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Hubert Dreyfus Loses to Chess Engine Mac Hack VI

Analyze a computer chess critic's loss to an early chess engine

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Hubert Dreyfus, a professor of philosophy at MIT, later at Berkeley, was a critic of computer chess. In 1967 he was challenged to play a game of chess against the chess engine Mac Hack VI. Dreyfus (White) was an amateur player and while Mac Hack VI (Black) was not at all strong either, he lost. Some positions from the game will be analyzed using functions and the very strong built-in chess engine Arasan from the Wolfram Chess paclet. Code is provided at the end of this example to generate an animation of the entire game.

Setup
(5)

Install the Wolfram Chess paclet:

In[1]:=

PacletInstall["Wolfram/Chess"]

Load the paclet:

In[2]:=

Needs["Wolfram`Chess`"]

Import the game as a ChessGame object (get a ChessGame object by importing a PGN file):

In[3]:=

game=ChessGame

Hubert Dreyfus - MacHack VI

Date: 1967.09.22

;

This gets the corresponding FEN positions for each position in the game after the starting position:

In[4]:=

fens=Rest[game["FENs"]];

The default method for EngineEvaluate is to start and quit the built-in engine after an evaluation. This is avoided, and hence is faster, by starting the engine and not quitting until all evaluations are completed:

In[5]:=

engine=StartEngine[];

Auxiliary Functions
(1)



Getting Evaluations and Moves
(3)



Plot of Moves and Evaluations
(1)



Some Early Moves
(4)



Some Further Moves
(10)



Dreyfus Makes Some Good Moves and Mac Hack VI Some Bad Ones
(7)



Game Could Have Been Drawn By Dreyfus
(3)



Dreyfus Uses an Incorrect Idea and Mac Hack VI Regains a Big Advantage
(5)



Mac Hack VI Wins
(4)



Game Animation
(1)



Publisher Information

Contributed by: Jay Warendorff

Wolfram Language Example Repository

Hubert Dreyfus Loses to Chess Engine Mac Hack VI

Setup
(5)

Auxiliary Functions
(1)



Getting Evaluations and Moves
(3)



Plot of Moves and Evaluations
(1)



Some Early Moves
(4)



Some Further Moves
(10)



Dreyfus Makes Some Good Moves and Mac Hack VI Some Bad Ones
(7)



Game Could Have Been Drawn By Dreyfus
(3)



Dreyfus Uses an Incorrect Idea and Mac Hack VI Regains a Big Advantage
(5)



Mac Hack VI Wins
(4)



Game Animation
(1)



External Links

See Also

Publisher Information

Hubert Dreyfus Loses to Chess Engine Mac Hack VI

Setup (5)

Auxiliary Functions (1) 

Getting Evaluations and Moves (3) 

Plot of Moves and Evaluations (1) 

Some Early Moves (4) 

Some Further Moves (10) 

Dreyfus Makes Some Good Moves and Mac Hack VI Some Bad Ones (7) 

Game Could Have Been Drawn By Dreyfus (3) 

Dreyfus Uses an Incorrect Idea and Mac Hack VI Regains a Big Advantage (5) 

Mac Hack VI Wins (4) 

Game Animation (1) 

External Links

See Also

Publisher Information

Setup
(5)

Auxiliary Functions
(1)



Getting Evaluations and Moves
(3)



Plot of Moves and Evaluations
(1)



Some Early Moves
(4)



Some Further Moves
(10)



Dreyfus Makes Some Good Moves and Mac Hack VI Some Bad Ones
(7)



Game Could Have Been Drawn By Dreyfus
(3)



Dreyfus Uses an Incorrect Idea and Mac Hack VI Regains a Big Advantage
(5)



Mac Hack VI Wins
(4)



Game Animation
(1)

