Advanced Chess - History

History

The concept was already common in the 1970s: "An interesting possibility which arises from the 'brute force' capabilities of contemporary chess programs is the introduction of a new brand of 'consultation chess' where the partnership is between man and machine."

The concept of computer-assisted chess tournaments originated in science fiction, notably in The Peace War written by Vernor Vinge in 1984.

The former world champion grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who retired from competitive chess in 2005, has a long history in playing "Man vs. Machine" events. Among the most important are his matches against IBM's research computer Deep Blue, which Kasparov defeated in February 1996, scoring 4-2 in a 6-game match, and lost to, 3.5-2.5, in a May 1997 rematch. The first game of the 1996 match remained famous though, as it was the first game in the history of chess in which a world champion had been defeated by a computer. The Deep Blue computer is now defunct but IBM still maintains the website for it and the associated famous match at www.research.ibm.com/deepblue. After this spectacular match, and many other matches against computers, Garry Kasparov had the idea to invent a new form of chess in which humans and computers co-operate, instead of contending with each other. Kasparov named this form of chess "Advanced Chess".

The first Advanced Chess event was held in June 1998 in León, Spain. It was played between Garry Kasparov, who was using Fritz 5, and Veselin Topalov, who was using ChessBase 7.0. The analytical engines used, such as Fritz, HIARCS and Junior, were integrated into these two programs, and could have been called at a click of the mouse. It was a 6-game match, and it was arranged in advance that the players would consult the built-in million games databases only for the 3rd and 4th game, and would only use analytical engines without consulting the databases for the remaining games. The time available to each player during the games was 60 minutes. The match ended in a 3-3 tie. After the match, Kasparov said:

"My prediction seems to be true that in Advanced Chess it's all over once someone gets a won position. This experiment was exciting and helped spectators understand what's going on. It was quite enjoyable and will take a very big and prestigious place in the history of chess."

Regular Advanced Chess events have been held since in León each year, with a little inconsistency after 2002. The Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand is considered the world's best Advanced Chess player, winning the three consecutive Advanced Chess tournaments in Leon in 1999, 2000 and 2001, before losing the title to Vladimir Kramnik in 2002. After the loss to Kramnik, Anand said:

"I think in general people tend to overestimate the importance of the computer in the competitions. You can do a lot of things with the computer but you still have to play good chess. I more or less managed to do so except for this third game. In such a short match, against a very solid and hard to beat opponent, this turned out to be too much but I don’t really feel like that the computer alone can change the objective true to the position."