Quotes from the text
p.46 In Turing-Shannon type programs, all chess knowledge beyond the definition of legal moves is contained
in the evaluation function. Even though a large number of terms representing such positional features as material, mobility,
and king safety might be made part of a static evaluation function, the very much greater number of features recognizable
as special cases by expert players cannot even be enumerated, much less included. In principle, this is a minor defect, for
the necessarily crude evaluations are in a sense made more precise by examination of a sufficiently large tree of potential
positions and the use of minimax.
The studies of de Groot revealed that the average number of moves that a master examining a position from
a well-played game would regard as good is about one and three-quarters.
p.74 One of his [Alfred Binet, famous French psychologist] first observations was that chess players do
not perceive chessmen as having any particular form, but view them rather as symbols characterized by their individual moves
and by their significance at a particular point of the game... The capable player does not, for example, perceive
a Knight as a carved horse's head on a pedestal, but rather as a piece with certain capacities that serves a particular function
in its current position... The skilled player invariably perceives a chess piece in terms of its significance to the present
course of the game.
p.77 During the experiments, de Groot [famous Dutch psychologist] was impressed by the chess master's rapid
grasp of the possibilities in a newly shown position. He observed a vast difference between master and amateur in the amount
of time taken to recognize relevant structure and dynamic pressure. The master seems to perceive the critical forces almost
instantaneously and can immediately suggest specific, appropriate board action.
p.78 De Groot noted that chess perception is distinctly visual. Indeed, players often use visual metaphors
to express their perception of the board, stating that they "overlooked" this threat or bemoaning that their opponents "saw"
everything.
p.79 [Alfred] Cleveland [psychologist] had also remarked on the perceptual metamorphosis that takes place
with gain of experience. As more chess situations take on meaning, pieces are gradually transformed in the player's
mind from static objects to forces that can be exerted. The expert no longer sees discrete squares and pieces
or even abstract counters, just as the competent reader no longer sees individual letters... The board has become an arena
of overlapping zones of significant activity, regions in which certain events are taking place or about to take place, and
in which the impossibility of other events can be exploited. A position is seen in terms of pressures, of "fields
of force" that require additional force to be applied in a particular region to maintain equilibrium, or to divert the opponent's
influence.
p.85 In 1870 the Big Bend Tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in West Virginia was under construction.
One of the two tunneling crews employed the new steam drill while the other relied on human muscle, which happened to include
that of John Henry, the best steel-driver on the C.&O. and the only man able to drive steel with two hammers, one in each
hand. The steam drill was considered a marvelous invention, but John Henry still "allowed he could sink more steel." Money
was put up and a contest arranged: John Henry was to get a hundred dollars if he could beat the steam drill in a 35 minute
race. When time was called, the champion had drilled two holes seven feet deep, while the steam drill had only managed a single
nine-foot hole.
This epic performance soon became a poignant monument to man's last stand against
the machine, for John Henry went home with a "queer feeling" in his head and died that night of a burst blood vessel. His
martyrdom in laying down his life to show himself and others that he could beat a machine was immortalized in song and John
Henry became one of the best-known characters of American folklore - a lone, tragic figure fighting a rear-guard action against
the incursion of a new technology.
p.102 The art of defeating chess programs lies in creating positions where the program's evaluation function
fails to account for the true relative values as perceived by a human chess master.
