Natural Selection, Inc.

May 22, 2006

Natural Selection, Inc. Presents New Results in Evolving Chess Programs: Two Milestones in Self-Learning Chess Achieved

Reno, NV – Dr. David Fogel, CEO of Natural Selection, Inc., presented a paper with new results on evolving chess programs at the 2006 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games today. The symposium is being held at the University of Nevada, Reno and is sponsored by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. The paper, titled "“The Blondie25 Chess Program Competes Against Fritz 8.0 and a Human Chess Master,” co-authored by Tim Hays, Sarah Hahn, and James Quon, indicated results of playing a self-learning computer chess program called Blondie25 against the program Fritz 8.0 and also against James Quon, who is a nationally ranked chess master.

Blondie25 is the result of over 8000 generations of variation and selection, simulated on a computer, in which a computer chess-playing program plays games against variations of itself to learn how to improve its play. Blondie25 includes mechanisms for learning the values of the pieces, their locations on the chessboard, and also uses neural networks to assess the formation of pieces in different areas of the board.

In 24 games against Fritz 8.0, one of the top chess programs in the world, rated about 2750 using the standard chess rating system, Blondie25 earned 3 wins, 10 losses, and 11 draws. These results mark the first time that an evolved chess program has earned wins over a world-class chess program. Furthermore, in four games against James Quon, Blondie25 won three and lost one. These results mark the first time that an evolved chess program has defeated a human master. Mr. Quon is rated at 2301. "Our previous research with self-learning chess programs indicated that the computer had taught itself to be a strong player, even without the proper use of allocating time per move," said Dr. Fogel. "With the addition of reasonable heuristics for time management, as we describe in the paper, the Blondie25 program can now begin to play a strong game against a top program and present a significant challenge to human masters." The paper from the symposium can be found at http://www.natural-selection.com/Library/2006/CIG2006.pdf.

Natural Selection, Inc. was founded in 1993 to address complex problems in industry, medicine, and defense. The company possesses unique expertise in computational intelligence techniques, including evolutionary computation, neural networks, and fuzzy logic. The corporation's research efforts support the discovery of new pharmaceuticals, the automated detection and discovery of important patterns and processes in bioinformatics and medical informatics, computer-assisted diagnosis, and a variety of military and industrial projects.

For more information, please contact:

Dr. David B. Fogel
CEO
Natural Selection, Inc.
3333 N. Torrey Pines Ct.
Suite 200
La Jolla, CA, 92037
tel: (858) 455-6449
fax: (858) 455-1560
dfogel@natural-selection.com

and please visit our web site at http://www.natural-selection.com/.