Computer chess panel - 1983

Abstract

This year's ACM Annual Conference will host a unique event in the United States, the Fourth World Computer Chess Championship. ACM began sponsoring computer chess tournaments in 1970. The first world championship was held in Stockholm in 1974. Subsequent world championships were held in Toronto in 1977 and in Linz, Austria in 1980. One popular activity at ACM tournaments has been a panel discussion among the computer chess authors. This year, since the ACM is hosting the World Championship, the panel will include participants from the U.S. and Europe. We hope to hear from the authors of the three former World championship chess programs, KAISSA from the Institute for Systems Science in Moscow (1974), CHESS 4.6 from Northwestern University (1977), and BELLE from Bell Labs (1980). In addition, this year's tournament and panel will feature authors of microcomputer chess programs as well. Some of the questions to be discussed will be: Has the chess playing strength of the programs reached a plateau? Will research into “expert systems” migrate into the development of better chess programs? What is being done to use the 32-bit micros in chess programming? What about the “super” computers? We urge the audience to come prepared with questions, since these panels have elicited lively discussions in the past. This year should be no exception.