Los Alamos chess (or anti-
clerical chess
[Anderson (1986), p. 105]) is a
chess variant played on a
6×6 board without
bishops. This was the first chess-like game played by a computer program. This program was written at
Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in ...
by
Paul Stein and
Mark Wells for the computer
[Pritchard (1994), p. 175] in 1956. The reduction of the board size and the number of pieces from standard
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
was due to the very limited capacity of computers at the time.
Game rules
The starting position is illustrated. All rules are as in
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
except:
* There is no
pawn
Pawn most often refers to:
* Pawn (chess), the weakest and most numerous piece in the game
* Pawnbroker or pawnshop, a business that provides loans by taking personal property as collateral
Pawn may also refer to:
Places
* Pawn, Oregon, an his ...
double-step move, nor is there the ''
en passant
''En passant'' (, "in passing") is a method of capturing in chess that occurs when a pawn captures a horizontally adjacent enemy pawn that has just made an initial two-square advance. The capturing pawn moves to the square that the enemy paw ...
'' capture;
*
Pawns may not be promoted to bishops;
* There is no
castling.
Los Alamos trials
The computer played three games. The first it played against itself. The second one was against a strong human player, who played
without a queen. The human player won. In the third game, MANIAC I played against a laboratory assistant who had been taught the
rules of chess in the preceding week specifically for the game. The computer won, marking the first time that a computer had beaten a human player in a chess-like game.
The third game
White:
MANIAC I
__NOTOC__
The MANIAC I (''Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator and Automatic Computer Model I'') was an early computer built under the direction of Nicholas Metropolis at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. It was based on the von Neuma ...
Black: Beginner
1.d3 b4 2.Nf3 d4 3.b3 e4 4.Ne1 a4 5.bxa4 Nxa4 6.Kd2 Nc3 7.Nxc3 bxc3+ 8.Kd1 f4 9.a3 Rb6 10.a4 Ra6 11.a5 Kd5 12.Qa3 Qb5 13.Qa2+ Ke5 14.Rb1 Rxa5 15.Rxb5 Rxa2 16.Rb1 Ra5 17.f3 Ra4 18.fxe4 c4 19.Nf3+ Kd6 20.e5+ Kd5 21.exf6=Q Nc5 22.Qxd4+ Kc6 23.Ne5
[Pritchard (1994), p. 176]
See also
*
Minichess
Minichess is a family of chess variants played with regular chess pieces and standard rules, but on a smaller board.
The motivation for these variants is to make the game simpler and shorter than standard chess. The first chess-like game implemen ...
References
Bibliography
Issue #14*
*
Further reading
* ''
Chess Review'', January 1957
External links
Los Alamos Chessby
Hans L. Bodlaender, ''
The Chess Variant Pages
''The Chess Variant Pages'' is a non-commercial website devoted to chess variants. It was created by Hans Bodlaender in 1995. The site is "run by hobbyists for hobbyists" and is "the most wide-ranging and authoritative web site on chess variants" ...
''
A short history of computer chessby Frederic Friedel
BrainKing.com- internet server to play Los Alamos chess.
{{Chess variants, state=collapsed
Chess variants
Computer chess
1956 in chess
Board games introduced in 1956