AlphaZero to analyse “no-castling” match of the champions

DeepMind supports Dortmund Chess Days

Press release

For the first time, the internationally renowned chess tournament Dortmund Chess Days will host a special match between legends Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand playing the “No-Castling” chess format. The rich, creative possibilities of this chess variant were recently explored by the ground-breaking artificial intelligence system AlphaZero, created by world-leading AI company DeepMind. Online audiences will now get to experience novel AlphaZero insights first hand in the post-match commentary of the no castling tournament, as part of DeepMind’s support for Dortmund Chess Days.

Demis Hassabis [pictured], DeepMind Founder and CEO, says:

It’s been incredibly exciting to see world-class players like Vladimir Kramnik use AlphaZero to explore new possibilities for the game of chess. I’m looking forward to seeing two former world champions play the no castling variant in Dortmund and hope the games - and AlphaZero’s insights - inspire chess players everywhere.

Event director Carsten Hensel said:

The Dortmund Chess Days has found a growing audience online, which we would like to develop in the coming years. We hope the inclusion of the no-castling variant and the inclusion of cutting-edge AI analysis from AlphaZero will further reinforce Dortmund as a ground-breaking tournament and will attract people from around the world to watch what will surely be a remarkable and historic match.

The tournament will see Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand play four games against each other with classical thinking time, but with no option of castling. This tiny rule change will force the players to deviate from memorized opening lines, encouraging new creative play without deviating from the game’s familiar rules and patterns.

Plans for the 2022 event, which will be sponsored by DeepMind, are already underway with the hope that the no-castling format will become a regular fixture and an audience favourite, thanks to dynamic and entertaining play.

Master Class Vol. 12: Viswanathan Anand

This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors how to successfully organise your games strategically, consequently how to keep your opponent permanently under press

Anand and Kramnik playing the World Chess Championship in 2008

DeepMind

DeepMind is a multidisciplinary team of scientists, engineers, machine learning experts and more, working together to research and build safe AI systems that learn how to solve problems and advance scientific discovery for all.

Having developed AlphaGo, the first program to beat a world champion at the complex game of Go, DeepMind has published over 1000 research papers — including more than a dozen in the journals Nature and Science — and achieved breakthrough results in many challenging AI domains from StarCraft II to protein folding.

DeepMind was founded in London in 2010, and joined forces with Google in 2014 to accelerate its work. Since then, its community has expanded to include teams in Alberta, Montreal, Paris, New York and Mountain View in California.

Initiative Pro Schach e.V. (IPS)

The purpose of the association founded in the year 2019 is the promotion of chess. IPS is realizing this goal by the organization of chess events in the fields of sport, art, science, education, cultural and chess history. The outstanding project of the IPS is the Sparkassen Chess Trophy — International Dortmund Chess Days, with its famous history since 1973. The
IPS is developing a modern concept and pay considerable attention to the digital requirements of today, especially regarding the topic of chess and its modern development.

Master Class Vol.11: Vladimir Kramnik

This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors (Pelletier, Marin, Müller and Reeh) how to successfully organise your games strategically, consequently how to keep y

Links

• Official site
• No Castling Chess online tournament open to all
• No Castling Chess: An interview with Vladimir Kramnik
• Anand vs Kramnik – no castling!
• Game Changer: AlphaZero revitalizing the attack