Preface If it proves possible to play such games well by computer, then the techniques employed
to analyse and assess future positions in these games will also be useful in other problems in long-range planning.
v Chess is a game of planning. To play the game well it is necessary to be able to create in one's mind
a plan that conforms to the necessities and potentialities of a given position... the correct long-term plan will be discovered
much more frequently by the master than by the club player.
p.24 "It is hopeless to try to make a machine [to] play perfect chess" Norbert Wiener [The human
use of human beings: cybernetics and society, p. 175]
p.26-27 A human chess master usually knows at once whether a given position is good for White or for Black
or whether it is level... How do they do it and how can their techniques for positional evaluation be simulated in a chess
program?
The key to evaluation is knowing what to look for.
p.31-32 Part of the difficulty in establishing a series of numerical criteria from which a program can arrive
at an accurate assessment of a position, lies in the presumption that such criteria do exist. After all, a chess master does
not work in this way. His assessments are usually made, not by counting pawns and pieces, but from his "feel" of the position.
One might argue that unless this feel can be implemented in a computer program there will never be a program
that can play master chess. This argument is not necessarily correct, however, since it might be possible
to write a strong chess program without directly simulating human behaviour (although personally I doubt it).
p.33 When a chess master looks ahead his whole analytical search rarely encompasses more than 100
positions. His expertise is such that he can discard from his considerations almost all the legal moves at any depth
of search. This is because his "evaluation function" enables him to reject these moves as being highly implausible and to
concentrate his efforts along paths that look more fruitful.
p.39 Clearly there must be some sort of look-ahead but equally obviously it must be directed in
some way so that only trees of manageable size are examined.
p.81 The problem of creating a chess computer belongs to a young branch of cybernetics - heuristic
programming. There is one task facing this discipline the solution of which would have practical applications: to
work out methods of orienting in a continuously changing situation depending on a large number of factors which cannot be
subjected to a complete mathematical analysis. Chess is an excellent model of such a situation.
In the course of work on chess programs some very valuable heuristic methods have been found which
shorten the analysis many times over.
p.131 I have often asked chess programmers the question: "If I gave you a routine that played perfect tactical
chess, that saw every trick and every combination, that never lost material through a trap and never overlooked a possibility
to win material by force, how would you set about writing a master strength chess program?" So far, no-one has yet been able
to offer me any kind of an answer.
p.137 Conclusions
Since 1948, when Shannon wrote his classic paper, there has been very little conceptual progress
in computer chess. I think that there is no doubt that I shall win my bet in 1978, but with so many different programming
efforts under way I think that I will ask for odds when I offer the bet for another ten year period. But for the moment
at least, man is still master over the computer.
