Researchers create new classification of chess openings


Apr 4, 2023

Using real data from an online chess platform, scientists of the Complexity Science Hub and the Centro Ricerche Enrico Fermi (CREF) studied similarities of different chess openings. Based on these similarities, they developed a new classification method which can complement the standard classification.

DID YOU KNOW?

 

  • It is possible to checkmate an opponent in chess in two moves.
  • Mathematically, there are more possible chess games than there are atoms in the observable universe. This is the Shannon number, which represents all possible move variations in chess. It is estimated there are between 10111 and 10123 positions (including illegal moves) in chess.

“To find out how similar chess openings actually are to each other – meaning in real game behavior – we drew on the wisdom of the crowd,” Giordano De Marzo of the Complexity Science Hub and the Centro Ricerche Enrico Fermi (CREF) explains. The researchers analyzed 3,746,135 chess games, 18,253 players and 988 different openings from the chess platform Lichess and observed who plays which opening games.

 

If several players choose two specific opening games over and over again, it stands to reason that they will be similar. Opening games that are so popular that they occur together with most others were excluded. “We also only included players in our analyses that had a rating above 2,000 on the platform Lichess. Total novices could randomly play any opening games, which would skew our analyses,” explains Vito D.P. Servedio of the Complexity Science Hub.

Researchers at the Complexity Science Hub find new classification of chess openings

TEN CLUSTERS CLEARLY DELINEATED

In this way, the researchers found that certain opening games group together. Ten different clusters clearly stood out according to actual similarities in playing behavior. “And these clusters don’t necessarily coincide with the common classification of chess openings,” says De Marzo.

 

For example, certain opening games from different classes were played repeatedly by the same players. Therefore, although these strategies are classified in different classes, they must have some similarity. So, they are all in the same cluster. Each cluster thus represents a certain style of play – for example, rather defensive or very offensive. Moreover, the method of classification that the researchers have developed here can be applied not only to chess, but to similar games such as Go or Stratego.

WHO PLAYS CHESS

 

  • Currently Magnus Carlsen from Norway (born in 1990) is ranked as the best chess player worldwide (rating: 2853; according to FIDE).
  • According to the Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) there are currently 1785 grandmasters worldwide (ten of them in Austria)
  • Of course, nobody knows how many people play chess worldwide. To give an approximate impression: FIDE currently has 160,684 active players registered. Estimates say that around 600 million adults worldwide play chess regularly.

COMPLEMENT THE STANDARD CLASSIFICATION

The opening phase in chess is usually less than 20 moves. Depending on which pieces are moved first, one speaks of an open, half-open, closed or irregular opening. The standard classification, the so-called ECO Code (Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings), divides them into five main groups: A, B, C, D and E.

 

“Since this has evolved historically, it contains very useful information. Our clustering represents a new order that is close to the used one and can add to it by showing players how similar openings actually are to each other,” Servedio explains. After all, something that grows historically cannot be reordered from scratch. “You can’t say A20 now becomes B3. That would be like trying to exchange words in a language,” adds De Marzo.

July 20 is World Chess Day. It marks the date of the founding of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) in Paris in 1924.

RATE PLAYERS AND OPENING GAMES

In addition, their method also allowed the researchers to determine how good a player and how difficult a particular opening game is. The basic assumption: if a particular opening game is played by many people, it is likely to be rather easy. So, they examined which opening games were played the most and who played them. This gave the researchers a measure of how difficult an opening game is (= complexity) and a measure of how good a player is (= fitness). Matching these with the players’ rating on the chess platform itself showed a significant correlation.

 

“On the one hand, this underlines the significance of our two newly introduced measures, but also the accuracy of our analysis,” explains Servedio. To ensure the relevance and validity of these results from a chess theory perspective, the researchers sought the expertise of a renowned chess grandmaster who wishes to remain anonymous.

FIND OUT MORE

The study “Quantifying the complexity and similarity of chess openings using online chess community data” has been published in Scientific Reports.


People

May 30, 2023

Meet Sachin Rawat

Event

CSH Talk by François Lafond "Firm-level production networks: what do we (really) know?"


Jun 07, 2023 | 15:0016:00

Complexity Science Hub Vienna

Publication

C. Deischinger, E. Dervic, S. Nopp, M. Kaleta, P. Klimek, A. Kautzky-Willer

Diabetes mellitus is associated with a higher relative risk for venous thromboembolism in females than in males

Diabetes Res Clin Pract. (2022) 36471550

Event

CSH Talk by Thomas Choi "Supply Networks: Dyads, Triads, Tetrads, and Beyond"


Jun 06, 2023 | 15:0016:00

Complexity Science Hub Vienna

Research News

May 30, 2023

Obesity increases risk of mental disorders throughout life

Press

Obesity increases the chances of developing mental disorders for all age groups


News Medical, May 30, 2023

News

May 31, 2023

Forensic analysis shows signs of election fraud in Turkey

Publication

V.D.P. Servedio, M. R. Ferreira, N. Reisz, R. Costas, S. Thurner

Scale-free growth in regional scientific capacity building explains long-term scientific dominance

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 167 (2023) 113020

Press

Wie Medikamente durch die Welt reisen


NEWS, May 31, 2023

Press

End Times by Peter Turchin review – can we predict the collapse of societies?


The Guardian, May 28, 2023

Publication

A. Nerpel, et al.

SARS-ANI: a global open access dataset of reported SARS-CoV-2 events in animals

Scientific Data 9 (438) (2022)

News

May 31, 2023

Forensic analysis shows signs of election fraud in Turkey

People

May 30, 2023

Meet Sachin Rawat

Research News

May 30, 2023

Obesity increases risk of mental disorders throughout life

News

May 25, 2023

Quotas alone will not solve the problem

Spotlight

May 17, 2023

Complexity Research for Digital Humanism

People

May 12, 2023

Peter Turchin introduces his new book

Research News

May 2, 2023

Scientists create high-resolution poverty maps using big data

News

Apr 26, 2023

BEYOND COLLECTIVE STUPIDITY

Spotlight

Apr 21, 2023

How does a region become a center for innovation?

Spotlight

Apr 14, 2023

Are cars our kings?

Press

End Times by Peter Turchin review – can we predict the collapse of societies?


The Guardian, May 28, 2023

Press

Obesity increases the chances of developing mental disorders for all age groups


News Medical, May 30, 2023

Press

Wie Medikamente durch die Welt reisen


NEWS, May 31, 2023

Press

Kritik an EU-Chatkontrolle


Ö1 | Digital.leben, May 11, 2023

Press

Treibjagd im Darknet: Neue Technologien für Cyber-Ermittler


Salzburger Nachrichten, May 16, 2023

Press

„Die Älteren halten zu Erdogan, die jüngere Generation hat andere Sorgen“


Cicero, May 9, 2023

Press

Stablecoin Destabilization - why should we care?


Forbes, Apr 27, 2023

Press

„Wir sind nicht so einfach zu manipulieren“ [feat. Hannah Metzler]


Kurier, Apr 29, 2023

Press

Die manchmal fatale Lust, alles selbst zu recherchieren [feat. Mirta Galesic & Henrik Olsson]


Die Presse, Apr 14, 2023

Press

La scienza ha creato una nuova classificazione delle aperture degli scacchi [ital | feat. Vito Servedio & Giordano De Marzo]


WIRED, Apr 10, 2023

Publication

R. Prieto-Curiel, J. E. Patino, B. Anderson

Scaling of the morphology of African cities

PNAS 120 (9) (2023) e2214254120

Publication

A. Di Natale, D. Garcia

LEXpander: applying colexification networks to automated lexicon expansion

Behaviour Research Methods (2023)

Publication

V.D.P. Servedio, M. R. Ferreira, N. Reisz, R. Costas, S. Thurner

Scale-free growth in regional scientific capacity building explains long-term scientific dominance

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 167 (2023) 113020

Publication

C. Deischinger, E. Dervic, S. Nopp, M. Kaleta, P. Klimek, A. Kautzky-Willer

Diabetes mellitus is associated with a higher relative risk for venous thromboembolism in females than in males

Diabetes Res Clin Pract. (2022) 36471550

Publication

A. Nerpel, et al.

SARS-ANI: a global open access dataset of reported SARS-CoV-2 events in animals

Scientific Data 9 (438) (2022)

Publication

E. D. Lee, X. Chen, B. C. Daniels

Discovering sparse control strategies in neural activity

PLoS Computational Biology (May 27) (2022)

Publication

H. Kong, S. Martin-Gutierrez, F. Karimi

Influence of the first-mover advantage on the gender disparities in physics citations

Communications Physics 5 (243) (2022)

Publication

T.M. Pham, J. Korbel, R. Hanel, S. Thurner

Empirical social triad statistics can be explained with dyadic homophylic interactions

PNAS 119 (2022) e2121103119

Publication

G. De Marzo, V.D.P. Servedio

Quantifying the complexity and similarity of chess openings using online chess community data

Scientific Reports 13 (2023) 5327

Publication

D. R. Lo Sardo, S. Thurner, et al.

Systematic population-wide ecological analysis of regional variability in disease prevalence

Heliyon 9(4) (2023) e15377

Publication

J. Wachs

Digital traces of brain drain: developers during the Russian invasion of Ukraine

EPJ Data Science 12 (2023) 14

Publication

D. Diodato, R. Hausmann, F. Neffke

The impact of return migration on employment and wages in Mexican cities

Journal of Urban Economics 135 (2023) 103557

Event

CSH Talk by Thomas Choi "Supply Networks: Dyads, Triads, Tetrads, and Beyond"


Jun 06, 2023 | 15:0016:00

Complexity Science Hub Vienna

Event

CSH Workshop: "Firm-level supply network data for policy making"


Jun 05, 2023 | 8:00Jun 06, 2023 | 17:00

Complexity Science Hub Vienna

Event

CSH Talk by François Lafond "Firm-level production networks: what do we (really) know?"


Jun 07, 2023 | 15:0016:00

Complexity Science Hub Vienna