ICCA Journal, Volume 22:  Number 4  (December 1999)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial:                                                                                          
    The Last Issue (H.J. van den Herik) ........................................................ 193
Contributions:                                                                                      
    KQQKQQ and the Kasparov-World Game (E.V. Nalimov, C. Wirth, and G.McC. Haworth) ............ 195
    Rotated Bitmaps, a New Twist on an Old Idea (R.M. Hyatt) ................................... 213
    Learning Piece-Square Values using Temporal Diffences (D.F. Beal and M. Smith) ............. 223
Notes:                                                                                              
    The Kasparov-World Match (P. Marko and G.McC. Haworth) ..................................... 236
    Two Strategic Shortcomings in Chess Programs (J. van Reek, J.W.H.M. Uiterwijk,                  
        and H.J. van den Herik) ................................................................ 239
Review:                                                                                             
    Hands off Hans! (D. Hartmann) .............................................................. 241
Reports:                                                                                            
    Advanced Shuffle Chess with Technical Improvements (I. Althoefer) .......................... 245
    Report on the 19th Open Dutch Computer-Chess Championship (Th. van der Storm) .............. 252
    Calendar of Computer-Games Events in 1999 and 2000 ......................................... 254
    Report on the First Meeting of the Special Issue Group on Games Informatics (H. Iida,           
        H. Matsubara, and A. Yoshikawa) ........................................................ 255
    ICCA Journal Referees in 1999 (The Editorial Board) ........................................ 257
    The Swedish Rating List (T. Karlsson) ...................................................... 258
    Brains of the Earth (J. Nunn and F. Friedel) ............................................... 259

ABSTRACTS OF SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES

KQQKQQ and the Kasparov-World Game

Eugene V. Nalimov, Christoph Wirth, and Guy McC. Haworth

[22(4):195-212]   The 1999 Kasparov-World game for the first time enabled anyone to join a team playing against a World Chess Champion via the web. It included a surprise in the opening, complex middle-game strategy and a deep ending. As the game headed for its mysterious finale, the World Team requested a KQQKQQ endgame table and was provided with two by the authors. This paper describes their work, compares the methods used, examines the issues raised and summarises the concepts involved for the benefit of future workers in the endgame field. It also notes the contribution of this endgame to chess itself.

Rotated Bitmaps, a New Twist on an Old Idea

Robert M. Hyatt

[22(4):213-222]   This paper describes some developments related to using bitmaps (64-bit integers using one bit for each square of the chessboard). In late 1994, after the ACM computer-chess event in Cape May, New Jersey, I decided to embark on a complete replacement chess program for CRAY BLITZ. I was interested in using the bitmap approach mentioned by Slate and Atkin in CHESS 4.X to determine for myself whether this approach was suitable for chess or not. In developing this new program, the concept of rotated bitmaps was developed, and this turned out to be what was needed to make this type of data structure produce reasonable performance.

Learning Piece-Square Values Using Temporal Differences

Don F. Beal and Michael C. Smith

[22(4):223-235]   This paper reports on the results obtained from using improved temporal difference learning methods to learn piece-square weight sets for use in a chess program. The learning takes place solely from self-play, starting from zero values. A comparison is made between values learnt from piece weights only, and piece weights plus positional weights. The weight sets obtained, when displayed as grey-scale diagrams matching chessboards, can be visually seen to correspond to various items of simple chess knowledge of the type found in elementary chess books, and regarded as basic information for beginning chess players. The paper also considers the effect of the squashing function used to map evaluations into probabilities-to-win.

The Kasparov-World Match

Peter Marko and Guy McC. Haworth

[22(4):236-238]   (Text still missing ...)

Two Strategic Shortcomings in Chess Programs

Jan van Reek, Jos W.H.M. Uiterwijk, and H. Jaap van den Herik

[22(4):239-240]   (Text still missing ...)

EDITORIAL

The Last Issue

H. Jaap van den Herik

[22(4):193-194]   This last issue of the ICCA Journal coincides with the end of the century, in which the computer-chess programmers have achieved their aim of beating the human World Champion. The researchers are now looking for the next challenge. For some, it is solving the game. Although this is considered to be practically impossible, persistent computer-chess researchers have already made the first step in this direction by digging up new knowledge from databases or by postulating and showing some empirical evidence that the game is a win for White.

For other researchers, the next century must show the applicability of the computer-chess techniques in other games. Since the ICCA will serve both groups, it was decided (see Vol. 22, No. 3) that after January 1, 2000 the ICCA Journal will continue under the name ICGA Journal, meaning the International Computer Games Association Journal. The official transformation of ICCA into ICGA will take place at the next Triennial Meeting in 2002. For the moment, readers will be a member of the ICCA and will receive the ICGA Journal.

The Editorial Board will be broadened and in the spirit of the IJCAI-97 Workshop (Nagoya, 1997), the CG'98 Conference (Tsukuba, 1998) and the ACG9 Conference (Paderborn, 1999) the pages will be open to research results from other games, such as Go, Shogi, Backgammon, Bridge, Poker, Sokoban, Scrabble and Crosswords. We stress that the ICGA Journal focuses on computer games and/or the use of computers in games. In this respect we are complementary to the Mathematical Games Section of Theoretical Computer Science, where the emphasis is laid on the mathematical and computational analysis of games.

The transformation of the ICCA Journal into the ICGA Journal will open the door to breakthroughs in a plethora of games, some of them still to be invented. Knowing the perseverance of many researchers the following question posed more than ten years ago at the Second Computer Olympiad will soon become more prominent: Which Games Will Survive? Will it be Go, Shogi or Chess? Or will it be a new popular game, for instance comparable with Rubik's Cube? To your Editor, such questions also will be a guideline for his publication policy, i.e., he will support contributions on how humans play games in comparison with computers, on cognitive research, on social aspects of game-playing programs, on philosophical issues, etc.

Together with this invitation for contributions, I would like to stress that the ICGA Journal will maintain the standards of the ICCA Journal as achieved over the years. It is a scientific Journal and as such recognised by the ISI (Institute for Scientific Information). The usual procedures with peer refereeing etc. will be continued. All in all, the ICGA Journal constitutes a new challenge for Editors and contributors alike.

Looking back into the century behind us, I would like to thank many persons with whom I have worked quite closely to give the Journal its present status and prestige. You all did a superb job and I am sure that the ICCA Journal was instrumental in achieving the goal of defeating Garry Kasparov. Next to the editorial staff, I would like to name two persons who did a fantastic job in bringing the Journal up to the level of being recognised world-wide as a leader in the field, by contributing themselves and by encouraging many other (young) researchers. They are the late Professor Bob Herschberg of the Delft University of Technology and Professor Jonathan Schaeffer of the University of Alberta. Thank you, gentlemen!

This last issue contains a somewhat paradoxical issue. Since 1997 the computer-chess community is proud that the DEEP BLUE researchers (Feng-hsiung Hsu, Murray Campbell, C.J. Tan, Joseph Hoane, Jerry Brody and Joel Benjamin) defeated Garry Kasparov. However, in this issue the same community admits, even in two contributions, that their findings did not provide sufficient support for the World Team in their contest with Garry Kasparov. The human World Champion has taken revenge for his 1997 defeat by beating the World Team (a combination of computers, computer-chess researchers, grandmasters including the FIDE World Champion Khalifman, etc.) convincingly in an exciting game. Quite a top performance! We offer Garry Kasparov our congratulations, and hope to report soon on his participation in a world-championship match with computers involved.

In the foreseeable future we look forward to three such matches, viz. the Advanced Chess World Championship, the Shuffle Chess World Championship and the "normal" World Chess Championship. In the past we have reported on Othello and Checkers matches in which the World Champion was involved. Now we envisage (1) reporting on analogous matches in many other games in our news section which will be maintained, and (2) putting on record the underlying scientific and technological breakthroughs in scientific contributions.

Finally, the very last issue of this last issue is money. We encourage all our members to renew their membership for themselves and to offer their game-playing partners a membership for 2000 to become familiar with many distinct computer games. Meanwhile we will strengthen our ties with the Mind Sports Olympiad, during which we will be organising the World PC-based Chess Championship (previously WMCC). For the next century we have diversities of games and contributions, but the same spirit: finding the ultimate truth in whatever game.