Albert Silver

Although I only began working full-time as an editor and journalist in chess in 2010, for over 25 years I have been involved in just about every aspect there is to the royal game, for which I am unapologetically passionate.

In the late 80s, living in France, as a teenager I worked for the famous Parisian chess store, “Librairie St. Germain” (later to become the “Librairie Games”) during my summer vacation, as a salesman, or at the tournaments running a stand. When I went to college in the US, appalled by the lack of chess activity in Madison, Wisconsin at the time, I undertook to give free chess classes to children every Sunday at the local bookstore/coffeehouse. The idea was met with great success, covered by the state newspaper in a feature article, and leading to classes at the local YMCA.

In the 90s I moved to Brazil, where I developed further as a player, winning the Rio de Janeiro Championship, as well as team competitions, winning the State Championship as well as coming in second in in the Brazilian National League. During this period, I achieved a peak rating of 2240 FIDE.  

From 1999-2002, I worked as a software interface designer for the Russian company Convekta (now rebranded ChessOk), where I integrated online playing functionality with advanced database and analysis features for the first time. While unheard at the time of the release of Chess Assistant 6, it has since become a standard feature in online playing programs.

In 2010, after a series of emails and talks with Frederic Friedel, one of the founders of ChessBase, I was brought into the company, and served as editor and writer of ChessBase News, as my full-time job until 2017. Following the release of Google/DeepMind's AlphaZero, my attention shifted to the burgeoning field of neural networks, and I later trained one that became Fat Fritz.

I am also a passionate photographer with work appearing in numerous publications. For samples of my work, be sure to visit my Flickr page.

Recent news

Fat Fritz in the cloud

11/28/2019 – Have you just spent a tidy sum for graphics cards and even a powerful new computer? Well, there is an elegant way to make the hardware pay for itself. Instead of switching off the computer half the time (or more) you can make it available to other users in the ChessBase Engine Cloud. They will pay you for the privilege. This means that other chessplayers, who have not yet taken the step, can use your computer while you sleep. We tell you how this works.

Optimizing Fat Fritz, the top rated engine in the world

11/25/2019 – A new edition of the Computer Chess Ratings List, published on November 23, ranks Fat Fritz as number one. Now the engine is available to consumers through the new Fritz 17 release. A recurring question by users new to Fat Fritz and Leela, and even by veterans, is: How do I modify the settings in the engine and how do I obtain the best performance with both a standard GPU, as well as a top-end system sporting two powerful graphics cards? Read on to find out!

Chess computer buyer's guide

11/18/2019 – So you decided you want to upgrade your computer but don’t know where to start? In the following article you will get precise choices for a variety of budgets to help guide you through the maze of choices with precise setups designed to help you get the best bang for your buck. With Black Friday looming around the corner, or even Christmas or Hanukkah to decide on some end-of-the year purchases, this is the one you want to bookmark!

Fat Fritz: what videocard to buy

11/14/2019 – With the release of Fritz 17 with Fat Fritz, you may be strongly motivated to upgrade your computer to enjoy the best experience, or actually upgrade your entire machine if you feel it is time. In this first guide you will be shown the simplest upgrade possible: just adding a fast GPU to your computer. All the major cards as as well current prices and what performance to expect.

Fat Fritz: Small differences, big effect

10/9/2019 – Sometimes seemingly innocuous questions can lead to the most interesting discoveries, and such was the case after deep analysis by ChessBase 15's “Tactical Analysis” with Fat Fritz on one of the best games from the World Cup. The positional masterpiece played by Nikita Vitiugov over Wesley So was compared to Karpov at his best. While the analysis was without question excellent, it was what was not explained that led to fascinating explorations and beautiful moves. | Photo: Kirill Merkuryev, khantymansiysk2019.fide.com

Fat Fritz analysis: A matter of technique

9/24/2019 – Although it is not hard to pick out moves that Fat Fritz finds more easily than Stockfish, or vice versa, sometimes a move stands out that just begs to be shared. This happened to Fat Fritz creator, Albert Silver, while he was casually following the recent Sinquefield Cup won by Ding Liren. Enjoy this example of positional judgement and technique. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Standing on the shoulders of giants

9/18/2019 – The expression is used to convey the idea that someone’s work and achievements were only possible thanks to the predecessors they build upon, and this is unquestionably true of Fat Fritz. You may think you know when or where the tale starts, but what if we told you that it all really started with a visionary computer scientist 60 years ago in 1959? | Photo: IBM

Fat Fritz and the KID

8/26/2019 – While the title may sound like the name of the latest spaghetti western, it is actually a look at how Fat Fritz may change the way players view the King's Indian Defense, notably the Classical Main Line, long maligned by generations of engines. See how it compares to the latest Stockfish on it, and why its unique development gives it such a broad outlook on openings in general.

Fat Fritz – What on Earth is that?

8/13/2019 – It's a semi-secret development, an AlphaZero clone, engineered over the past nine months for ChessBase. Fat Fritz was tested by some of the best players in the world, who expressed unmitigated delight over the ideas and improvements it came up with. Now the program is publicly available on the ChessBase Engine Cloud. And it is running on awesome hardware. ALBERT SILVER explains.

Inside the (deep) mind of AlphaZero

12/7/2018 – It was a long time coming, but the wait is over. After nearly a full year, being ping-ponged from one peer reviewer to the next, the final paper on AlphaZero is out, shedding light on a number of hitherto unknown or misunderstood elements in its construction, not to mention some clarifications and corrections. These include sample code to help implement their work and all the games of the match against Stockfish, of which 20 were specially chosen by GM Matthew Sadler. | Graphic: Deep Mind

Americans playing for the title: Wilhelm Steinitz

6/30/2018 – For the less historically enlightened, the first official American to become World Champion was the great Bobby Fischer, but the native New Yorker can only claim to be the second as the title of first goes to the father of modern strategy: Wilhelm Steinitz. Read on to find out more on the great champion with annotations by Garry Kasparov. | Photo: Steinitz vs Lasker, 1894, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Komodo MCTS: the boa constrictor approach

6/15/2018 – The inclusion of the new Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) version of Komodo has had many users surprised, confused, and even describing it as a gimmick. However, its value is not to be underestimated, and it allows the astute user to find resources the very best engines are completely blind to. GM Karsten Mueller has helped illustrate this with some finely chosen examples in the following article. Read on to see what makes Komodo MCTS so special!

May 2018 FIDE Ratings

5/1/2018 – It was a month in which the two best players 'explained' once more to the world, why they are the best. Magnus Carlsen came storming through the second half of the Gashimov Memorial to win it, while Fabiano Caruana won the Grenke Classic, and came second in the US Championship with a plus five score. Sam Shankland enjoyed the greatest result of his career with a huge US Championship win, and a 2701 rating to boot. Here are the ratings and report for your perusal. | Photo: Shamkirchess.az

Gashimov Memorial: Magnus Carlsen is third time winner

4/29/2018 – The writing was on the wall, and the last round clash between Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren remained somewhat anticlimactic as they drew after just 27 moves. To be fair, Magnus never gave his opponent a chance to liven things up. The one decisive game of the last round was Sergey Karjakin’s win over Veselin Topalov. A great tournament victory for the World Champion with signs of what is to come. | Photo: Shamkir Chess

US Championship: Shankland and Wang sprinting to gold

4/28/2018 – On the surface, the round was a quiet one, with eleven draws out of the twelve games in both events, but things were not so simple. More than a few games seemed likely to leave a body behind, but this was not counting the defenders desire to not lose. Sam Shankland had a promising position against Fabiano Caruana with an extra pawn, but never quite built it up enough to win. Both Women’s leaders Nazi Paikidze and Annie Wang were dead lost in their games, but lived to fight another day. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Leela Chess Zero: AlphaZero for the PC

4/26/2018 – It might sound like a joke, but it is not: the revolutionary techniques used to create Alpha Zero, the famous AI chess program developed by DeepMind, are now being used to engineer an engine that runs on the PC. This project has now been underway for about two months, and the engine, Leela Chess Zero, is already quite strong, playing at 2700 on good hardware, and is freely available. As will be seen, just about every aspect of this new engine is revolutionary and breaks all the paradigms that had dominated the field until now.

US Championship: The one that got away

4/23/2018 – On the surface, the round was a quiet one, with eleven draws out of the twelve games in both events, but things were not so simple. More than a few games seemed likely to leave a body behind, but this was not counting the defenders desire to not lose. Sam Shankland had a promising position against Fabiano Caruana with an extra pawn, but never quite built it up enough to win. Both Women’s leaders Nazi Paikidze and Annie Wang were dead lost in their games, but lived to fight another day. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

US Championship: Caruana suffers shock loss

4/22/2018 – It was a rather astonishing day, with the headline involving Fabiano Caruana once more. This time it was because he ended up losing to the caboose of the tournament after overpressing. This in turn opened it up to others, and Sam Shankland joined the lead with a win over Ray Robson. In the women’s event, it was a gripping day with some great wins such as the marathon 106-mover by 15-year-old Annie Wang, and the power attack display by Nazi Paikidze, both who lead with 3½/4. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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