Graduation Year

2023

Date of Submission

12-2022

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Computer Science

Second Department

Mathematical Sciences

Reader 1

Mark Huber

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

© 2022 Cristy Wei

Abstract

The development of what would become modern-day chess engines began around the time of WWII, when governments were vehemently recruiting and encouraging the development of computer scientists, mathematicians, and cryptanalysts in an effort to boost war efforts. Due to advances in computer science and computer hardware, chess engines have now evolved to be easily accessible and used by anyone with a personal computer. As a result, many players now use very powerful chess engines to help analyze their play strategies, and even the most elite players use engines to help prepare them against their opponents. This paper aims to explore the impact of widely available chess engines on chess players’ strategies. Linear regression models are used to examine players’ engine accuracy scores over time with two different datasets. Our findings differed between the two datasets, but in general found that the black pieces’ accuracy had changed far less over time compared to the white pieces. This could potentially be attributed to the differences between human behavior and engine behavior, which could be further analyzed in efforts to cull cheating in chess as more and more tournaments are hosted in online formats.

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