A brief history of the computer chess tournaments: 1970–1975

Abstract

At the time of writing this chapter (March 1976), ten major computer chess tournaments have been held, six in the United States (1970–1975) sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), one in Sweden (1974) sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), two in Canada (1974 and 1975) and one in Germany (1975). These unique events have attracted worldwide attention (and sometimes amused interest) from the chess-playing public and from specialists in computer science and artificial intelligence. These tournaments have also been an arena for many formal and informal discussions among the leading chess programmers in the world and therefore have been a vital stimulus for research and development. Several of the authors in this volume (Harris, Newborn, and Slate and Atkin) have been regular participants in these events.