perfectchess-copyright1996-9jameswanless

The interesting (and topical?!! - 26/02/2003) thing about chess as a game is that if optimum strategy is followed by both sides then the result is a draw (not surprisingly) formed of a complete standoff (somewhat more surprisingly).

That is to say the pieces never engage - the position reached is such that to engage only increases the risk of defeat - it's like they say in "WarGames", the only winning strategy is not to play. The strategy itself is unique in that it only looks ahead (i.e. searches ply) as far as it needs to - any additional ply is unnecessary (as are sacrifices). Not only that, but the strategy can easily tell when it has looked far enough because only one optimum move remains. Consequently it is almost always very fast. Final (drawn) position is as below: (x2 for both sides) [+variations] P------P -PN--NP- -BPPPP-- R--QKBR- From which I suspect you can guess the algorithm - if not the attached executable may help!