UnixReview.com
January 2006

Marcel's Linux Game of the Month : eboard

How about a nice game of chess? For some, that question will bring back memories of the 1983 movie, WarGames, starring a young Matthew Broderick and the amazing Dabney Coleman. Somehow, it seems that chess games and movies just go together. Don't believe me? Let me give you a few examples. Astronaut Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) plays HAL 9000, another artificial intelligence, in the 1968 classic, "2001: A Space Odyssey". Arthur C. Clarke, the author of "2001", once stated that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," a statement that brings to mind the fantastic game of Wizard chess from the first Harry Potter movie. Speaking of space, in the first Star Wars film (or the fourth depending on your perspective), R2-D2 and Chewbacca play a rather fascinating game inspired by chess with alien monsters on a circular board. There are literally hundreds of movies where somebody plays a game of chess and perhaps even more television shows. Chess appears in books and chess references abound in our everyday speech. "Don't get rooked." "Talks are at a stalemate." "A political checkmate." "We're all pawns."

All this to say that chess is one of the most popular and one of the most enduring games in the history of the world. Chess is a game of wits, in which one opponent pits his mind against another. When that opponent is a computer, it gets even more interesting. When Garry Kasparov played against Deep Bule in 1996, he reportedly stated that he 'could feel a new kind of intelligence across the table'. Now, if you haven't played a decent game of computer chess lately, it's time to check out Felipe Bergo's eboard, a great chess-playing program that lets you play against your own system, play against another player remotely, or join an online game using the FICS protocol (Free Internet Chess Server).