The Computer Journal Advance Access originally published online on September 5, 2007
The Computer Journal 2008 51(4):408-418; doi:10.1093/comjnl/bxm060
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Evaluation of Economy in a Zero-sum Perfect Information Game
Department of Informatics, College of Information Technology, Tenaga Nasional University, Km 7, Jalan Kajang—Puchong, 43009 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia
* Corresponding author: azlan{at}uniten.edu.my
Received 31 January 2007; revised 20 June 2007
A zero-sum perfect information game is one where every player knows all the moves. Chess is a good example where the object is to checkmate or capture the enemy king. One important feature of checkmates, especially in chess problem composition, is economy. This paper proposes a computational function to evaluate the economy of checkmate configurations on the chessboard. Several experiments were performed comparing chess compositions and regular games to validate the function. The results suggest that the proposed evaluation function is able to correctly discern economical differences in checkmate positions to a high degree of statistical significance and correlates positively with the perception of human chess players. This evaluation function can therefore be useful in increasing the versatility of chess database search engines, as a component in aesthetic models of chess and aiding judges in chess composition tournaments.
Key Words: economy • evaluation • chess • game • intelligence • aesthetics