The Chess Mind

I was browsing Bobby Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games earlier tonight, and came across this position and comment, from his 1960 game against former world chess champion Max Euwe:



Here Fischer played 15.Rb1, writing “The innovation. Months before this game I had showed this line to Benko and he suggested this innocent-looking move. Upon looking deeper I found that, horrible as White’s Pawn structure may be, Black can’t exploit it because he’ll be unable to develop his K-side normally. It’s the little quirks like this that could make life difficult for a chess machine. (P. 135, emphasis added.)

It was this last comment that intrigued me. Did Fischer insightfully predict a problem for computer chess, or was this a perhaps understandable but mistaken assessment of what would or wouldn’t be possible for chess engines? I think there are two aspects to evaluating Fischer’s claim. First, do the engines find 15.Rb1? Second, do they evaluate the situation properly? On the first question, Fischer’s conjecture is a failure. Both Rybka (2.3.2) and Fritz (11) found it instantly. Rybka fluctuated for a little while between that move and 15.c4, in terms of absolute preference, but it settled on Fischer’s move soon enough. What about the evaluation? Euwe played 15…Rd8, which Fischer awards a question mark. Fischer recommends 15…Qxb5 instead, asserting that White has “an enduring pull” after 16.Rxb5 Kd6! 17.Rb7 f6 18.Ke2 Kc6 19.Rf7 a5 20.Be3. How do the computers fare on this score?

Here, perhaps, there's a little more difference. The engines both agree with Fischer that White has some pull, but neither seems all that impressed - both evaluate the position as (much) closer to equality than anything substantial for White. (Details here.) So maybe there's a bit of difference when it comes to evaluating long-term factors. Fischer sees that White can torture Black for a long time in the ending, while the computer thinks that as long as everything is pretty safe at the moment, Black is fundamentally okay. Of course, another possibility is that the computer is right, but it can be said that engines do sometimes tend to underestimate long-term possibilities. On the other hand, it's not at all surprising that the computer liked 15.Rb1, as it brings a piece while impeding Black's development. Why wouldn't it be attractive?