Game Changer: AlphaZero's Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI

In the early days of computer chess, everyone knew that the programs were tactics calculators. Postal players were forbid from using them (at least in the US) because it was an aid for removing tactical mistakes. But strategically, there was a lot to be desired and GMs regularly beat the computers due to their high level of strategic sense. Deep Blue came along and overcame strategic limitations and found ways with good opening books and endgame tables to defeat the World Champion, ending the idea that a humans could compete with computers. But even then, it was due to the tactical resources that were inherent in a position. In an Over-The-Board (OTB) position, a human would buckle under the tactical complexities when faced with a strategic sacrifice that created an imbalance in a position. So, what has changed? With the advent of deep learning and vastly improved AI techniques rooted in neural network processing (nearly 30 years old in the most primitive form), a complete paradigm shift was possible to the point where a computer could teach itself to play chess at the highest level by just playing through 8 hours worth of games (with games finishing in less than a millisecond). This means that moves without direct tactical benefit could be evaluated with the results stored as not better in terms of number of pawns won, but rather how much does this move increase the probability that the game would be won. The exact measure that GMs have used since the first GM title was awarded by the Tsar of Russia. And quite honestly, if you talk to a strong player, they really don't count pawns, they evaluate strategic opportunity which is heavily tied to tactical means. Entering the scene is AlphaZero playing against Stockfish, a program that many of us have lost to (perhaps countless number of times). And personally, I've never learned ANYTHING strategically from a loss to a computer. All of my losses are based on tactical errors or if stretched the realization that tactical resources were available to the opponent (computer chess program) that rendered my approach as either inexact or just bad. NOW TO THE BOOK itself ... The book first introduces the development of chess programs and then places AlphaZero in that timeline. The authors are clearly passionate about their work, and create a sense of excitement for the importance of their work. Which in a nutshell is how AlphaZero stratetgically approaches the chess game and doesn't follow almost any of the old notions about computer chess. And this is the scary part, has a human-like intuition for a move and a position. This book could have easily been called "Intuition in modern chess programs" because most of the text and analyses written are showing how AlphaZero approaches positions. Something that is incredibly enlightening for me as an "advanced" player. In the end, for humans, it's all about ideas and provides a ton of fresh thinking and a second and third look at resources in any given chess position. The book is well written, and as you may know, the authors have done a ton of YouTube videos that provide a similar narrative. At first I asked the question, why bother the book, I can just watch the videos! But the authors provide a great deal more insight that I've been able to process at a reading pace (versus a watching pace). This is personally important for me because I tend to stare at positions a bit more and really think about what I would do in those positions. It's really this process that makes the book valuable as learning tool. I definitely give this book five (GOLD!) stars, it makes me feel smarter just reading it! If you're an advanced player, it is well worth the read.

S Teir chess book! I am a chess coach and bibliophile. This is one of the best chess books ever written and the clear #1 on computer and what we can learn from them about chess. Clearly writen and useful for players of all levels. Even if you do not get the very advances topics the ideas on how chess computers changed top level chess are facinating. Read for fun at any level, but best for player 1600 + with a love of chess. Not recomend for new players.

This is a good look at a relatively new way of programming computers by a process called machine learning. It differs from the previous methods of loading algorithms and millions of lines of code, by using human interfaced games like Go and chess they are able to display the power of this new learning method versus human expert players and also our very best conventionally programmed computer programs. Machine Learning is basically to tell the computing module the rules of how the game pieces are allowed to move and letting it play games against itself and learn its own theorems and winning strategies. The authors say that after 24 hours of this self play the proficiency of the AlphaZero program could defeat the best human players with ease. The highlight of the book is a series of games between AlphaZero and the best human programming effort from decades of effort and study called Stockfish. World champion chess players are rated in the 2800's, Stockfish is rated in the 3500's. AlphaZero defeated Stockfish decisively and with regularity so that it seems AlphaZero is in a new class of ratings. This has immense implications for the future far beyond games which are used as a testbed for development. In fact there might be no facet of human life that will not be transformed by machine learning in the near future. Google now owns this technology after buying the innovator company Deepmind, I have great concern about Google and their massive info collections and abuse of consumers privacy. Their original motto of "Dont be Evil" now seems to be "Anything for a Buck". AlphaZero machine learning trained servo farms will be set loose on our petabytes of stored personal and consumer info. Google is now practically a branch of government and intel agencies and cooperate at a very high level with them. The next step will be to pair machine learning with quantum qubit devices which will open a whole new world that we can't see now. I googled this {lol} and found that about a year ago research papers and projects were just being initiated to study the feasibility of this pairing. I think we can see something like what our future will be in the Chinese citizen control program called "social score", all of the pieces are now available to implement this kind of control over all developed countries. Anyway, the book is mainly chess oriented and highly entertaining for chess players, the machine learning parts scare the hell out of me..

Interesting and informative content. Unfortunately no digital aids to play parties.

"Game Changer" is a summary meta-analysis of the contests between the A.I.-driven AlphaZero process and the full-calculation-driven Stockfish 8 one. The book is focused on showing how AlphaZero's drive for piece mobility, open lines, and disruption of the opponent's castled position - despite AlphaZero's often being down in material - makes a change from how players evaluate options now and in opening repertoire. Others are better qualified to discuss the accuracy of the analysis. I do want to point out some items. The book is 415 pages long. A bit over a hundred pages of it goes into the history of computer chess and on how the AlphaZero idea was developed. There is an excellent introduction by Gary Kasparov. The rest of the book is made up of games or portions of games, mostly of AlphaZero vs. Stockfish 8, but also of quite a few games played by human masters that provide parallels to what AlphaZero concocted. The formats, type fonts, and layouts were very attractive. I am not in the 2000+ rating category. Still, I enjoyed playing out games from the two matches on on-line data bases and watching the YouTube analyses by famous grandmasters. I had some favorite games and hoped to see most or all of them reasonably annotated in this book. While I enjoy the book as it is, its real purpose is to pluck out the segments of games where AlphaZero does something special. The authors have chapters based on themes, like "Piece mobility: activity" with a set of games and portions of games therein. Complete games can be rather lightly annotated in their openings and endgames but more intensely viewed in the early middle game. My biggest annoyance is that there are no unique identifiers of games. They all get a title like "AlphaZero Stockfish 8 London 2018", followed by 1. d4 etc.. Thus there is no index of games in the back of the book. The on-line data bases have some ad hoc layout, like a page for 2018 games and a listing like (my invention) "023. W: AlphaZero B: Stockfish 8 Queen's Indian Defense 165 moves [Many games did go over 100 moves.] 1-0". I don't see why the organizers of the event couldn't have come up with an official listing, like Match # - Game # for all these games. If I want to compare an analysis in the book with one from outside material, I have to flip through the book to see if I can find a matching diagram or not. Nevertheless, the writing is good, the paperback book is well made, and the ideas are the freshest around.

This startling book provides a master class in the need to engage with artificial intelligence in order to understand the likelihood of a coming major disruption in the fabric of society. The development of a learning program, predicated only on the rules of chess, with the additional factor of reinforcement of success, through playing thousands of games of chess against other successful commercial chess programs, has led to the creation by the program of moves and strategies which have stunned the professional chess world, emulating and exceeding the capacities of many grand masters. Such success leads us to need to consider to what extent the creation of behavior from an automated procedure will lead to the development of expertise beyond human capacities in other fields, such as the delivery of human services. One must contemplate even expansion into fields such as psychology where the usual defence against replacement by machine is based upon the need for psychologists to possess "soft skills" and have the capacity for empathy. The warnings of many social commentators that job losses of the order of 50% in a wide swath of fields of employment may be realised in a shorter time than many have previously imagined. This book obviously is aimed at the chess player and provides meticulous analyses of plays which can help all players to improve their game. But the message goes much deeper than this and should be absorbed by all people who have an interest in their future and the future of their children and grandchildren. It deserves a wide audience.

I am familiar with the principles and workings of neural networks from decades ago, so I was enchanted by the idea of applying the techniques to chess.The AlphaZero team and its inspirational chess-playing scientist inventor have produced an outstanding breakthrough tool. For their part, the authors have written an impressive book, from my perspective, that gives insight and analysis of the many important facets of AlphaZero chess in a readable and engaging style. It covers all the things a chess player wants to know, and details the AlphaZero operational results that are eye-opening. But put all that aside. The overwhelming real ultimate hero is the awesome AlphaZero itself. Though the principles it applies in each step are clear, the details of how it achieves each success probability is still mysterious. Yet the result of its actions , from a human point of view, are astounding, as we continually see things that appear deeply intuitive and representative of grandmasters' successful techniques, as pointed out time and again. This is certainly a game-changing book to treasure.

I have read the first half of the book and am enjoying it very much. The deep explanation of the many ways that AZ differs from humans and other engines offers many insights into how a god-like entity would play the game. AZ makes moves that defy conventional thinking and beats Stockfish 8 with them. Sadler and Regan explain the 'thinking' behind these moves clearly and there are usually enough diagrams to follow without setting up a board. A minor criticism is that their explanation of neural networks and how NNs learn and calculate falls short of other works on that topic written by professional science writers but the book is top notch when it comes to chess.

Sadler es sinónimo de buen escribir en ajedrez. Un libro exhaustivo sobre el tema y que, curiosamente, queda uno con ganas de más

This is a great book for chess lovers. It is very structured and written, and examines a number of games between the new learning AI chess engine Alpha-Zero by Google, against the reigning world-champion chess engine Stockfish. What is most striking is how human-like and intuitive Alpha-zero plays, like a Kasparov on steroids, and the authors really draws this out with great examples. It has already become one of my favourite chess books!

Consiglio questo libro a tutti quelli che si avvicinano al mondo dell’AI e che hanno passione per il gioco degli scacchi.

Me parece un libro bastante bien hecho. Imposible analizar las 1000 partidas que se jugaron, pero hace un análisis muy bueno. Para amantes del ajedrez, y si además tienen conceptos de informática, mucho mejor.

I have played chess on and off for most of my life. I have always been fascinated by the way computers or AI play chess. You can see the difference in gameplay by a machine versus a human player and that has always peaked my interest. After Garry Kasparov lost to Deep Blue the days of computers competing against humans ended and thus began the world computer championships and Top Chess Engine Championships (TCEC) where the opponent of AlphaZero, Stockfish, was champion. What interested me was how they setup AlphaZero to learn chess. They did not provide it with a massive database of openings, middlegames, endgames and played out matches of the last 100+ years but instead had it play out millions of lighting fast games on it's own to work out it's own optimal way to play. The end result was a system that had a different outlook on the game of chess than the other computer programs had and this is apparent in this book when you read through and, as I did, play through the games. The author, a chess Grand Master, Matthew Sadler does a spectacular job diving in to the play of AlphaZero and even noting where positions appear to be much more favorable to Alpha Zero as opposed to the other chess engines he was using to aid in his analysis. AlphaZero generally always being correct. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in AI and where it might be heading as this is a great example given how the team that created AlphaZero (the same team, headed by Demis Hassabis, that created AlphaGo, a program that defeated the top Go player in the world) shows that starting from the very basics of a situation, in this case a simple game where the program is fed the rules and end goal, to capture the opponents King, and nothing else, it can derive a way of playing that is in many ways superior to other AI that is fed an overload of existing information. From a chess playing view I can say you will learn some new and different ideas that you will definitely need to have a good understanding of chess to be able to use and work effectively. In conclusion, I will say the authors did an excellent job putting this work together, analysing the games and information provided. 5 stars all around!