If you’ve ever played chess against a computer, you know the feeling: One small mistake… and suddenly your king is in trouble. Play a computer at full strength—and watch it choose excellent moves instantaneously—and it can be brutal!
Computers have been beating the best human players for decades, but it wasn’t always this way! So how did we get from wooden boards to unbeatable bots?
Let’s rewind. ♟️
The first “chess machine” wasn’t a machine
In 1770—long before electricity—Hungarian engineer Wolfgang von Kempelen unveiled a mysterious chess-playing machine, the Automaton Chess Player. It looked like a life-sized figure in Ottoman clothes, seated behind a cog-filled cabinet with a chess board on top.
The machine toured Europe, defeating famous chess hobbyists like Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin.
There was just one problem: Hidden inside the cabinet was a human chess player making the moves! The gears and cogs were just for show, distracting from a human-sized compartment within the machine.
The secret stayed hidden for more than 80 years, until the “machine” was destroyed in a fire in 1854.
A computer without a computer
Real progress in computer chess wasn’t made until 1948. After his crucial work cracking German codes in World War II, mathematician Alan Turing turned to a different puzzle: chess.
Together with David Champernowne, Turing created the first chess program, called Turochamp. This algorithm was capable of receiving information about a position and choosing a move using a set of logical rules.
Turochamp was developed long before the invention of electronic computers, so all calculations had to be done by hand. One move could take more than 30 minutes!
Slow? Yes—but it proved something important: Clear rules and step-by-step logic could produce real chess moves.
The real challenge (for humans *and* computers)
In 1950, mathematician and computer scientist Claude Shannon made the case that chess was the ideal test for computer science. If it were possible for computers to problem-solve for chess, then computer science could be applied to other areas and new questions.
In his research to develop an algorithm for playing chess, Shannon had to calculate a rough estimate for the total number of possible chess games. Today this number is called the Shannon number: 10120 (a 10 with 120 zeros) 🤯 That’s far more than the estimated number of atoms in the visible universe!
However, Shannon didn’t want to encode every possible game into his algorithm. Instead, he wanted to consider only “reasonable” moves by giving the computer certain parameters about each playing piece, king safety, and the basics of good vs. bad strategy.
Sound familiar? That’s exactly how humans think about chess, too!
Even today, it remains impossible—for humans and computers—to calculate every possibility when choosing your next move. If your brain can’t see everything on the board, don’t worry. Neither can a machine!
A computer finally catches up
Did you know that IBM’s engineers played an important role in developing computer chess? In 1957, the IBM 704 was invented. This early computer weighed 9.7 tons and took around 8 minutes to go through 2,800 positions and choose the next move. This was a huge improvement from Turochamp less than a decade earlier!
The 704 computer used eight preliminary parameters to select up to seven moves for deeper examination and calculate up to four additional moves for each of the seven possibilities. This same system of parameters and move analysis is still used in modern chess engines today—just much better and much faster.
When computers took the crown
By the 1990s, computers were strong enough to challenge the world’s best.
IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue faced world champion Garry Kasparov in two six-game matches. In 1996, Kasparov narrowly beat the machine, winning three, drawing two, and losing only one. But in 1997, after major upgrades, Deep Blue outplayed Kasparov, winning two games, drawing three, and losing just one to its human competitor.
This was a turning point for chess players and computer scientists alike. Chess had long been considered a noble, intellectual, and creative pursuit—something beyond “simple” calculation. Now, machines had proven they could compete… and win.
So… is it still worth playing chess?
Of course!
Chess isn’t about beating a supercomputer. It’s about learning, improving, and enjoying the game. We don’t stop running because cars are faster—and we don’t stop playing chess because computers are stronger.
Instead, use your very own handheld computer as an opponent and coach. Duolingo’s Chess course teaches you the basics and helps you sharpen your strategy. And if you face off against Oscar… maybe ask him to go easy on you. 😉