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Were used to breakthroughs. We live in an age where technology advances so quickly that seeing once-unimaginable feats performed by computers and artificial intelligence barely causes anyone to raise an eyebrow. We carry supercomputers in our pockets and complain when they do anything less then perfectly.

But once upon a time, technological feats drew gasping crowds and every breakthrough seemed tantamount to magic.

One such breakthrough came in 1770, when a Hungarian inventor named Wolfgang von Kempelen unveiled the Mechanical Turk, an automaton capable of beating people at chess, to impress the Empress of Austria. It was a striking-looking machine, a large wooden cabinet accompanied by the top half of a model man in a turban. Inside the doors of the cabinet was an impressively complicated array of shiny brass pipes, cogs, turbines and wheels. On the top was a chessboard, over which one of the Turks hands hovered.

When someone was invited to play against the automaton, the Turks arm would move to a piece, pick it up and make a move. It would nod three times if it had placed its opponents piece in check, and would shake its head if its opponent performed an illegal move. Kempelen, who stood by the machine at all times, would frequently glance into a small, vaguely coffin-like box at the edge of the table. The overall impression was eerie enough no doubt helped by the unshifting expression of the mysterious turbaned figure that some audience members were convinced that supernatural elements were at play.

It was presented, however, as cutting-edge technology. When the cabinet was open, spectators could see right through it, marveling at the intricacy of it all. As well as beating almost all challengers, the Turk could perform the technically challenging knights tour, in which a knight visits every square on the board.

Chess has always held a certain status in the public imagination, symbolic of extreme, but very human, genius someone excelling at it is seen as operating at a deeper level of intelligence than those around them. Its used as a metaphor for life and for war. Ingmar Bergmans The Seventh Seal shows a knight playing chess with Death itself, an iconic piece of cinema history that wouldnt be the same if they were playing Hungry Hungry Hippos.

The machine was a sensation upon its public debut, beating member after member of the Queens court. However, after a few demonstrations, von Kempelen stopped showing it off, claiming whenever anyone wanted to play against it that it was being repaired. He instead focused on his other passions: speaking machines. It was a full decade after its debut that he was persuaded (read: ordered) to bring it out again, and subsequently take it on tour through Europe. Crowds gathered and paid handsomely from London to Leipzig. Benjamin Franklin played against it in Paris. After its creator died, its new owner, Johann Nepomuk Mlzel, toured it further: Napoleon lost to it after attempting to cheat; Founding Father Charles Carroll beat it in Baltimore. Decades after its first game, the Mechanical Turk remained a marvel.

Except, it wasnt.

It was, in fact, all bullshit. The high-tech trappings were nonsense, and the way the machine worked was ultimately very low-fi: There was a dude in there. A dude who was great at chess, but a dude nonetheless. He could see where all the chess pieces were from underneath, and controlled the Turk with a series of levers. When the knights tour was performed, the operator was following a set of instructions in there with him.

When someone played against the Mechanical Turk, they were playing against a very patient, cramped, skilled chess player curled up in a cabinet. The machinery inside had been designed to allow every section to be revealed in turn, the secret player moving from part to part as needed. The coffin-like box on the top was meaningless, a red herring designed to distract. The whole thing was ingenious, but not in the way it was presented as being ingenious.

That was why von Kempelen was so unenthusiastic about it following its initial unveiling for all the excitement it brought everyone else, he knew it was just a cheap trick. While there had always been speculation that the cabinet housed a series of small but talented chess players, nobody had ever entirely hit upon how it worked. Edgar Allan Poe concluded that there had to be a human element in there when he saw the Turk lose a game, his logic being that a genuine version would perform flawlessly.

It was obvious to some people what was going on copycat automatons were built by rivals in which the secret was exactly the same, and articles floating it as an idea had frequently appeared, but nobody got it quite right or could explain it in a way that satisfied people, perhaps because the truth was so unsatisfying. The machine represented progress, genius, innovation; hiding a person in a box was none of these things.

Touring Cuba, however, disaster struck: William Schlumberger, the player inside the Turk, became ill with scarlet fever and died. Mlzel himself died on the ship home, and the Turk ended up in a museum, where it was destroyed in a fire.

In 1912, 142 years after the Mechanical Turk was built, Spanish engineers debuted El Ajedrecista. This was a machine that genuinely did what the Turk claimed to do, with some fairly hefty caveats rather than an entire game of chess, El Ajedrista could only do the very end, using a white king and rook to checkmate a black king moved by the human player. It was an extraordinary feat even with those caveats, worked out with analogue algorithms and laying a claim to arguably being the first-ever computer game.

It wasnt until 1997, when IBMs famous supercomputer Deep Blue beat international chess number one Garry Kasparov, that technology had genuinely reached the point von Kempelens automaton alleged in 1770: capable of beating anyone at chess. (The name Mechanical Turk is now used by Amazon for a controversial service providing cheap human input on jobs where people outperform computers certain types of image recognition, for instance but in a totally removed way for the client, where it feels much like deploying software to perform a task. The thinking behind the name is that its humans hidden within a machine, rather than a giant decades-long scam.)

Why then, over 200 years before it was possible, were so many people taken in by it?

While computers have shown that chess can be won algorithmically through sheer mathematics, its a complex enough game in the hands of mere humans that personality shines through. Aggression, patience, recklessness, desperation, tenacity, elegance these are all deeply human traits that can be played out upon a chessboard. Calculation is one thing, but chess feels like it requires thinking. A machine outperforming a human at arithmetic? Impressive. But a machine outperforming a human at an exercise in deviousness, grace and courage? That feels substantially different, less like an assistant and more like a replacement.

Thats why people gasped in 1770, and why they gasped again in 1997. Now, of course, every one of us is carrying around a device that can outperform us in countless fields many times over, that can run programs that may put large swathes of us out of work, that we are in thrall to.

Yet somehow, were not gasping any more. We probably should be.

Go here to read the rest:
The Pioneering 18th Century Chess Robot That Was Just a Dude Hiding in a Box - Cracked.com

Chess is the original 4X RPGgiving you command of territory and an army, together with a mission to explore and expand across the board, exploit your enemy's weakness, and then exterminate your opponent.

While it's simple to play online chess in a browser, you can also stage a two-player chess game in your terminal, either with an opponent in the same room or via SSH, meaning your opponent could be anywhere in the worldor beyond. Here's how.

Chess is one of the greatest games of all time, with a history going back to the 6th Century Gupta Empire in India. Although the rules have been refined over time, chess has remained popular due to its accessibility, and the cerebral challenge of pitting one person's skills against another.

If you've never played chess before, don't fret; you can easily learn to play Chess on your phone.

Traditionally, chess is a two-player game, played using a physical board with 64 squares, and two armies of 16 pieces.

Before the advent of the internet, if you wanted to play chess with someone who wasn't in the same room as you, each player would have to have their own chess board and communicate their moves via a letter telegram, phone, or a message in the newspaper.

Today, you can use mobile apps to instantly join chess games, or open a web browser and join one of the many online chess sessions on dedicated sites.

But mobile apps can be costly, and not everyone has a computer with a web browseror even a graphical desktop.

With Gambit, you can create a chess game in your terminal, and play with the person sitting next to you. Alternatively, you can serve or join a game over SSH, meaning you can play instantly against anyone in the world.

Gambit is written in Google's Go language, so before you start, make sure that you have Go installed on your Linux system.

If your distro supports Snap, the easiest way to install Go is with:

With Go installed, you can install Gambit with:

This command will install the Gambit binary to ~/go/bin/gambit.

You can make the binary accessible from any terminal location by creating a symbolic link with the ln command:

You can then start Gambit with:

Alternatively, you can install Gambit by cloning its GitHub repository:

Then, use the cd command to navigate to the new directory:

Finally, start Gambit with:

If you're a fan of Snap packages, you can install Gambit with the snap command as follows:

If you've read this far, it's probably safe to say that you know at least the basics of how to play chess.

The game starts as soon as you open Gambit, and you'll see a chess board, complete with representations of the chess pieces in either white or black with a white outline.

When it's your turn to move, click on a piece. You'll see a colored dot representing the spaces your piece can move to. Click on one to move your piece.

Alternatively, if your machine doesn't have a mouse, you can use the keyboard to type out the square the piece you want to move is on, then type out the square onto which you want to move the piece.

The only minor gripe we have with playing chess this way is that the chessboard squares are all black, rather than black and white. This can make it a little difficult to easily visualize paths for your pieces.

If you're playing against an opponent on the same computer, you can press the Ctrl + F key combo to flip the board around to give them a better view of the action.

But if you're sitting next to someone, it's probably just as easy, and slightly more satisfying, to break out a real chess board and set up the pieces. It's in playing remote players that Gambit comes into its own.

Secure Shell (SSH) is a protocol used to connect to remote devices securely, and with it, you can host a chess game with Gambit and have other players connect to it.

Before you start, you'll need to create an SSH key. It's not in the documentation, but Gambit will reject keys created with the RSA algorithm. You'll need to use the newer ECDSA algorithm with a minimum key size of 256 bits to host a chess game over SSH with Gambit.

On the host machine, enter:

Choose whether you want to use a password, and then hit Enter. You can find your new key pair in the "~/.ssh/" directory.

If you're playing against an opponent on a different network, the host will need to open port 53531 on their router and forward connections to the host machine's IP address. This requires you to have some basic knowledge about port forwarding on a router.

To start the Gambit server, enter:

Gambit will start the server on port 53531, and players can connect to the game with:

...where room_name is a name picked by the first player to join.

Back on the host machine, you won't find a chessboard in your existing terminal window. Open a second window or tab, then enter:

You can now play a game against your opponent.

If you know your opponent and schedule regular matches against them, Gambit makes it super easy to create or connect to a match.

If your friends don't play chess, don't use Linux, or if you just don't have any friends, you can play solitaire in your terminal instead!

Read more here:
How to Play Chess in Your Linux Terminal (With Multiplayer Support ... - MUO - MakeUseOf

The subject of the female minority in chess has long intrigued the chess world. There are many theories and hypotheses as to why there are so few women in chess. However, one of the most obvious, and often overlooked, reasons is that the current state of chess is not supportive enough and, at times, is downright disruptive for women.

In this eye-opening and honest discussion, led by IM Anna Rudolf, seven prominent women in chess gather together to discuss some of the important issues they have faced in the chess world. This is a discussion that must be watched by all coaches, parents, officials, event organizers and participants. The women touch on subjects that include inspiration, equality, breaking barriers and common stereotypes, and harassment. They raise awareness of our own everyday actions that can sometimes hinder the success of girls and women in chess.

Watch the full video below and check out the summary thereafter.

The women further include invaluable suggestions of what each one of us can do to make the chess community more inclusive, supportive, and a happier place for everyone to be in. We can all take action, sometimes in surprisingly small steps, to bring more fairness and equality to chess.

The participants of the discussion include:

Its been over two years since Netflix released its powerful and much-beloved series, The Queens Gambit. It has changed the perception of chess forever. The series has inspired many girls and women all over the world to take up the game. "For so many years," says Jennifer Shahade, "Ive been trying to tell my friends that chess is glamorous and fun and that it was about the beauty of the game and not just winning. And, of course, when you saw The Queens Gambit, I didnt have to convince anyone because they suddenly knew it."

Seeing the "representation of chess" embodied by feminine grace, beauty, and intelligence inspired Lula Roberts to take up the game and become a sensational content creator. The message throughout the discussion is cleargirls and women want to see more female role models in chess. The positivity and increased interest in the game that The Queens Gambit has brought are inspiring and unparalleled.

Despite doing many things right, the series, however, came with some startling flaws. Everything about the show, other than the main heroine, Beth Harmon, was male-driven. The writer, the producers, the consultants, and the creative team were all male. Not a single game that was taken from history and portrayed in the show was played by a female player. The result? The show totally "glossed over a lot of the female experience," says Alisa Melekhina. This is "strange because it is supposed to be a coming-of-age story of a young, female player coming into her own. And they didnt really portray a lot of the adversity."

In the real world of chess, Judit Polgar had to "fight a lot so that people acknowledge [her] achievements." The 'fight' many women still face today: the 'fight' against being demeaned, belittled, abused, harassed, and not being supported and acknowledged enough. "To tell you the truth, I was kind of unhappy that I didnt have a single game [featured in the series]," laughs Judit.

Furthermore, the defamation caseof GM Nona Gaprindashvili vs. Netflix could have been avoided altogether, had more consideration been given to womens chess. A character in the series stated that Nona never faced men. In reality, Nona was the first female player ever to earn the general grandmaster title among men. Her inspiring accomplishments in chess cannot go unnoticed and unacknowledged.

The lessons learned from the series are apparent: include more women in decision-making, front and back. Encourage and support female role models.

Unlike in The Queens Gambit, "playing chess in real life makes you feel your gender. When you go to a chess tournament and maybe have a negative experience, you start to feel out of place," says Lula. Playing and being harassed online is one thing, but "feeling disrespected [in real life] is a whole different thing altogether." As a newcomer to chess, Lula did not anticipate facing so many issues.

Jennifers own experience and recent allegations of an assault have opened up a lot of discussions and an urgent need for change. Girls drop out of chess because "they dont have the support structure of friends, family, and school that would support them not only as players but as human beings," she says. She noted that boys experience abuse too and there is a great need for proper code of conduct implementation.

Furthermore, once a woman experiences abuse or inappropriate actions against herself, she is often left to her own devices, not knowing what to do. Every woman in this discussion can share such a story. However, and many people may not realize this, "speaking up is really difficult," says Anna Rudolf. "I had experiences where Im not brave enough to talk about them. I was ashamed. I havent told my family. I havent told my friends. I havent told anyone." And for the first time, in this discussion, Anna has opened up about such an emotional experience.

A much older man, a teammate, was trying to touch and kiss her when she was just eighteen years old. It was totally uncalled for and inappropriate. "Just because you are kind to people," says Anna with now almost teary eyes, "doesnt mean you have any romantic affection towards them, which a lot of time is being misinterpreted."

But speaking up is not just difficult. Speaking up means reliving the trauma a second time. Not everyone wants to go through that. For many victims, its just easier to bury their negative experiences and move on. Its possible to forgive, if only for ones own sake and sanity. But impossible to forget. So many women still carry the weight of misconduct against them on their shoulders.

And the next worst part of it all, is that some people dare to ask these women: "Well, how are you conducting yourself? Are you inviting this type of [behavior]?" Alisa had issues with stalkers following her to chess tournaments and sending her gifts and love letters. She clearly did not invite that type of conduct. Neither did Anna.

It is important to be aware that harassment can take on many forms. It can also be psychological. Like that one time when Anna was winning game after game in a tournament, beating the top seed. This instantly raised suspicion, because she is female. The tournament arbiters went searching through her belongings in front of everyone. A traumatizing experience to witness, says Fiona Steil-Antoni, who is also Annas close friend.

Fiona herself has experienced sexist, demeaning remarks about women from a partnering commentator right during a live broadcast. And, to her dismay, nothing was said or done about it for days. "Is anyone even watching this?" she wondered. Of course, people were watching.

The message that women get from such experiences is that they cant possibly be so good. If they dont "play like a girl," if they play aggressively or positionally instead, well, then something is suspicious. They dont fit into the stereotype.

With FIDE being the official governing body of chess, a lot of talks have been done regarding the issues that women face in chess. But talking is not enough. "The support is great," says Ayeln Martnez, "but I want to see action. Tell us exactly what youre going to do about [all these issues], in concrete steps." Every governing body, organization, chess club, and event organizer has the responsibility to create a safe environment for the players and shall be held accountable for it.

As a society, we can all play a role in making the chess community safer and more supportive for all players. We can:

Parents and coaches need to raise their children in a gender-bias-free environment, where both talented boys and girls are being told equal things about their abilities. An environment where playing a girl shouldnt be viewed as easier and losing to a girl shouldnt be shameful.

We see and hear it everywhere. In books, in movies, in chess courses, and in our everyday conversations. A chess genius is always a "he." An unknown, online opponent is always a "he." Even women make these references and assumptions. We need to incorporate more "she" and "they" into our chess language. And "we have to watch how we phrase a sentence when we want to uplift someones knowledge," remarks Judit, to avoid references such as "you play like a boy." Her way of inspiring girls is to tell them, "Be the best you can!"

It can be extremely difficult for a person who has experienced any sort of harassment to speak up about it. Nonetheless, speaking up is important. And what is more important is that men also need to step in. If they see something is not right, they need to escalate it and help the victim deal with the situation.

The chess community needs to decide how to address and escalate issues and misconduct and establish a centralized dispute mechanism. The right questions to ask, says Alisa, are: Is there a sexual harassment policy in place? Can people make complaints in a confidential way? Will conflicts be escalated to the right people? Is there a dispute resolution in place? How can conflicts get resolved in a way that is fair? All chess players need to be aware of the policies and procedures that are going to be put in place.

Many chess federations and organizations, including FIDE, are run predominantly by men. As such, it is difficult for a woman to raise her concerns to a man. These federations should be protecting us when were speaking out, says Ayeln. But we are fighting alone. Womens involvement also means hiring more female coaches and engaging female role models. This is not just for girls. Boys would benefit from this too. While this might be logistically difficult, we still have to try, says Jennifer.

Now is the time to think about all of the above issues and to take appropriate action. Each one of us can change the chess environment for the better and prevent the next headline.

And with this important discussion in place, we can now all begin to feel a little more optimistic about the future of chess. We can all try to be the best we can be. Chess is a game that builds invaluable skills and fosters amazing friendships. And, as Alisa stated, "The chess community is worth fighting for!"

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Women's Roundtable: The Experiences Of Women In Chess - Chess.com

We published the first in an occasional series of reprints of important Soviet-era essays and articles in the April issue of Chess Life. It is a translation by Douglas Griffin of GM Vladimir Simagins Ataka pri raznotsvetnykh slonakh, or Attack with Opposite-Colored Bishops, which appeared in Shakhmaty v SSSR (5:1962). Because this article was written some 60 years ago, the author did not have the luxury of checking his work with our metal friends. We point out a few important corrections in endnotes, which you may ignore if you are so inclined.

Vladimir Simagin (1919-1968) was an important theorist and trainer, working with GM Vasily Smyslov during his world championship years, GM Alexander Kotov, and a young IM Mark Dvoretsky, who cites him in many of his books, and this article specifically in Positional Play. A mainstay of the Moscow chess scene, and three times city champion, he was also a leading journalist, as evidenced by his work on the Bulletin of the Central Chess Club and in articles like the one in our April issue.

Simagin was seen by his peers to be among the most creative and well-respected players of his day. GM David Bronstein wrote of Simagins enviable number of the most varied tactical and strategic ideas, while Dvoretsky described him as a true artist with original ideas and profound thoughts... I recommend that you study his selected games. For some time it was a standard reference work for me.

We hope that you will read this article, which is available to all US Chess members in digital format, and in print for those who have chosen the print add-on. As a bit of a appetizer, we have pulled out six tactics from Simagins career for this weeks Wednesday Workout. You should be looking for moves that deliver mate or win material, but there are also puzzles where youll need to find the right move to stay equal or not get mated. Keep your eyes open!

If you are inspired to learn more about Simagins career, check out Aidan Woodgers Vladimir Simagin (The Chess Player, 2000), which is largely a translation of Simagins best games collection, and GM Mihail Marins newly published Learning chess with Vladimir Simagin: A Quest for beauty (Pawn Books, 2022).

Download our printable worksheet or solve along with our interactive Lichess study, embedded below.

See the rest here:
Wednesday Workout: A Blast From The Past | US Chess.org - uschess.org

While GMs Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren were in their final preparations for the battle of the crown, soon-to-be former World Champion Magnus Carlsen and his club Offerspill invited some of the hopes of the next generation to a training camp in the Norwegian mountains.

"It's good to get some young players here. I try to inspire them. We have good trainers here who try to teach them properly as well," Carlsen said.

The coaches included Carlsen's long-lasting second, GM Peter Heine Nielsen, Swedish author and coach Jesper Hall, Indian star coach GM Ramesh R.B., Champions Chess Tour commentator David Howell and Germany's GM Elisabeth Paehtz.

Young players from 11 countries participated. Among those who eagerly listened to Carlsen's wisdom were Indian teenage GMs Raunak Sadhwani and Praggnanandhaa R.

"The main reason why I came here is because I wanted to know how he thinks. In my opinion, he is a genius," Sadhwani said.

Praggnanandhaa added: "He relies more on his intuitive thinking and less on his calculation, which was very interesting for me, because I'm the other way around."

Norway's number-two, the 23-year-old GM Aryan Tari, who also took part in the camp, commented: "It's just very interesting to be here and see how he prepares for the world championshipand his psychology in general."

The sessions must have been fascinating for the participants who heard Carlsen describe his career and explain what made him dominate the game for over a decade. He told the group of young talents: "I think the most important thing I realized over the years is that a lot of people fear me. Once you realize that your opponent is not mentally prepared to play for a win, then you can take a lot more chances."

Once you realize that your opponent is not mentally prepared to play for a win, then you can take a lot more chances.Magnus Carlsen

Carlsen also described one of his key skills throughout his careerthe ability to squeeze blood out of a stone and win seemingly equal endgames:"I really had to force myself to say that 'you have to continue! You're not better by any means, but you have to continue to play.' I've won so many games that way over the years."

Carlsen, knocked out of the Chessable Masters by GM Hikaru Nakamura in his last major tournament as the world chess champion, says he doesn't consider this an end of an era quite yet, despite having given up his title.

"I haven't got any plans right now to follow the world championship. I mean, I will probably follow it, but I don't think I will go out of my way to watch the games. But I will check out the games for sure."

Asked who he thinks or hopes will be the next world champion, Carlsen said with a grin:"I don't care."

Read this article:
Carlsen Coaching Young Talents As World Championship Begins - Chess.com