Book categories

The Rubinstein Attack

A Chess Opening Strategy for White

by Eric Schiller

2005

Of Kings and Pawns

Chess Strategy in the Endgame

by Eric Schiller

2006

In chess games the result is often determined in the endgame, where most of the armies have been removed from the board. When it comes down to just kings and pawns, absolute precision is necessary, and a minor slip can toss away all the hard-earned advantages built up during the game. Endgames are very complex strategically. It is necessary to have in mind a specific target position so that a pawn can be marched to the far side of the board and be promoted into a queen or other powerful piece. The unique format of this book provides the reader with the desired target at the start of the discussion, so that the main task is to find a path from the initial position to one which is clearly winning (or drawing), as required. The 26 exercises are positions that are not only important for ...

Beautiful Mates

Applying Principles of Beauty to Computer Chess Heuristics

by Ben P. Walls

1997

A synopsis of eminent computer chess programs reveal that they are designed around a 'brute force' approach. An argument is made that by continuing the 'brute force' search approach, computer chess development is moving away from human evaluation methods. Research is done into studies of evaluation methods, and a discovery is made that humans use a form of intuition, called their 'sense of beauty', to choose the best chess move. A paper by Margulies is cited which formulates principles of beauty which apply to chess. Three versions of a chess program are developed, using no heuristics, standard chess heuristics, and beauty heuristics formulated from Margulies principles. The performance of the three versions of the program are compared using chess puzzles, and rated for how quickly they fi...