For hundreds of years only humans have played chess. Hoaxers and crooks created chess machines - imitation of intelligent mechanisms. Such devices were operated by skillful players, who easily defeated famous politicians, scientists, writers or paid for the party of the common people.

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Four decades ago, the first computer programs appeared that were used by grandmasters for training and analyzing the games played. In the second half of the 1980s, representatives of the chess community did not doubt that a machine would never be able to defeat a person in a face-to-face confrontation. Ten years later, in May 1997, the Deep Blue supercomputer won a six-game match against Garry Kasparov . IBM's development changed the world of professional chess forever.

Making a Deep Blue Computer

The machine that beat the world champion was created by engineers at IBM. Chess fans were shocked by the defeat of Kasparov - the chess player has led the FIDE rating since 1985 and was rarely inferior in official games. Artificial intelligence experts have declared the victory of machines in mental confrontation with humans.

Deep Blue was developed in the second half of the 1980s. In 1985, a group of enthusiasts from Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh) created the software and hardware platform for a chess simulator. Work on improving the software has been going on for several years. In 1987 the program was renamed Deep Thought. Two years later, IBM bought out the software rights and began developing Beep Blue. Grandmaster Joel Benjamin became the project consultant.

In late 1996, IBM specialists were able to optimize supercomputer algorithms and improve the performance of the hardware platform. The machine could analyze up to two hundred million positions per second. After the historic match against Kasparov, the original computer, housed in two server cabinets, was split up. One rack went to the National Museum of American History. The second part of the machine's components was donated to the Computer History Museum.

Deep Blue matches - Garry Kasparov

The supercomputer played two matches against Garry Kasparov. In February 1996, the world champion defeated Deep Blue 4-2. The car won the first game of the confrontation, creating a sensation. For the first time in the history of chess, the strongest player on the planet lost to artificial intelligence. In the next five games Kasparov won three wins and two draws.

Before the 1997 match, IBM updated the software and hardware components of Deep Blue. In the repeated match, the supercomputer turned out to be stronger - 3.5: 2.5. Kasparov won the first game, the car won the second. Then the opponents reduced the fights to draws three times in a row. The sixth (and decisive) game was played by Deep Blue.

The victory in the first game of the 1996 match was achieved by Deep Blue in 37 moves. The computer played Alapin's variation against the Sicilian defense. The machine managed to find vulnerable points in Kasparov's pawn structure. After 24 ... exd5, all the pawns of the world champion were either isolated or doubled.

Garry Kimovich was able to level the position, but made an inaccuracy - 27… d4. Over the next ten moves, Deep Blue managed to win.

In the last game of the second match, Deep Blue made an atypical move for a machine. Kasparov chose the Caro-Kann Defense and played 7… h6. The supercomputer did not take care of the knight and made an unexpected sacrifice for the opponent in the opening - 8.Nxe6.

Eleven moves later, the game ended with the victory of the machine. Kasparov later suggested that the sacrifice was not made by a machine, but by a strong IBM consultant grandmaster. Deep Blue's creators denied all accusations of helping live chess players to the computer.

The Deep Blue match between Garry Kasparov attracted such intense worldwide attention that it inspired the film crew to create a documentary. This complete piece includes interviews with the thirteenth world champion, as well as fans and supercomputer developers. You will see with your own eyes everything that accompanied the match: suspicions, dramatic turns and feelings of Kasparov.

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• at the World Microcomputer Chess Championship in 1996 in Jakarta (Indonesia), in 1999 in Paderborn (Germany) and in 2000 in London (England);
• at the World Computer Chess Championship in 1999 in Paderborn, in 2003 in Graz (Austria) and in 2009 in Pamplona (Spain);
• at the World Blitz Championship among computer programs in 2002 in Maastricht (Netherlands), in 2003 in Graz, in 2004 in Tel Aviv (Israel), in 2005 in Reykjavik (Iceland), in 2007 in Amsterdam (Netherlands), in 2009 in Pamplona, ​​in 2010 in Kanazawa (Japan), in 2013 in Yokohama (Japan);
• at the World Chess Championship 960 among computer programs in 2006 in Mainz (Germany);
• at the World Computer Chess Software Champion in 2010 in Kanazawa, in 2015 and 2017 in Leiden (Netherlands).

The World Microcomputer Chess Championship (WMCC) was a separate series of championships from 1980 to 2001, in which only microprocessor programs participated. As for the World Computer Chess Championship (WCCC), the organizer was the International Computer Games Association (ICCA - formerly, ICGA - now).

Shredder has a versatile style, he is equally strong at all stages of the game, perfectly combining tactical motives and strategic understanding of the position.

The engine compares favorably with most others with its own graphical GUI. This can be especially interesting for novice chess players, for whom finding and installing an interface for working with the engine, as well as an opening book, can cause difficulties in the first couples.

Ranking for 2021

The multiprocessor version of the Deep Shredder 13 engine is currently significantly inferior to the strongest chess programs such as Stockfish or Komodo . In one of the most popular CCRL 40/40 rating lists as of November 20, 2020, Deep Shredder ranks only 13th:

Download Shredder free

Shredder is commercial software and is not distributed free of charge. However, for review, the developer offers the opportunity to download a free demo version of the product.

Shredder free download

Current version: Shredder 13 (20 Nov 2020).

Available on operating systems: Windows, Macintosh, Linux.

 Leela Chess Zero (LCZero, Lc0) is a chess engine that uses neural networks and the principle of distributed computing for its work. The project is led by programmer Gary Linscott, who is also one of the four developers at Stockfish. In his brainchild, Linscott implemented the ideas behind AlphaZero , a neural network program from Google , which made a big splash at the end of 2017 with its uncompromising reprisal against the strongest computer programs for playing chess, go and shogi.

Features Leela Chess Zero

In their approach to solving the problems they are faced with, programs such as Leela Chess Zero and AlphaZero are fundamentally different from traditional "algorithmic" chess engines such as Stockfish, Komodo or Houdini. The neural networks on which the former are based are not programmed in the usual sense, they learn by playing against themselves, forming their own understanding.

In the paradigm of classical chess engines, an alpha-beta pruning algorithm for the search function (Alpha-Beta Pruning) and a hard-working evaluation function are used, prescribing strictly defined actions to the program according to a given algorithm, which is constantly improved by a person by trial and error. The input data are the representation of the board, the basic rules of the game and the last few moves if the position is not the starting one. LCZero and AlphaZero receive the same input, but they already use a different method for searching, the Monte Carlo Tree Search method. The evaluation function is completely left to the mercy of neural networks and their learning algorithm.

A neural network (in our case, an artificial neural network) is an attempt to model, in some approximation, a network of nerve cells of a living organism. Work in this area has served to create a section on machine learning in the science of artificial intelligence - at a certain point it became clear that such models, thanks to the exchange of information between neurons within themselves, are capable of learning. The algorithm of this training in its process allows the neural network to recognize complex dependencies between input and output data, performing a generalization operation as a result. Thus, the program becomes able to find the correct solution, despite the lack of data about it in the training set.

The "naked" neural network learning the blackboard is stupid. But the more she learns by playing with herself, the smarter she becomes. In addition, together with the Monte Carlo method, they gradually complement and improve each other. Before her first 100-game match with Stockfish, AlphaZero played chess against herself millions of times in just four hours and was known to smash her opponent to smithereens. To train neural networks, Google used colossal computing power - thousands of tensor processors.

It would take the developer Leela Chess Zero centuries to train his brainchild with a comparable effect. The issue with the lack of computing power was solved by the method of distributed computing. A whole community of users day after day donate the computing resources of their computers for the benefit of the project, thereby directly participating in the training of LCZero neural networks and its development. Largely thanks to them, the number of games played in a total of Leela Chess Zero as of June 2019 has already exceeded two hundred million.

Leela Chess Zero was announced on January 9, 2018 on the talkchess.com forum. In April, the engine began its performance in the Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC), starting in the 12th season from the 4th division. The debut was unsuccessful: out of 28 fights held by Leela, she lost 25 and won only one, and even then as a result of the freezing of the opponent. However, the program was continuously trained and progressed rapidly. In TCEC's 13th season, with a score of +14 -2 = 12, she won the 4th division, in which she failed just four months ago, and moved on to the next. In it, Leela took second place, having won 7 wins, 18 draws and 3 defeats.

By the beginning of autumn, Leela Chess Zero was already competing with the strongest chess programs in the world. In the first round of the Chess.com Computer Chess Championship 2018 (CCC1), which was held in 3 stages, the neuro-engine took the 5th place among the 24 programs that participated. The top eight advanced to the second round. According to its results, Leela took the 4th position, and then won the final 3rd place in the tournament by defeating Komodo in a match of 30 games. In the final match, Stockfish and Houdini fought for the lead. In the next chess.com tournament for the Chess.com Computer Chess Championship Blitz Battle 2018 (CCC2), Leela again took 3rd place; the victory, as in CCC1, was celebrated by Stockfish.

In December of the same year, TCEC season 14 took place. This time all numbered divisions, from the 3rd to the 1st, were easily submitted to Leela. In the Premier Division, Stockfish held a confident sole leadership, Komodo, Houdini and Leela were fighting for the second place. In the final round, the neural network engine was required to hold Black in a draw with Stockfish in order to take the second line and fight him in the super final. Leela coped with this and went to the match, losing to her opponent in the hardest struggle with a score of 50.5: 49.5.

In February 2019, Leela Chess Zero won its first major trophy - the TCEC Cup, defeating Houdini in the final of the tournament and not losing a single game during the competition. In May, as part of TCEC Season 15, Leela faced Stockfish again in the Super Final. This time, she surpassed her main opponent, winning a 100-game match with a score of +14 -7 = 79. Stockfish lost the championship championship for the first time in four seasons of the Top Chess Engine Championship.

Download Leela Chess Zero

LCZero is not your typical UCI engine, but it still supports a universal chess interface and therefore can be used on a PC in a chess shell such as Chessbase, Fritz or Arena. However, installing Leela and setting it up for efficient and convenient operation will require a little more effort and knowledge from the user, and maybe even investment, than in the case of the same Stockfish, Komodo or Houdini.

You can download Leela Chess Zero from the official website of the developer lczero.org. The program is free. Download required: 1) file engine lc 0. the exe and 2) network file

1) The engine itself is distributed in three versions: Blas, OpenCL and Cuda.

• Blas consumes only CPU (central processing unit) resources in its work and, unlike OpenCL and Cuda versions, does not access the video card, therefore it is very much inferior to them in strength and speed
• OpenCL uses GPU (graphics processing unit) with OpenCL2 support
• Cuda takes advantage of and works only with relatively recent NVIDIA GPUs

You can use the GPU-Z program (distributed free of charge) to find out about support for a video card of the OpenCL 1.2 standard. AMD boards have supported OpenCL 1.2 for the past half a decade (on GCN architecture). Graphics integrated into the CPU (usually used on laptops) will also work if the above standard is supported. Integrated AMD GPUs will enable the OpenCL version of LCZero starting with the Kaveri family.

Cuda is superior to OpenCL, but only supports NVIDIA graphics cards starting with the GTX 600 series, i.e. from the Kepler family (usually no older than 2013) or newer (Maxwell, Pascal, Turing). With each new release of the engine, its requirements can grow - the more powerful the video card, the more efficiently it will show itself.

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2) In its work, Leela Chess Zero uses neural networks trained by developers and users.

Download LCZero Network

There are many networks available for download, and any of them can be used, but it is worth noting that the latter network is not always the strongest.

Install Leela Chess Zero

Installation procedure under Windows

• The required latest version of the engine is downloaded and unpacked
• The selected network is placed in the folder with the unpacked engine
• Video card drivers are updated to the latest
• The program connects to the shell like any other UCI engine

Notes:

• The Fritz shell may need a patch to improve the loading of non-standard machines; for Fritz 15 is patch 15.36
• In addition to lcexe, the archive with the engine contains the client.exe application; with its help, the user can take part in the training of LCZero neural networks - no need to play and analyze with the engine on a PC

The initial installation usually goes smoothly, however, judging by the comments in the user environment, further work and configuration can be difficult.