p.3 Shannon's inspirational work [Programming a Computer for Playing Chess] was read and re-read
by computer-chess enthusiasts, and provided a basis for most early chess programs. Despite the passage of time, that paper
is still worthy of study...
p.152-3 Although the exact meaning of the heuristic values estimated by the static evaluation function
for chess is not really clear, we will sketch how these functions are or should be constructed. [JLJ - ?] ...Making
the evaluator too slow, the speed of the search is reduced significantly, which has consequences for the quality of tactical
moves in chess. Making the evaluator too fast may mean that inadequate knowledge is present, influencing the quality of positional
moves. ...It is important to realize that today's evaluation functions for chess include almost exclusively static features.
The features on the current board are relevant, while the dynamic aspects of how things will develop from there are usually
ignored (sometimes with the exception of a static analysis of exchanges). More complicated attempts have failed because of
the expense of the computations as well as the large error rate compared to deeper search.
p. 228 My next few remarks concern the computer-chess community. By and large, they come in two
flavors: sportsmen and businessmen (makers of commercial chess machines). Neither group is primarily motivated to produce
scientific papers explaining how the results were achieved and how others might build upon them for further improvement.
p.261 It is amazing how far computer-chess programs have progressed using minimal chess knowledge. In fact,
it is not uncommon to observe better performance in a program with less knowledge.
p.262 computer chess programs have been stymied by the knowledge acquisition bottleneck... Given
the enormity of the task of acquiring, representing, and using knowledge, why haven't more computer-chess researchers tackled
the problem? ...The majority of computer-chess research is on search algorithms, with the issues of knowledge and
the search-knowledge interaction largely ignored.
p.263 As a scientist, one searches for the solution to difficult problems, even if success may take
many years. How does one resolve this with annual spectacles [world championships] where one has an obligation
to have an improved program each year? This encourages small, short-term projects whose results will have a direct bearing
on program performance. Long-term research projects, the difficult problems that remain to solved, get neglected
as being long shots that are unlikely to help program performance... Many chess programmers choose short-term gains at the
expense of long-term success.
