Einstein plays chess (22 January 2009)
There seems to be little doubt that Albert
Einstein (1879-1955) could play chess. But there may be some discussion about the
question how well he played.
Some Internet pages suggest
Einstein was an active player and always had a chessboard set up at his home
(click).
Einstein seems to have known
Emanuel Lasker, but there is no proof that they ever played chess together.
As far as I know, only one game has been preserved that is attributed to Einstein
The game seems to have been played in Princeton, USA in 1933. On the 24th move,
Robert Oppenheimer, who
played with black, resigned.
Judging from this game we may safely assume that Oppenheimer was not a very strong
player. This is confirmed by another game (click).
Einstein's game does show that Einstein was not a beginner, but how strong a player he
was is difficult to conclude from this one game.
* * *
A few months ago, Excalibur Electronics produced
a chess computer by the name of Einstein Touch Chess.
The computer has a slick-looking rectangular housing and sports an LCD touch screen. It is small enough
(11 x 8 cm.) to carry around so that it can for instance be used on the train or in a waiting-room.
If you want to replace the batteries, you'll have to unscrew two compartments, for the two
AAA batteries are housed separately on either side of the screen.
Needless to say I wanted to see if the computer played like the genius it was named after.
White: Fritz 8 (1 ply)
Black: Einstein Touch Chess (± 10 seconds / move)
White: Fritz 8 (1 ply)
Black: Einstein Touch Chess (± 10 seconds / move)
In fact, the computers played four games; half were won by Einstein, and Fritz-one-ply won
the other half. If you want to see all the games, just click here.
Four games is not enough to judge the Elo rating of a computer, but I would think it would be
somewhere between 1400 and 1500.
Probably nice enough for most occasional players. But not a genius!
