Advanced chess

"[2] The concept of computer-assisted chess tournaments originated in science fiction, notably in The Peace War written by Vernor Vinge in 1984.

The former world champion grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who retired from competitive chess in 2005, has a long history in playing "Man vs. Machine" events.

The Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand won three consecutive tournaments in 1999, 2000 and 2001, before losing the title to Vladimir Kramnik in 2002.

[6] After the loss to Kramnik, Anand said:[citation needed] I think in general people tend to overestimate the importance of the computer in the competitions.

During the match, the players will typically form strategic plans in their minds, then enter the candidate sequences of moves into the computer to analyze and make sure there are no blunders and other possible holes.

The human player will compare the merits of each candidate sequence after having seen the computer's analysis, and may even introduce a new variation if time permits.

Although advanced-chess play is at the highest Elo rating level when performed by the top grandmasters, it is not limited to them.

Occasionally, average players have been able to achieve a performance higher than computer programs and top grandmasters.

At the same time that CCO ended (2005), the PAL/CSS Freestyle Tournament was born, sponsored by the PAL Group on Abu Dhabi and implemented by CSS (Computer-Schach und Spiele) on the Playchess server run by the German company ChessBase.

To the surprise of many who were certain that the GMs would prove superior, it was an amateur player – expert in the use of chess software – who won the challenge.

[14] ChessBase, for the 2008 Dresden Chess Olympics, organized the Computer Bild Spiele Schach Turnier, which was won by the Italian Eros Riccio.

[citation needed] A computer engine (Zor) ended first in the freestyle Ultimate Challenge tournament (2017), while the first centaur (Thomas A. Anderson, Germany) ranked in 3rd place.

The first, based on results achieved in advanced-chess tournaments from 2005 to 2013, lists Sephiroth (Eros Riccio) in first place with 2755 points.

[17] The second, based on tournaments played from 2010 to 2014, lists Intagrand (David Evans, Anson Williams, Yingheng Chen and Nelson Hernandez) in first place with 2689 points.

[18] Centaur chess is sometimes invoked to argue that humans will continue to remain relevant as AI progresses.