern twist when it comes to spectating matches.

One thing that chess players have been trying to do is trying to make chess look cool, LeBlond says. And so like, The Queens Gambit did a phenomenal job on that. It broke down that barrier that chess is boring, that chess is like for people that are strange or socially awkward. Thats not true. Theres cool people that play chess. And so that movie opened the door [to] what is chess.

Nisa looks to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a model she hopes the Howard chess club can emulate. One of the teams long-term goals is to give out scholarships for chess, like UMBC does.

We want Howard Universitys chess club to be seen as an intellectual sport, Nisa says. We want the chess club to grow to where we have it endowed and funded so that we can offer chess scholarships to students who have the chess skills.

LeBlond has the same vision, and although he is no longer a student at Howard, he intends to stay involved with the schools chess team. Bringing back the club was only the first step. He wants to see it grow.

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How a Recent Howard University Alum Revived its Chess Program - Washington City Paper

GM Peter Svidler won his first ever Titled Tuesday on February 9. Helped by his beloved Grunfeld, the eight-time Russian champion grandmaster was the only player to score 10/11 and finished ahead of GM Aleksandar Indjic (@Beca95) and IM Liam Vrolijk (@LiamVrolijk).

This week's Titled Tuesday tournament had a total of 729 participants. It was an 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control.

The live broadcast of the tournament.

On paper, one of the favorites was definitely GM Alireza Firouzja. Early in the event, the Iranian prodigy was fortunate (twice!) in his game with the Ukrainian GM Vladimir Onischuk (@Onischuk_V).

It was Svidler who defeated Firouzja when both players were on 5.5/6. Svidler played the Grunfeld and followed an old recommendation of his against a sideline with Bg5. Interestingly, he then maneuvered his fianchetto bishop from g7 to d6 and played as if it were an Exchange Queen's Gambit.

After nine rounds, the Kazakh grandmaster Rustam Khusnutdinov (@RD4ever) was the sole leader with 8.5/9. With the black pieces, Svidler, who had dropped two half-points, defeated the leader, again following his trusted Grunfeld repertoire.

Svidler pulled through with yet another Grunfeld win with the black pieces in the final round. This time he defeated GM Rasmus Svane (@rasmussvane), who was slightly better in an endgame when he played a few inaccurate moves in a row.

Feb. 9 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

Svidler won $750 for first place, Indjic $400 for second, Vrolijk $150 for third, and GM Kirill Alekseenko $100 for fourth. Vrolijk's result was especially excellent; we also mentioned him last week for coming in 10th place twice.

The $100 prize for the best female player went to the Peruvian WIM Ann Lindsay Chumpitaz Carbajal, who scored 8/11.

Titled Tuesday isChess.com's weekly tournament for titled players. It starts each Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time (19:00 Central Europe).

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Titled Tuesday: Svidler Winning With Grunfeld - Chess.com

On the face of it, having a chess game without actually letting the player play chess seems a bit of a mad idea. But in the minds of those at QUByte Interactive, it obviously works. After first releasing on PC, its now time for Knights Retreat to make a move on to Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

There arent a huge amount of chess titles already available on console, with the only real options being that of Pure Chess, Chess Ultra and Brawl Chess. Now though theres Knights Retreat, but whilst on the surface this may come across as a chess title on console, youll soon discover that its not. Yep, this is a chess game, without chess.

Priced at just 3.29, Knights Retreat has come to console via the QUByte team as they give you the chance to work with a range of troops in order to allow your Knights to retreat back to the safety of your kingdom. Working an abstracty, rather medieval world and landscape, this little puzzle comes with 80 levels that have been entirely hand-crafted, allowing for you to get to grips with the basics required prior to seeing difficulty levels increase.

Sold as a fun chess puzzle for everyone, this should cater for a range of players, no matter whether you see yourself as a chess Grandmaster or someone totally unaware of how the game of kings plays. Throw in an abstract world, original, super composed music, and youve got a fair old bit in Knights Retreat to enjoy.

Our full review of Knights Retreat on Xbox Series X is in the works and will be coming your way as soon as weve made all the right moves, but in the meantime head on over to the digital store of your choosing remember, the game is available on the Xbox Store for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S but also present on PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC through Steam too. If youre looking to clear your mind of any checkmating worries, this may well do the job.

Game Description:

A chess game without any chess. Rearrange your troops to bring your best Knights back to your Kingdom in an abstract medieval world.

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A chess game without chess - Knight's Retreat is now on Xbox One, Series X|S, PS4 and Switch - TheXboxHub

As Mono and their mysterious companion make their way further into the school, things take a turn from bad to even worse.

They may have slipped away from The Teacher, but theres still more horror lurking in wait.

After youve made your escape from the Teacher in the library and opened the door at the end, youll find yourself in a new corridor. On the right-hand side of the staircase youll find another locked door.

Go upstairs and around to the left theres a weird shadow child to collect.

Around to the right, youll find a pair of chess pieces. Pick up the white disk and you can attach it to the white piece to make a rook. Jump on top of the rook and then onto the door handle in front of you.

Youre now inside a room with a whole chess board. To solve the chess puzzle, come across to the right near the front of the screen and into another part of the room.

Theres another piece on a table here, but first, grab onto the bottom of the screen with the eye painted on it.

Let go and itll reveal the solution: black king in the middle, white king at the bottom, white queen on the left, and the final white piece on the right.

The piece on the table is the white queen. Jump up and take the top off of it, then hop down. Return to the board and place the white queen head somewhere safe.

Now go back out through the door you entered from and get the rook head from the piece there. Place the rook head on the white piece at the bottom of the table and use it to get up to the white king piece.

Put the White King head on the bottom white piece, then remove the rook head and put it on the spare white piece on the right.

Now put the queen head youve saved on the piece on the left and youll hear a click.

Finally, use the rook head, now on the right, to jump up on the table with the bottle.

Jump and grab the lamp here to pull a lever which moves the bookcases in front of you and reveals a key.

Claim your key and head back downstairs to open the door.

On the other side, descend the stairs and pull the trolley from in front of the door. Push your way through, then use the corpse to get up on the freezer and touch the ghostly kid.

Leave the room, then pull the trolley outside over to the high grate before using it as a ladder to advance.

In the next kitchen, hop over the trolley then pick up the ladle to smash the dolls that attack you the timing is very difficult, just keep trying.

Remember you have to press jump while holding it to swing. The dolls stop literally a millimetre outside the arc of your swing, so try and hold off until they leap into your range.

When theyre dead, you have to pick up the doll head you smashed and put it on. Then you can go through the grate on the right without dying.

Walk through the carnage, crouching under the table when your way is blocked.

Finally, squeeze through the crack in the hall at the end of the hall and youre in a new room.

Use the shelves at the top end to climb up then walk along the beam across the light.

Keep climbing and use the rope swing to continue your ascent. Grab the brain jar, then throw it down to the floor. Then jump and grab the hook to get back down to floor level.

Pick up the brain and throw it against the button on the right-hand wall to open to the door.

In the next area with the teacher, crouch through the hole in the wall to get under her desk. Then move to the hiding place in the middle of the room when she walks to the other side of the room.

When she moves again, move under the third desk and follow her through the door.

In the next room, walk straight forward then climb up the drawer handles to get on top of the desks where shes working.

When the teachers back is turned, sneak in front of her, then creep over to the gap between the desks.

Jump over when shes not looking and finally leap over to the hole in the wall when you have a chance.

In the next room, climb up the shelves in front of your and nip into the vent.

On the other side, youll find yourself in another hallway.

Its time for more doll smashing, so pick up the hammer and whack away.

As you walk forward at the start, keep towards the top of the screen and youll trigger a trap that smashes the first doll before you take out the others.

When you turn the corner theres two more.

Then when you turn the corner again, theres two more again, including one that bursts out of a locker behind you.

There are absolutely loads of them throughout this section, and if one of their timing arcs throws you off, its back to square one. But stay patient and focus on each one at a time and youll be able to continue.

Finally, watch out as you reach the bathroom because youll trigger a trap that comes straight out of the door.

In the bathroom, run up and smash the two dolls keep your cool or youll swing impotently at the second.

Next, swing the hammer at the rope holding your friend and shell be dropped to the floor.

Reunited with your pal, open the window on the right-hand wall and leave the building, crossing the plank between the buildings.

In the piano room, turn the crank in the top right corner until it falls, then jump on top of the piano with your mate until you drop to the lower level.

Take a boost from your helper to get to the vent on the left. Here you spot the key to the door on the right with a doll.

Your companion will create a distraction while you sneak around the outside of the doll to a pipe on the near side of the screen you can use to smash it.

Grab the key, then lift the railing to get back into the piano room.

Now use the key on the far door to advance.

In the next room, your friend will turn badass on a doll before you can smash it with a hammer.

Pull out the drawer on the right and use it to scale the cupboard as you head toward the sound of the playing piano.

At the end of the hall, go up the stairs, then get a lift under the white mark on the cupboard from your mate.

Climb up and push down the box to allow her to scale the filing cabinet, then pull open the vent together.

On the other side of the vent, drop down from the books to the floor and sneak across to the right-hand side of the room where theres a crank.

While the teacher is playing, turn the crank. Stop when she does, or youre toast.

With the platform lowered, push the piano stool back across the room again only when shes playing and use it to get back up to your friend and across to the other vent.

Sprint out of there, and finally youll be free of the school.

Run forwards over to the right for a time, then when you reach a dumpster, help your friend push it back away from you towards the top of the screen to close the lid then use it to jump up to the next level.

Keep going right and youll find a ghostly kid next to a paper hat, then a door you can squeeze through.

Inside, youll find an old yellow raincoat. This confirms that the companion helping you throughout the game so far is Six, the protagonist of the first Little Nightmares.

Get a boost from her to open the door then pass through the window on the right in the next room.

In the alleyway, get a boost onto the dumpster and hop the railing.

Push the plank out of the way for Six, then climb the far dumpster and open the grate.

In the courtyard, theres an illuminated window to climb through and you enter the next area.

Continued in the next part!

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Little Nightmares 2 Part 3 | Chess puzzle, Sneaking through the doll's cafeteria - VG247