Chess aesthetics

Aesthetics or beauty in chess is generally appreciated by both players and composers. This is evident, for example, in brilliancy prizes^[1][2][3] awarded to some games in certain tournaments and also in the world of chess composition. There are many books published featuring chess problems or puzzles that emphasize its aesthetic aspect.^[4][5][6] One of the earliest is from the 9th century AD.^[7] Aesthetics in chess can be both a source of pleasure for humans and also instruction as compositions or games featuring it typically illustrate original ideas or new instantiations of old ones. A good chess problem composer, however, is not necessarily a good player.

Factors about a game or move sequence (also referred to as a 'combination') that might cause it to be regarded as 'brilliant' by most players include, among other things: expediency, disguise, sacrifice, correctness, preparation, paradox, unity and originality. ‘Preparation’ refers to aesthetics perceived - say, in a particular combination - in great part due to the strategic play preceding it.^[8] ‘Unity’ typically refers to a 'cooperation' of all the pieces toward a particular goal (e.g. checkmate, winning material, controlling more space on the board). Composition conventions such as not having any checks or captures in the first (i.e. key) move, and the use of variations to illustrate a particular theme (e.g. zugzwang, pin) also play a role in the aesthetics of the game.

Conceptually, a 'common ground' of aesthetics between the domains of real (e.g. tournament) games and compositions can be established. These are beauty characteristics that apply approximately equally to both domains; examples include heuristic violations, economy and material sacrifice. This common ground is useful in computational models of aesthetics in the game because it helps in experiments comparing the beauty of compositions (on average, considered more beautiful) against the beauty of real games (on average, considered less beautiful).^[9] Some factors that pertain solely to real games (e.g. pressure under time control) or compositions (e.g. avoidance of castling moves) may be conflated with aesthetics in the game - and perhaps to some degree this is justifiable^[10] - however, they would lie outside the common ground described above.

CHESTHETICA v9.01

Two prototype computer programs have been developed that are able to detect and evaluate aesthetics in three-move mate problems and endgame studies. They are called CHESTHETICA ^{[11] [12]} and CHESTHETICA ENDGAME ^[13], respectively. They are not, at present, commercially available. These programs incorporate an experimentally-validated computational aesthetics model that uses formalizations of seventeen carefully selected aesthetic features, stochastic techniques (i.e. some randomness) and variations (to the main line played). The computational aesthetic evaluations correlate positively and well with competent human player/composer aesthetic assessment. From a psychological or aesthetic perception standpoint, the experimental results suggest that humans look at only 5 or 6 of the most prominent aesthetic features in a move sequence and 5 or 6 randomly selected variations (in addition to the main line) when evaluating beauty in the game.

References

1. ^ Damsky, I. (2002). Chess Brilliancy. Everyman Publishers, London, England.
2. ^ Avni, A. (1998). Creative Chess, Expanded Edition. Everyman Publishers, London, England. ISBN 978-1857441499.
3. ^ Smirnov, A. (1925). Красота в шахматной игре, Beauty at the Chess Game, (in Russian), Leningrad, Russia.
4. ^ Levitt, J. and Friedgood D. (2008). Secrets of Spectacular Chess, 2nd Edition (Expanded), 1 May, Everyman Chess, London, England. ISBN 978-1857445510
5. ^ Howard, K. (1967). The Enjoyment of Chess Problems. Dover Publications, New York, N.Y.
6. ^ Lipton, M., Matthews, R. C. O. and Rice, J. (1965).Chess Problems: Introduction to an Art, Citadel Press, New York, N.Y.
7. ^ Al-Adli, Book of Chess (in Arabic), as referenced in Nowakowski, R. J. (1998). Games of No Chance. Cambridge University Press.
8. ^ Sukhin, I. (2007). Chess Gems: 1000 Combinations You Should Know, Mongoose Press, Massachusetts, USA. ISBN 978-0979148255
9. ^ Iqbal, M. A. M. (2008). A Discrete Computational Aesthetics Model for a Zero-Sum Perfect Information Game, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. PDF
10. ^ Humble, P.N. (1995). The Aesthetics of Chess: A Reply to Ravilious. British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 390-394.
11. ^ Iqbal, A. (2010). Aesthetics in Mate-in-3 Combinations, Part I: Combinatorics and Weights, ICGA Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 140-148.
12. ^ Iqbal, A. (2010). Aesthetics in Mate-in-3 Combinations, Part II: Normality, ICGA Journal, Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 202-211.
13. ^ Iqbal, M. A. M., van der Heijden, H. and Guid, M. (2010). Research Project: A Computational Approach to Modelling Multi-Dimensional Human Aesthetic Perception (01-02-03-SF0188, RM 66,000). Completed October 2011. eScienceFund by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), Malaysia.