9/12/2024 – Technology has been evolving by leaps and bounds most especially in the last couple of years with the advent of image generating AIs and of course ChatGPT and its numerous rivals. We decided to ask the AIs to help produce some images in homage to the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, and as you can see here, some creative and entertaining results ensued. Read on to learn more!

3/31/2022 – Starting today, all Fritz 18 users will receive an additional engine as a free update: Fritz 18 Neuronal. The new engine Fritz 18 Neuronal achieves an increase in playing strength of about 120 ELO points compared to the classic Fritz 18 engine at shorter time controls. Simply start Fritz 18 and start the automatically offered update! Then the new engine will be installed!

1/14/2022 – In the second part of the series, Joshua Doknjas examines opening system influenced by the neural network engines and discusses the modern battle between two well-prepared players. | Graphic: Europe Echecs

1/7/2022 – In 2017, AlphaZero shocked the chess world by crushing Stockfish in a 100-game match. Since then, chess engines have undergone a substantial revision based on deep learning methods to develop a neural network. Joshua Doknjas examines the impact of the AI revolution in chess. | Graphic: Europe Echecs

11/2/2021 – Patrick Bet-David, CEO of Valuetainment, sits down with Garry Kasparov, in what was easily one of the best interviews by the former world champion in years. He candidly discusses topics such as chess today compared to his day, AI and why it is not the boogeyman, politics, Putin, the US, and truth. "I'm not a politician, I'm not running for office; I won't waffle, I won't duck." And he didn't.

10/28/2021 – When talking about ancient games you might have an image of a couple of dozen at most, ranging from chess and its precursors, to backgammon, Go, and a few more, but humanity has long had a passion for a good game. This passion has spanned across the globe with thousands of games uncovered, but no way to learn how to play them...until now. (image: papyrus dated c.1200 BC)

2/23/2020 – Just under twenty-three years ago Garry Kasparov made history by losing a match against a computer named Deep Blue. Today smartphones are capable of running chess engines as powerful as IBM's giant mainframe in 1997. More significantly, thanks to recent progress in artificial intelligence, machines are learning and exploring the game for themselves. So what does the legendary World Champion think about the progress of AI in chess, and its effect on humanity in general? He told Wired Magazine that he has made his peace with AI.

2/18/2019 – In the first two sections of this series, originally published in Der Spiegel, Europe's largest (and most influential) news portal, Frederic Friedel described his decades-long involvement in computer chess. He was commissioned to make the story personal, and in part three he describes his encounter with the latest twist in this area of research: artificial intelligence and self-learning machines that are playing at the very highest levels of the game. Where are we headed and what will the future bring?

2/12/2019 – Europe's largest (and most influential) news portal, Der Spiegel, recently published a three-part series on the history of chess programming. It was authored by Frederic Friedel, emeritus editor of the ChessBase news page. In the early 1980s Frederic was intrumental to bringing computer chess to the attention of the German public, and in 1987 he co-founded ChessBase. Here is part two of his series. Read part one.

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

1/24/2018 – Kasparov has been making the media rounds as he does, but lately he's been fielding questions on chess rather than the subjects that are more often in his sights: Russia, politics, and AI. He's recently been featured in a serious conversation with conservative commentator Bill Kristol, a not-so-serious Q&A session with Twitter users published by Wired Magazine, and a wonderful mini-history lesson for The New Yorker magazine. | Photo: WIRED YouTube

12/24/2017 – He has written many books, but this may be his most important. In Deep Thinking Garry Kasparov describes a journey he embarked on, in 1985, that led him to a monumental confrontation with machine intelligence. At the same time computers enhanced his and all chess players' abilities to study the game. He also narrates the beginnings, which included a humiliating defeat at the hands of a German toddler in a computer game — quite an enchanting Christmas tale.

12/22/2017 – Other chess reviewers have been at best dismissal and at worst harshly critical of The Secret of Chess, by Lyudmil Tsvetkov. However, according to GM David Smerdon, this book is a one of a kind work that legitimately has the potential to revolutionise how we think about chess. | Photo: Smerdon at the Tromsø Chess Olympiad, by Andreas Kontokanis CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

12/13/2017 – In time for the start of the London Chess Classic DeepMind, a subsidiary of Google, published a remarkable report about the success of their "Machine Learning" project Alpha Zero. Alpha Zero is a chess program and won a 100 game match against Stockfish by a large margin. But some questions remain. Reactions from chess professionals and fans.

7/13/2017 – There are many chess variants. A recent one was invented by an AI expert at the Tenaga National University of Malaysia, by Dr Azlan Iqbal. He subsequently received a research grant to develop a mobile app, in order to study "cleverer algorithms" and get the computer to play as well as humans. Working on a shoestring budget Azlan managed to develop two apps, one for Android and one for iOS. You can try your hand – it's free of charge.

6/12/2017 – Garry Kasparov recently released his latest book called Deep Thinking, and was invited to make a presentation at the wonderful online resource TED. The theme was appropriately on the rise of machines, not just in areas such as chess, but how they are quickly encroaching on areas such as medicine and legal work. Instead of a doomsday speech, he reminds us that we should work with them, our creations, and use them to fulfill our dreams. Enjoy the video!

4/27/2017 – How do you rate players from different periods? An AI researcher has undertaken to do it based not on the results of the games, but on the quality of the moves played. Jean-Marc Alliot used a strong chess engine running on a 640 processor cluster to analyse over two million positions that occurred in 26,000 games of World Champions since Steinitz. From this he produced a table of probable results between players of different eras. Example: Carlsen would have beaten Smyslov 57:43.

4/24/2017 – In March there was an international furore over a chess position, published by famous mathematics professor Sir Roger Penrose. It purported to show a key difference between human and computer thinking, and have general implications for our understanding of Artificial Intelligence. The example was unconvincing, but as a reaction a number of chess players and AI researchers have sent us papers we want to share with you. We start with a challenge to humans and machines issued by GM Miguel Illescas.

4/7/2017 – He has written extensively about Chesthetica, an automatic and computationally creative composer of chess problems, in the past, and now would like to update interested readers and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers about a new feature he has implemented into the program. Dr Azlan Iqbal, who has a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, thinks that his program could abide by all the requirements of a good, traditional chess problem, given a year’s additional work customizing the code.

3/29/2017 – It's not exactly what it sounds, though that would not be completely implausible either. Actually "Disrupt" is an annual conference held by the AOL online publishing company TechCrunch, and from May 15-17 it takes place in New York City. One of the Disrupt themes is Artificial Intelligence, and the lead speaker is Garry Kasparov, who will offer his unique perspective on humanity's changing relationship with machines, computers and intelligence.

1/27/2016 – Marvin Minsky, born in 1927, was an American cognitive scientist in the field of artificial intelligence, co-founder of the MIT's AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy. Minsky, who died of cerebral hemorrhage last Sunday, considered the problem of intelligence "hopelessly profound” and "did not consider anything else worth doing.” Listen to him talk about computer chess.