Product Description
Computers, Chess, and Cognition presents an excellent up-to-date description of developments in computer chess, a rapidly advancing area in artificial intelligence research. This book is intended for an upper undergraduate and above level audience in the computer science (artificial intelligence) community. The chapters have been edited to present a uniform terminology and balanced writing style, to make the material understandable to a wider, less specialized audience. The book's primary strengths are the description of the workings of some major chess programs, an excellent review of tree searching methods, discussion of exciting new research ideas, a philosophical discussion of the relationship of computer game playing to artificial intelligence, and the treatment of computer Go as an important new research area. A complete index and extensive bibliography makes the book a valuable reference work. The book includes a special foreword by Ken Thompson, author of the UNIX operating system. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great introduction to computer chess
Though this title is now dated and hard to find, it is a great introduction to the fundamentals of computer chess. If you are interested in computer chess, it's well worth seeking this title out!
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An Historical Curiosity but not Real Practical Value

Seriously outdated since more than 26 years have passed after it was writen, and giant improvements in both software and hardware have been made over those and specially recent years. I guess this book will only serve as a curiosity in your chess library.

Not real practical use at all. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Finally it makes sense!!! ;)
I first read the book in 1985.The topic is interesting, the book title is impressive.After the first two chapters, the rest looked like Greek to me.The next three chapters are the "meat" of the book.Finally last week, after 18 years of "soul-searching", it begins to make sense to me.Between then and now, I revisited the book at least 5-6 more times.Difficult book!There are two reasons that this book threw me off.Dr. Botvinnik used lots of Greek letters to represent his formulars: alpha, beta, psi, theta, sigma, tau, rho, phi, delta, pi, sigma, etc. (See what I meant.)If that was not enough, he added in the "complex number representation" as a "bonus."That was the first reason.The second was the way he wrote those expressions, I thought they were "well-known continuous functions" in math or science.Most of them are NOT.They are binary functions, either have values of 1 or 0; which now can be represented as Boolean math in standard programming language.
The main way to use his evaluation expressions is with the assumption there is always an "attack" provided an material exchange.This was applicable for tactical chess; while for state-of-the-art program, the positional evaluation is more involved.
The first is about the historical match between the USA-USSR programs, which resulted in favor of the USSR's.The second, a lot of theories and background which are useful in chess-playing technique, computer programming, management decision-making, human-reasoning, etc.Chapter 3 has: the confussing math expressions with those beautiful Greek letters.Chapter 4: using bit-map to represent attack-defense paths that the decisions and evaluations in chapter 3 will compute.Chapter 5: using the his famous win over Capablanca as experiment to illustrate his math expression.Chapter 6: a useless one; he spent 7 pages to list some of his own games as excercise.(Why? If we want examples, Alekhine's, Capa's, Lasker's, Tal's or Fischer's are more typical.)In addition, many diagrams are so large, while the whole book is only about 90 pages.More than 10% of the pages goes wasted, killing at least 3 trees.Chapter 7: the future of computer chess.There are four chapters for the Appendices.
In summary, it is good book at the time, too confussing (at least to a literacy-challenged reader like me), and some minuses mentioned above.Four stars for your book, GM and many-time world chess champion Botvinnik!!!! (****) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An excellent historical reference.
This book shows the state of the art at the end of the 1970's. Though there have been huge changes since then, and tremendous gaps in our understanding have been filled, I still can't recommend this book highlyenough. This book was published at the time when the best programs changedover from selective search to brute force. Nowadays we know that bruteforce is the way to go, but at that time even programmers who were winningtournaments using brute force techniques had little faith in their ultimateviability. The authors's speculation about the roles of search andevaluation is very interesting from the historical perspective.

Onechapter of this book is worth the entire price. Slate and Atkins describeChess 4.5 in one chapter. That chapter remains to this day the bestdescription of an "attack-table" chess engine ever written,though you will need some additional reading to create a modern program onthat basis.

One of the best books on the foundations of computer chess
This book is one of the pioneer works on the subject, as its publication date shows clearly. Despite its age, it remains as one of the most fascinating introductions to computer chess, and most of the ideas it presents are still valid. Its multiple authors cover all aspects of chess playing, from technical expositions of some of the best programs of that time, to physiological and psychological considerations.

In "A brief history of computer chess tournaments: 1970-1975", we are introduced to the atmosphere of the early tournaments, the diverse friendly matches between US and USSR chess computers, and several US and international championships, with many of the most interesting games fully commented and analyzed.

The next chapter, "Human chess skill" focuses in how does a human player select a move in the game of chess, the role of perception, the search mechanism, visualization, as well as other tipically human aspects such as motivation. Several tests applied to human players ranging from novices to grandmasters are presented anddiscussed.

After that introspective look at we humans, and our not-so-well understood thought processes, "An introduction to computer chess" begin to shift the focus to the computer, including such basic topics as how to represent the chess board, the moves, the status, how to generate the legal moves, search strategies, position evaluation, so that by the end of the chapter, all necessary foundations are well stablished for the rest of the book.

With Chapter 4, "Chess 4.5 - The Northwestern University chess progam" we begin the most technical part of the book. Here, authors David J. Slate and Lawrence R. Atkin show us with great style the internal workings of their famous chess program, many times world champion, and the one mostly used against IM David Levy for the famous Levy's bet. The details are sufficient to help a lot anyone contemplating the possibility of writing his/her own chess program. Modestly, the authors assume the limitations of their creature, and offer good advice on how it can be incrementally improved.

Chapter 5, "PEASANT: An endgame program for kings and pawns" provides yet another close scrutiny of a chess program, though this time with the important novelty that it is an specialized chess program, one specifically designed for a certain class of very frequent endgames. Monroe Newborn, its author, fully describes the inner workings, and most importantly, produces a set of tests for his program, with commented results.

The next chapter, "Plans, goals, and search strategies for the selection of a move in chess" tries to center on how do human players select good chess moves when having just a few seconds to consider the position (i.e: blitz chess), and then introduces a chess program specifically designed to play speed chess, without recourse to tree searching. This quite intriguing approach more closely mimics the human behaviour, to the point of even producing the same kind of erroneous moves a human player would play at blitz speeds.

As an alternative to the standard alpha-beta search techniques, Larry R. Harris introduces us to "The heuristic search: An alternative to the alpha-beta minimax procedure", where it presents what it considers important pitfalls of that search strategy, fully commented with specific examples, and proposes a new paradigm that addresses each and everyone of them from the start, thus truly directing the search in an intelligent way, as opposed to brute force, so that each aspect of the position can be ascertained as soon as possible, before going to other places in the search tree.

After these mostly technical chapters, in "Man and machine: Chess achievements and chess thinking", professor Eliot Hearst, a member of the Psychology Department at Indiana University, evaluates the present status of computer chess from the perspective of someone very knowledgeable with the game, as he is a rather skilled chess player and columnist. He includes many good practical examples, to make his points even clearer.

The book closes with a number of games played by Chess 4.5 and 4.6 in competitions during 1976,1977, and 1978, that show a remarkable improvement on the rather pessimistic forecastings most experts agreed upon at that time.

... Read more

Product Description

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computers and Games, CG 2006, held in Turin, Italy, May 29-31, 2006 co-located with the 14th World Computer-Chess Championship and the 11th Computer Olympiad.

The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully selected during two rounds of reviewing and improvement from 45 submissions. The papers cover all aspects of artificial intelligence in computer-game playing. Topics addressed are evaluation and learning, search, combinatorial games and theory opening and endgame databases, single-agent search and planning, and computer Go.

Product Description

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Third International Conference on Computers and Games, CG 2002, held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in July 2002.

The 27 revised full papers presented were carefully selected during two rounds of reviewing and improvement. The papers are organized in topical sections on evaluation and learning, search, combinatorial games and theory opening and endgame databases, single-agent search and planning, and computer Go. ... Read more

Product Description

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computers and Games, CG 2004, held in Ramat-Gan, Israel, in July 2004, and co-located with the 12th World Computer Chess Championship and the 9th Computer Olympiad.

The 21 revised full papers presented together with 1 keynote article were carefully selected during two rounds of reviewing and improvement from 37 submissions. The papers cover all aspects of artificial intelligence in computer-game playing. Topics addressed are evaluation and learning, search, combinatorial games and theory opening and endgame databases, single-agent search and planning, and computer Go.

Product Description
The book presents new results of computer-chess research in the areas of selective forward pruning, the efficient application of game-theoretical knowledge, and the behavior of the search at increasing depths. It shows how to make sophisticated game-tree searchers more scalable at ever higher depths. Throughout the whole book, the high-speed and master-strength chess program ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

For the more advanced practioner
This book will provide the most benefit to someone who has already written a computer chess program and is looking to improve it. The chapters on extended forward-pruning were especially informative and a number of high-level programs currently use the adaptive null-move pruning presented here.

I also found the chapter on interior-node recognizers unique and eye opening. A number of clever enhancements are provided that coupled with chapter 6, on knowledgable tablebase encoding, are sure to provide a idea or two even to hardened computer programmers.

This book is not for the faint of heart, but if you spend the time delving through it, you will more than likely find a number of ideas to apply to your chess engine. It is written with an academic perspective and is rigourous in the ideas that it presents (unlike Levy and Monroe's books which are geared more towards the general public).

Not bad, but....
The book is pretty good, and I got a lot out of it.It contains lots of interesting ideas about pruning.I suppose I got out of it what I wanted to get out of it.The reason I don't rate the book higher is because most of the book was pretty worthless. Nearly 50 pages of the book is devoted to the move lists of all the games they played!I don't need to see 50 pages worth of computer chess game moves.That's something that could be better served from a website.Sure it's probably needed for the thesis to verify that they actually did the studies they say they did, but I don't think it belongs in the book.Also, a large portion of the book is devoted to end game databases and recognizing when to look in them and optimal ways to index, etc.I wasn't very interested in that.My last complaint is that there isn't really any source code included with the book.All of the snippets of code that are shown are greatly cut up to the point where they're completely illegal.This book would be a 5 start book if they had actual pieces of code - or even the whole source - instead of the stupid moves.Code like if(try_null) { // do null move here } is the kind of code you see.He should have just printed the full alpha-beta algorithms.He tries to describe them as clearly as possible, using as little as possible real code.Like he wants to explain it all, yet keep it a secret!Putting in the code would be self-descriptive. ... Read more

Product Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computers and Games, CG 2008, held in Beijing, China, in September/October 2008 co-located with the 13th Computer Olympiad and the 16th World Computer-Chess Championship.

The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. The papers cover all aspects of artificial intelligence in computer-game playing dealing with many different research topics, such as cognition, combinatorial game theory, search, knowledge representation, and optimization.

Product Description
Through an overview of machine chess, a history of the game and a discussion on human intuition, machine intuition, and current concepts and their creators, this text aims to increase the readers' appreciation of their own minds, as well as computers. ... Read more

Product Description
Why is it that the human brain so often refuses to consider winning chess tactics?Every chess fan marvels at the wonderful combinations with which famous masters win games. How do they find those fantastic moves? Do they have a special vision? And why do computers outwit us tactically?
This rich book on chess tactics proposes a revolutionary method for finding winning moves. Charles Hertan has made an astonishing discovery: the failure to consider key moves is often due to human bias. Your brain tends to disregard many winning moves because they are counter-intuitive or look unnatural.
We can no longer deny it, computers outdo us humans when it comes to tactical vision and brute force calculation. So why not learn from them? Charles Hertan’s radically different approach is: use COMPUTER EYES and always look for the most forcing move first!
By studying forcing sequences according to Hertan’s method you will: develop analytical precision improve your tactical vision overcome human bias and stalenessenjoy the calculation of difficult positions
Charles Hertan is a FIDE master from Massachusetts with several decades of experience as a chess coach. Instead of rehashing the usual classic examples he has unearthed hundreds of instructive combinations which appear here for the first time in print.
Win more games by recognizing moves that matter!
With a foreword by three-time US chess champion Joel Benjamin, a member of the Deep Blue Computer team that defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

2nd Edition Still in Desperate Need of Editing
I currently own just under 30 chess books and this is one of the most disappointing books in my collection. My intuition from the cover and the discussion of "Computer Eyes" and "Stock Forcing Moves" was that this book was going to be a little hokey, that is to say corny and contrived.However, I bought this book based on the description and the stellar ratings.Boy was I wrong. This book was almost unreadable.

Expect to see the phrase COMPUTER EYES or a repeat of the chapter heading such as QUIET FORCING MOVES, in every paragraph in the book (hire an editor for heaven's sake).Also the organization of the material was not helpful.Most books I have on tactics divide the subject into how combinations of pieces produce tactical opportunities (e.g. coordinated actions of rook and knight).Other tactics books arrange material by methods such as x-ray attacks, or how weak files or diagonals lead to tactical opportunities by creating batteries. Forcing Chess Moves arranges the material into Brute Force Combinations, Surprise Forcing Moves, Equal or Stronger Threats, Quiet Forcing Moves, Etc.Now even as a Class A level player I don't find it helpful to be sitting over the board asking myself, "am I in a situation that calls for a brute force combination or a surprising forcing move?"These classifications have nothing to do with calculation over the board.

Further, almost every position gives away what you are supposed to look for before you even see the puzzle. Had he classified the material based on his comments before each example it would be a much more useful book. I found myself having to cover all the text on a page and then work the problem and finally see if I was seeing what Hertan was seeing.

Some things that were valuable. Analysis seems strong and descriptions are helpful even to aspiring class e-c players.Exercises are equally helpful. And the chapter on Forcing Retreats was one of the more unique and helpful chapters I have come across.

Finally, this is my first chess book I have ever reviewed and the first one I'm selling.Historically, I have been in general agreement with how others rate the books that I buy. I also recognize that people process the world differently and that not everyone will love the things that I love.That said, the consistently high ratings for this book are inexplicable and puzzling (Can you say "Friends and Family").

Your guide to TACTICAL EXCELLENCE
American GM Marice Ashley said the most direct way to improve your game is to study tactics and endgames. This book more than satisfies those needs. It is NOT a beginners tactical manual but for the seasoned player. The aim of this work is to help you FIND those moves that your mind AUTOMATICALLY rules out because they simply look impossible to the untrained eye by looking at the most FORCING move first. And this is one of the secrets to success in practical chess. Many times we are too concerned with learning the general principles of play and content with our knowledge that we know how to take advantage of a tactical situation. But what if you are against equal or stronger opposition who may be more versed tactically than you are? Many times even THEY (not to mention some GM's) won't consider every possibility and forcing reply. What if you do? Then you have a chance to turn the tables.

Even though the main aim of the book is to overcome your bias for discounting the "impossible" moves, but as a side effect, you will notice an essential skill developing as your laboriously work through this book: YOUR ANALYTICAL AND CALCULATION skills will notably improve. A "welcome" side effect to say the least. The examples introduced are complex and require an investment of time and energy. You will be thrown examples from the highest standard of play which include MULTIPLE tactical motifs. This is NOT a book for the faint of heart, but for those serious about improving their tactical abilities.

This is easily the best book on tactics since you get more than 600 examples/exercises all with high quality explanation. And if you understand why moves are played, you are close to playing those very moves in your own games. I give it my highest recommendation.

COMPUTER EYES! is not a gimmick
Throughout this book the author constantly makes references to 'COMPUTER EYES', always in all caps.While this repetition seemed to get on the nerves of one reviewer, to me it makes good pedagogical sense.The whole point of the book is to try to get players to calculate all forcing moves, even odd looking ones, and to develop better 'brute force calculation' abilities.That's what the author means by looking at a position with 'computer eyes'.Thus the whole premise of the book is encapsulated in the term, and so the repetition is very useful to drive home the point that to be a good tactician we must cultivate this skill.

Getting past the whole 'computer eyes' thing (since it's mostly a matter of taste), the chapters are full of tactical examples of a given theme.I found the chapters very useful for priming me to solve the problems given at the end.The themes will be familiar to most experienced players, but the examples are almost all new, from real games (a huge issue for me with many puzzle books), and often contain a surprising element of some sort that raises them above the category of stock tactical themes (even though that is the title of one chapter).For example, the author would not have a simple bishop sacrifice on h7 followed by mate, but rather a sac on h7 followed by a deflection sac leading to a gain of material.

That brings me to another strong point of this book.Many of the tactics are not directed at checkmate, but rather at the winning of material. Ignoring material winning combinations in favor of mating sequences is a huge problem with most tactics books.I think it's fair to say that in my own games, 90% of the tactics I've had involve winning material rather than delivering checkmate.This book addresses that disparity.

You can probably tell that I really like this book.One caveat: the problems range from moderately difficult to extremely hard.They are all from games, which for me at least makes them easier, but if you're under 1800, then beware.It wouldn't hurt you to read through the chapters, but don't expect to get the problems right.That said, it wouldn't hurt you to try.

puzzles for the more advance
I love chess puzzle books but have found that many are basically the same and once you get a grasp of them your stuck not learnign any new.EG there are so many books on basic tactics skewer, deflection, etc, but they are very basic, and once you have work with several book your not learning anything new.What I really liked about this book is that the puzzles are more complicated.I have been searching for a book that was more difficult and this one did the trick.Many of the puzzles have longer line which at least forced me to think even further ahead.It gave me a different perscpective about the chessboard.I am not a master but before working on puzzles I was 1200.After doing many puzzle books I made to 1500, but have been stuck there for a long time.After completing this book.I started beating stronger players and now am hovering around the 1800 mark.So if your a master or stronger then you may not like this book, but is your like me who was stuck at 1500, this will take you to the next level.
I recommend this book highly

A novel Approach to Tactics, but can be better
I like when an author give me a novel approach( with empasis on the thinking process and not the overcooked pattern recognition-tactical motif approach), a new tool to improve my chess.

Why five stars;

1.Novel Approach.

2.Complete References so you can look the whole games, online or in any database.

3.Nemotecnics; You can see a title in each problem, it makes easier to remember the idea at a later time.

4.Userfriendly, great layout.

5.Cost/Benefit this book will help your chess , yes more than the new glossy opening book available in pre-order , this book is worth every hard earned penny I spend.


To improve in the Next Edition.

1.Typo in page 15: 6...kxg7 wins the Ng6 (this is a bishop endgame)

2. After a material advantage the author put a 1-0, but sometimes, like in page 128 Ex 3.4 Benjamin-Seirawan seattle 2000 the game last 70 more moves!!, in my opinion ( I am a 1860 player so I have a lot to learn ) it is not that simple to cash in the material advantage as the authors implies with the 1-0, If Seirawan a world class player keeps fighting Benjamin after the "winning combo" is because a draw can be possible. My point is that if a GM keeps playing that position I am not sure if a Club Level player will be able to winafter the 'winning combo". Just play the game in your database and draw your own conclusions.

3.The author wrote a Chapter in The chess Instructor 2009 published by New in Chess page 154-167. I believe this chapter belongs to Forcing chess Moves, this chapter in my opininon is critical to increase the benefit that the reader of Forcing Moves can get from the book. Just an opinion.

In summary, 5 Starts, the 'cons" I founded on this book are subjective, they do not decrease, in general, the Quality of the Book or the benefit a club player (the target audience)can get by WORKING on this book.
... Read more