Kaissa

Kaissa ( _ru. Каисса) was a chess program developed in Soviet Union in the 1960s. It was named so after the chess goddess Caissa. Kaissa became the first world computer chess champion in 1974 in Stockholm.

History

Chess diagram|=
tright
Duchess – Kaissa
Second computer chess championship
Toronto, 1977
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8 |ql| | | | | |kd| |= 7 | | | | |rd|pd| |pd|= 6 | |pd| |qd| |bd|pd| |= 5 | |bl| |nd| | | | |= 4 | | | |pl|pd| |pl| |= 3 | | | | |bl| | |pl|= 2 |pl|pl| | | |pl| | |= 1 | | |rl| | | |kl| |= a b c d e f g h
Kaissa played 34...Re8? here. The computer saw a queen sacrifice with a forced checkmate after obvious 34...Kg7. By 1967, a computer program by Georgy Adelson-Velsky, Vladimir Arlazarov, Alexander Bitman and Anatoly Uskov on the [http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/m20.htm M-20] computer in Alexander Kronrod’s laboratory at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics had defeated Kotok-McCarthy running on the IBM 7090 at Stanford University. By 1971, [http://www.disco.ru/english/company/management.htm Mikhail V. Donskoy] joined with Arlazarov and Uskov to program its successor on an ICL System 4/70 at the [http://www.ipu.ru/engl/index.htm Institute of Control Sciences] . [ [http://www.computer-museum.ru/histsoft/kaissa1.htm Каисса] (in Russian), the history of the program, by Mikhail Donskoy.] In 1972 the program played a correspondence match against readers of popular Russian newspaper, "Komsomolskaya Pravda". The readers won, 1.5-0.5. It was the journalists of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" who gave the program its name, "Kaissa".

Kaissa became the first world computer chess champion in 1974 in Stockholm. The program won all 4 games and finished first before programs "Chess 4", "Chaos" and "Ribbit", which got 3 points [cite book |author=Е.Я. Гик |title=Шахматы и математика |publisher=Наука, Москва |year=1983 |url=http://ilib.mirror1.mccme.ru/djvu/bib-kvant/chess.htm (in Russian)] . After the championship, Kaissa and Chess 4 played a game, which ended in a draw. The success of Kaissa can be explained by the many innovations it introduced. It was the first program to use bitboard. Kaissa contained an opening book with 10,000 moves [ [http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/kaissa.htm KAISSA] by Bill Wall.] and used a novel algorithm for move pruning. Also it could search during the opponent's move, used null-move heuristic and had sophisticated algorithms for time management. All this is common in modern computer chess programs, but was new at that time.

The second computer chess championship in 1977 in Toronto, started with an unusual event. In the diagram at right, Kaissa, which played black, gave away a rook 34...Re8? and lost afterwards. After programmers entered the obvious move 34...Kg7 into the program, Kaissa explained why it didn't play it: 34...Kg7 35. Qf8+!! Kxf8 36. Bh6+ Bg7 37. Rc8 and white checkmates in two moves. This caused a sensation and was published in many chess magazines of that time. None of the human spectators present saw this nice queen sacrifice. As the result of this, Kaissa finished tournament 2nd-3rd (tied together with "Duchess" program). Chess 4 was the first this time.

The last time when Kaissa played was its third championship, 1980 in Linz, where it finished as 4th-7th. The development of Kaissa was stopped after that.

References

ee also

* Chess engine

External links

* [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=48721 The chess games of Kaissa]

* Photo: "CHAOS vs Kaissa at the 1st World Computer Chess Championship in Stockholm", cite web | title=Computer History Museum accession number 102645349 | author=Unknown photographer. Gift of M.M. Newborn. | date=1974 | url=http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/full_record.php?iid=stl-430b9bbd92710 | accessdate=2006-12-17
* Photo: "Misha Donskoy at the World Computer Chess Championship in Stockholm", cite web | title=photo in Core Online volume 5.1 | author=Unknown photographer. Gift of M.M. Newborn. | date=1974 | url=http://www.computerhistory.org/core/photos/photo01_08.html | accessdate=2006-12-17