Kaissa (russian: Каисса) was a chess program developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. It was named so after

Caissa Caissa may refer to: * Caïssa, a mythical Thracian dryad portrayed as the goddess of chess * ''Caissa'' (moth), a moth genus in the family Limacodidae * Caissa Capital Caissa Capital was a hedge fund founded by Jonathan Kinlay in 2002, based on hi ...

, the goddess of chess. Kaissa became the first

world computer chess champion World Computer Chess Championship (WCCC) is an event held periodically since 1974 where computer chess engines compete against each other. The event is organized by the International Computer Games Association. It is often held in conjunction with ...

in 1974 in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

History

By 1967, a computer program by Georgy Adelson-Velsky, Vladimir Arlazarov, Alexander Bitman and Anatoly Uskov on the M-2 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 Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. By 1971, Mikhail Donskoy joined with Arlazarov and Uskov to program its successor on an

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System 4/70 at the Institute of Control Sciences. In 1972 the program played a correspondence match against readers of popular Russian newspaper, ''

Komsomolskaya Pravda ''Komsomolskaya Pravda'' (russian: link=no, Комсомольская правда; lit. "Komsomol Truth") is a daily Russian tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper, founded on 13 March 1925. History and profile During the Soviet era, ...

''. The readers won, 1½-½. It was the journalists of ''

'' who gave the program its name, ''Kaissa''. Kaissa became the first

in 1974 in

. The program won all four games and finished first ahead of programs " Chess 4", "Chaos" and "Ribbit", which got 3 points. 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 bitboards. Kaissa contained an opening book with 10,000 moves 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 Computer chess includes both hardware (dedicated computers) and software capable of playing chess. Computer chess provides opportunities for players to practice even in the absence of human opponents, and also provides opportunities for analysi ...

programs, but was new at that time. The last time when Kaissa participated in WCCC was its third championship, 1980 in Linz, where it finished tied for sixth to eleventh place. The development of Kaissa was stopped after that due to a decision by Soviet government that the programmer's time was better spent working on practical projects. An

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

version of Kaissa was developed in 1990. It took fourth place in the

2nd Computer Olympiad The Computer Olympiad is a multi-games event in which computer programs compete against each other. For many games, the Computer Olympiads are an opportunity to claim the "world's best computer player" title. First contested in 1989, the majori ...

in London in 1990.Mikhail Donskoy
"The Lifecycle of a Programmer"
''Polit.ru'', July 20, 2008 (in Russian)

Notable games

The second computer chess championship in 1977 in Toronto, featured an unusual game by Kaissa. In the diagram at right, Kaissa (black) was well ahead of its opponent, DUCHESS from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

. Kaissa was well ahead on the chess clock, but it gave away a rook with 34...Re8 and lost afterwards. After programmers entered the obvious move 34...Kg7 into the program, Kaissa explained why it did not play it: 34...Kg7 35. Qf8+!! Kxf8 36. Bh6+ Bg7 37. Rc8+ and White

checkmate Checkmate (often shortened to mate) is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check (threatened with ) and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game. In chess, the king is ...

s 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. Despite this, Kaissa finished the tournament tied for second place with DUCHESS, behind Chess 4.6.

References

External links

The chess games of Kaissa

Kaissa at Chess Programming Wiki
* Photo: ''CHAOS vs Kaissa at the 1st World Computer Chess Championship in Stockholm'', * Photo: ''Misha Donskoy at the World Computer Chess Championship in Stockholm'', {{cite web , title=photo in Core Online volume 5.1 , author=Newborn, Monroe , year=1974 , url=http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/full_record.php?iid=stl-430b9bbd8d8f4 , accessdate=2009-01-13 Chess software History of chess Computing in the Soviet Union Chess in the Soviet Union

History

Notable games

See also

References

External links