Kaissa () was a

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

program developed in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in the 1960s. It was named so after

Caissa Caissa may refer to: * Caïssa Caïssa is a fictional (anachronistic) Thracian dryad portrayed as the goddess of chess. She was first mentioned during the Renaissance by Italian poet Hieronymus Vida. Vida's poem The concept of Caïssa originat ...

, the goddess of chess. Kaissa became the first world computer chess champion in 1974 in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

History

By 1967, a computer program by

Georgy Adelson-Velsky Georgy Maximovich Adelson-Velsky (; name is sometimes transliterated as Georgii Adelson-Velskii) (8 January 1922 – 26 April 2014) was a Soviet mathematician and computer scientist. Born in Samara, Adelson-Velsky was originally educated as ...

, Vladimir Arlazarov, Alexander Bitman and Anatoly Uskov on the M-2 computer in

Alexander Kronrod Aleksandr Semyonovich Kronrod (; October 22, 1921 – October 6, 1986) was a Soviet mathematician and computer scientist, best known for the Gauss–Kronrod quadrature formula which he published in 1964. Earlier, he worked on computational so ...

’s laboratory at the

Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics The Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP; Russian Институт теоретической и экспериментальной физики) is a multi-disciplinary research center located in Moscow, Russia. ITEP carries ou ...

had defeated

Kotok-McCarthy Kotok-McCarthy, also known as A Chess Playing Program for the IBM 7090 Computer' was the first computer program to play chess convincingly. It is also remembered because it played in and lost the first chess match between two computer programs. ...

running on the

IBM 7090 The IBM 7090 is a second-generation Transistor computer, transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computer that was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 is the fourth member o ...

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. By 1971,

Mikhail Donskoy Mikhail Vladimirovich Donskoy (), (8 August 1948 – 13 January 2009) was a Soviet and Russian computer scientist. In 1970 he graduated from Moscow State University and joined the Institute of Control Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences ...

joined with Arlazarov and Uskov to program its successor on an ICL 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'' (; ) is a daily Russian tabloid newspaper that was founded in 1925. Its name is in reference to the official Soviet newspaper '' Pravda'' (English: 'Truth'). History and profile During the Soviet era, ''Komsomolskaya ...

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

'' who gave the program its name, ''Kaissa''. Kaissa became the first world computer chess champion 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 Draw, drawing, draws, or drawn most commonly refer to: * Draw (terrain), a terrain feature formed by two parallel ridges or spurs with low ground in between them * Draw (tie), in a competition, where competitors achieve equal outcomes * Draw ...

. The success of Kaissa can be explained by the many innovations it introduced. It was the first program to use

bitboard A bitboard is a specialized bit array data structure commonly used in computer systems that play board games, where each bit corresponds to a game board space or piece. This allows parallel bitwise operations to set or query the game state, or d ...

s. Kaissa contained an opening book with 10,000 moves,KAISSA
by Bill Wall. had a

permanent brain In turn-based games, permanent brain (also called pondering) is the act of thinking during the opponent's turn. Chess engines that continue calculating even when it is not their turn to play end up choosing moves that are stronger than if they are ...

during opponents' moves,, used a novel

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

for move

pruning Pruning is the selective removal of certain parts of a plant, such as branches, buds, or roots. It is practiced in horticulture (especially fruit tree pruning), arboriculture, and silviculture. The practice entails the targeted removal of di ...

null-move heuristic In computer chess programs, the null-move heuristic is a heuristic technique used to enhance the speed of the alpha–beta pruning algorithm. Rationale Alpha–beta pruning speeds the minimax algorithm by identifying ''cutoffs'', points in the g ...

, 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 Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...

, where it finished tied for sixth to eleventh place in a field of eighteen competitors. 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 rather than chess. An

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...

version of Kaissa was developed in 1990. It took fourth place in the 2nd Computer Olympiad 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 Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, 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 university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

. 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 In chess, a queen sacrifice is a move that sacrifices a queen, the most powerful piece, in return for some compensation, such as a tactical or positional advantage. Queen sacrifice: real versus sham In his book ''The Art of Sacrifice in Ches ...

. 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'', {{Early history of video games Chess software History of chess Computing in the Soviet Union Chess in the Soviet Union

History

Notable games

See also

References

External links