The Future of Computer Chess

Computer-Chess Events have a long and illustrious history, beginning with New York in August 1970, when Monty Newborn and his organizing committee put together the first computer-chess tournament. From the earliest annual events in America, which used state-of-the-art technology (acoustic couplers!) for linking terminals and remote computers, through the first World Championship in Stockholm in 1974-when a concerted effort was made to have at least one competitor from each contributing country-to the introduction in 1980 of the first event exclusively for on-site microcomputers, an enthusiastic band of participants and organizers has worked to make things happen. Although solid chess programs, notably MacHack 6, were established prior to 1970, it was the participants to that first event who inevitably led the formation of the International Computer Chess Association, dedicated to the support and encouragement of chess programmers. Those of us who have been involved since that time get some satisfaction from being around while history is made, and have looked forward with excitement to the Deep Blue against Kasparov match in February. Our regular events have grown steadily over the years. The 1995 year saw the 8th World Championship in Hong Kong, where the strongest chess programs were brought together to provide an open competition between remote giant computers and highly-tuned opponents using local top-of-the-line microcomputers. Later that year the 13th Microcomputer Chess Championship took place in Paderborn, Germany, where-even though the remote computers were excluded-the ranks swelled from 24 competitors to 33 (the largest ever for an event of this type). With all these rapid developments and changes, the future for computer-chess events seems to be very bright. The very existence of Gary "Kasparov's" upcoming match against Deep Blue, hosted by the ACM and run under the auspices of the ICCA, signals an additional level of recognition for computer chess. Just as the ICCA's regular championships continue to grow in importance, so does interest in events such as the AEGON Tournament, the Harvard Cup, and the INTEL Chess Challenge. Nevertheless, who will find the time and money to make all this possible? Such questions must be asked and addressed quite quickly, because the lead time in planning a major event increases and the financial support necessary to make Computer Chess Championships possible is increasingly significant. Many people do not know that it took about $60,000 to host the 1989 World Championship in Edmonton, that $80,000 was provided to put on …