A Boy’s Dream Hangs in the Balance

Meet Kevin Masters. He’s a child prodigy who excels in a variety of subjects — mathematics, computer programming, chess and other board games, Dungeons and Dragons, and music. He always gets all A’s on his report card, too. His parents are really proud of him.

Right now, Kevin is preparing for a chess tournament — the California State Championships. He’s eager to face another 14 year old boy name Todd Kramer, who defeated him in last year’s state championships costing him first place. Kevin wants to win it this year, but he knows he’s going to have to face off against Todd again to do it — and beat him this time.

So, he’s been studying chess deeply with the help of AI software. He also has a friend named Connor who invented a really cool chess variant called Fighting Chess. There’s a few extra rules to make the game stronger — pawns can now capture one square straight ahead, rooks, knights, and bishops all can now also move and capture like a king, you can castle while in check or across a check (and even into check since the king’s inviolateness has been removed), and you can pass on your turn if needed. Kevin modified an existing bot on his computer to be able to play Fighting Chess. He played it — a lot. The bot was very strong, and Kevin lost to every game initially. But, he started to get the hang of it, and he was soon holding his own against the bot. After maybe 20 games, he finally defeated it!!

This was helping him see deeper into chess just by playing Fighting Chess. He saw that now when he…