Chess from the dead

Between 1985 and 1993 Victor Korchnoi played a game of chess by mail against a psychic medium, Richard Rollans, who was apparently receiving his moves from the deceased chess player Geza Maroczy. The game lasted for 47 moves and ended with Korchnoi winning. There are a number of aspects to this game which are highlighted as evidence of after-death communications, but I shall focus on the discussion of Maroczy's playing style.

Geza Maroczy from Wikipedia

The game began in June 1985, with Rollans as white and Korchnoi as black. The first seven moves of both players are book play: they followed the standard opening of the French Defence, Winawer variation.

While this particular opening was known during his lifetime, Maroczy himself never played it, although he knew and used other variations of the French Defence. Interestingly, Korchnoi had played this uncommon opening as black only a few months earlier, against Ljubujevic, and Korchnoi lost.

Korchnoi commented during the game that "His play is old-fashioned. But... I am not sure I will win," and chess commentator Helmut Metz wrote that Korchnoi's opponent "controlled the end-game like the old masters from the first half of the century.”

But both Korchnoi's and Metz's comments were made when they knew of the supernatural source of "Maroczy"s moves, and are possibly over keen to see Maroczy's style in their interpretation. For example, Metz did liken the end game to the tactics of the old masters, but he also commends "Maroczy" twice for adopting newer styles of play during the game!

List of moves, from Neppe 2007

In a paper published in the JSPR in 2007, Neppe describe Maroczy's playing standard as being that of an high expert/low master, and he interpreted that as being a reasonable level for a Grand Master who'd been dead (and, one assumes, not regularly studying chess) for some decades. He also wrote at some length about how the moves couldn't have come from a computer.

One of the moves that Maroczy made was not on the list of suggestions by Sigma Chess 6.0 nor Fritz 9, the programs that Neppe was using to analyse the game and, therefore, unlikely to have been suggested by a computer. The move in question, 12. Bb5, is considered (along with Maroczy's move ten) to be the weakest move of the game.

I wanted to know how the game would be interpreted by someone who wasn't aware of the supernatural surroundings of the match, and by someone who was a little more knowledgeable of the game than myself. I went to a local chess club and there I asked a Chess Master who specialised in game analysis. I wanted to keep the spiritualist side of the game from him, and instead I asked if it was possible to detect a large age difference in the ages of two people playing. I considered this to be a suitable question, since most of the comments on the game have been about how Maroczy's style seemed “old fashioned” or particularly redolent of the 1930s.

He said it was impossible. He went on to say that some people think you can make those kind of judgements from the moves in a chess game, but it was like reading tea leaves, and people tended to read into things whatever they wanted to. Later, reading a book about machines that could play chess, I saw a quote from the Irish chess player C. H. O'D. Alexander,

“You cannot easily tell a computer from a human player by the style of its game. One sees exactly the characteristics the layman would least expect. The computer is not mechanically accurate and dull, but wild, ingenious and undisciplined.”

And of course, I wrote about my experiences playing 1K ZX Chess, when suddenly this extremely simple program pushed its queen into the centre of the board in what seemed to me like quite a dramatic and adventurous move. So, the idea that the style of chess can give you clues to the nature of the player seems to be on shaky ground.

References:

Eisenbeiss, W., Hassler, D. (2006), "An Assessment Of Ostensible Communications With A Deceased Grandmaster As Evidence For Survival", Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol 70.2, No. 883, pp 65-82

Neppe, V.M., (2007), “A Detailed Analysis of an Important Chess Game: Revisiting Maroczy versus Korchnoi”, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol 71.3, No. 888, pp 129-147

http://web.archive.org/web/20010728194306/http://www.rochadekuppenheim.de/meko/meko1a/m12.htm

Maroczy's use of the French Defence
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?page=1&pid=10004&playercomp=white&eco=C00-C19&title=Geza%20Maroczy%20playing%20the%20French%20Defense%20as%20White&eresult=

Karpov vs Mephisto 1983
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068349

Ljubujevic vs Korchnoi, March 1985
http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/2323993

Hitech vs Denker 1988
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/26/nyregion/for-first-time-a-chess-computer-outwits-grandmaster-in-tournament.html

Chess problems in poetry

The following poem, attributed to "M.E.Y." from Middle Temple, descibes a game of Chess between two Persians said to have taken place in the tenth century. One player, white, had lost steadily throughout that game and had subsequently lost more and more of his wealth in bets. Right at the end, he wagers the hand of his wife.

At this point, from a room above, comes the voice of his wife (who was clearly the better chess player of the two) giving him advise on how to win the game. I thought it quite a neat way to present a chess puzzle.

For those who don't care for poetry, the hint is in the final verse, alongside an illustration the position of the game.


The Persian Gamester

Where the stream of Solofrena
Winds along the silent vale;
Where the palm trees softly murmur,
Waving to the gale.

By the myrtie woven windows
Of an old romantic feat,
Sat at Chefs two noble Persions,
Shelter'd from the scorching heat.

Here with beating brest, Alcanzor
View'd the deep eventful play,
Here with black o'er-arching eye-brows
Sat the Caliph Mahmed Bey.

But with wary eye the Persian
Arks each passion of the heart;
And the gallant brave Alcanzor
Yields, a victim to his art.

Soon his ancient store of treasures.
Soon his wealth and wide doman,
Soon the glories of his Fathers
Fall – the crafty Caliph's gain.

Now he maddens as the lion
Raging thro' the desert grove;
Now with desperate death he pledges.
Zaida's beauty, Zaida's love.

Mohmed-Bey the offer seizes,
Triumph glistens in his eyes.
Ah! Rash youth, that thou hadst never
Dar'd to risk so fair a prize!

For impending ruin threatens
To devote the hapless love:
But what piercing accents issue
From the latticed height above?

'Tis the beauteous Zaida crying,
Half-distracted – "Oh! My life,
"To thy foe concede thy Castle,
"And from death preserve thy Wife!"

References
The Monthly Magazine, May 1800, Vol 9:1, p365
However, Michael J Franklin writes in his book "Orientalist Jones: Sir William Jones, Poet, Lawyer, and Linguist, 1746-1794" (2011) that the poem predates 1800. It may be worth noting that later that year, in the Derby Mercury from 6 November 1800, the poem is reproduced on page three but with the attribution to "M.E.Y." missing.

Chess and Military Strategies

While looking through an old sketchbook, I found a note I'd made about a chess strategy based on military thinking, instead of the more usual study of previous chess games. I did a little searching and soon found that someone called it "the worst chess book we've ever had in the English language." By now, I went from curious to being fascinated.

The method was devised by Franklin Knowles Young, and the first book I looked at was "Chess Generalship" from 1910. (available on the Internet Archive)

My chess isn't good enough to say whether or not the advice given is any good, but it's certainly given in a strange way. It describes the ways each chess piece moves in terms of topography, such that Rooks (and Queens) are said to sit in place where four (or eight) valleys meet with impassable mountains on each side. Knights go through wooded areas, and as for bishops, who only have access to half of the sixty-four squares on the board:

"the Topographical Horizon of the Bishop takes the form of a broken country, dotted with high hills, deep lakes, impenetrable swamps, and thick woodlands." [p.78]

It's certainly a charming idea, but I'm not sure how visualising the board in such a way can help your game. Another odd thing about the book is that it illustrates the wisdom of its advice, not with illustrations from chess matches, but from historic battles. How these relate to various openings and defences in chess is never made clear.

Later, Mr Young criticised Castling as being neither mathematical nor strategic in value. He describes the rule of the King moving two spaces either left or right as "infantile" and instead suggests the rules should be:

"The King of Castling should deploy in one move to that point where, as the Base of Operations, it mathematically harmonizes with that Strategic Front, which is, or must become, established." [p.101]

So that's clear, then.

In fact, Mr Young often uses arcane language and some algebraic-looking equations to prove his point, without a single chessboard in the whole book. This made following his reasoning a little difficult. And he is amusingly dismissive of people who play chess for fun, deriding them as "wood-shifters".

Next I looked at "The Grand Tactics of Chess" (from 1897, the aforementioned "worst chess book ever") which is also available for download at the Internet Archive.

At first, this is easier to read, with illustrations and positions described in chess notation. But before long Mr Young falls back into his usual verbose ways. For example, this set up on page fifty-nine is described as:

"In the language of chess strategics White occupies the logistic horizon, thus opening communication with the kindred hypothetical force, and enabling a portion of the latter to enter the topographical zone and effect a junction with the kindred determinate force, the united forces being the greater force as compared to the adverse determinate force."

Mr Young seemed to be a half-decent chess player himself. Chessgames.com lists twelve games of which he won eight and drew two, so he clearly wasn't a bad player. But this method seems to have been completely lost to time. Perhaps because he gave only vague platitudes about what to do in certain situations, and even those were awash with jargon, quotes from historical figures and poetic outbursts. There's no reference to any of the recognised chess openings, which makes this book stand apart in the chess world.

Apart and, ultimately, irrelevant.

Chess in 1K

Since it's the 30th anniversary of the ZX81 computer, I thought I'd write about what I think is one of the most amazing pieces of programming ever: 1K ZX Chess.

In 1983, David Horne wrote a program that would play a game of chess that ran on the Sinclair ZX81 computer using just 1K of memory. As one of the smallest versions of the game to have a visual display of the board, it stands as a remarkable achievement. If sculpture can be described as starting with a block and whittling away anything that doesn't "feel" like the thing you're trying to create, then David has done something similar to the ZX81's tiny memory. It's hard to believe that there's a single byte left in the program that doesn't have some element of “chessness” to it.

Of course, to fit the greatest game ever into such a small space necessitated certain limitations. The program always plays as white and only makes one of two opening moves, depending which side of the cassette was used to load the game... king's pawn to king's pawn three (van't Kruijs' Opening), or queen's pawn to queen's pawn three (Miese's Opening).

The artificial intelligence of 1K ZX Chess could only look one move in advance, and the program had no concept of the newer rules of the game (ie, after the sixteenth century) such as castling, en passant, and promotion of pawns. Nevertheless, within these 672 bytes of code lie the barest bones of chess, as if this is the absolute zero of chess and below this it cannot exist in any recognisable form.

Playing the game isn't that satisfying, as it has a fondness for moving the rook back and forth between a1 and a2. If you want to break this cycle then you have to attack the square a2, and only then does it turn its attention to other things. So it's possible for it to play a good game, but only if the human opponent acts as a kind of sheepdog, guiding it towards the right move. Or at least away from a really wrong one.

If it takes one monkey seventy thousand years to type “TOBEORNOTTOBE”, then how long before 1K ZX Chess accidentally plays like a grandmaster? Having no memory of the previous game to learn from, it would be a fleeting success, never to be seen again but is there at least the potential for this game to mimic the style of every master who ever studied the game? I hope so. In one game, it suddenly pushed its queen into the fray in what seemed like a very bold and romantic move. It didn't last, though, but for a moment I felt like Prof Higgins in My Fair Lady, and I wanted to call out “By George, I think it's got it!”

(Oh, and here's a blog post in which 1K ZX Chess goes up against a newcomer to the 1K chess world, Tiny Chess.)