---
title: "Some Necessary Conditions for a Master Chess Program"
authors:
  - "Hans J. Berliner"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1973/12"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1973/0012.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 1973
pages: "77-84"
track: "Applications and Implications of A. I."
keywords:
---

# Some Necessary Conditions for a Master Chess Program

Hans J. Berliner

*Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 77-84.

## Abstract

Since 1967 there has again been great interest in chess programming . This paper demonstrates that the structure of today's most successful programs cannot be extended to play Master level chess. Certain basic requirements of a Master player's performance are shown to be outside the performance limits to which a program of this type could be extended. The paper also examines a basic weakne ss in the tree-searching ·model approach when applied to situations that cannot be searched to completion. This is the Horizon Effect, which causes unpredictable evaluation errors due to an interaction between the static ev aluation function and the rules for search termination. The outline of a model of chess playing that av oids the Horizon Effect and appears extendable to play Master level chess is presented, together with some results already achieved.