Sam Trenholme wrote on Tue, Dec 26, 2006 10:51 AM UTC:
Chess is dead. OK, let me rephrase that--it was hard to come up with a
decent heading in 16 characters or less. Chess, as a recreation studied
by humans alone is dead. With the defeat of world champion Kramnik by a
computer this last October, and the failure of a human to defeat a
computer in a classical tournament since the 1990s, a good move in a chess
position is now found by mechanical calculation instead of human artistry.
What does this mean for chess variants? It means that the study of
variants will now be greatly computer assisted. This also means the end
of romantic gambits--no computer will give the king's gambit or other
romantic gambits a second thought. It also limits tournament options--we
either allow computers to generate moves, or have a honor system that bars
tournaments being played for prizes.
On the other hand, it does allow the automated creation of opening books.
Greg Stong did some of this work with his ChessV program; I expanded on his
research to create an article for openings in a variant I have created
myself.
So, computers have definitely changed the landscape.
