Chess

Board Games

* International Chess

Tournaments & Ratings by FIDE

* Burmese Chess စစ်တုရင် / စစ်ဘုရင်

See Wikipedia for details

* Chinese Chess

Restrictions on the movement of King

Chess sets

* Received a set from U Maung Maung Gyi (saya of my father). The wooden pieces had lead inside.

* Standard set with Plastic pieces

* Portable Chess set from my brother U Sein Htoon upon his return from 1960 ARAE Regatta in Colombo

* Virtual sets in Computer Programs

Chess Enthusiasts

* Saya Dawson (Burma Chess Champion) taught Mathematics at SPHS before opening his Private Tuition School. He taught Chess to his students and aspiring players. He is an organizer of Chess tournaments (e.g at YMCA).

His daughter Mary was among the top female players.

* Several doctors : Dr. Tin U (Children’s hospital), Dr. Tin U (TB hospital), Dr. Aung Nyein (Radiologist), Dr. Lyn Aung Thet (Joint 1st in Burma in 1964) …

* RIT Chess Club was founded by U Aung Than (EE69er), U Maung Maung (M72), U Thet Lwin (EE72) and several more alumni with some Soviet Lecturers.

U Tin Swan was Burma Chess Champion. U Maung Maung (Sin Gyi, Table Tennis Champion, C67) was also an excellent Chess player.

Computer Chess

* Professor Don Michie (Machine Intelligence pioneer) and David Levy (Programmer & Chess Master) had a friendly bet (of a year’s wages of David) if a computer program can beat David within 10 years. David won.

* Monty Newborn was an organizer of Computer Chess tournaments. Notable Champions include Belle (by Ken Thompson, co-inventor of Unix) and Deep Thought (by five Ph.D students from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)).

* IBM hired three members of Deep Thought team and several Computer Experts to develop Deep Blue to challenge Gary Kasparov (World Chess Champion). Deep Blue was unsuccessful in the first attempt, but beat Gary Kasparov in the second attempt. IBM retired Deep Blue.

* Computer History Museum (CHM) at Shoreline, Mountain View, California had an exhibition on the History of Computer Chess.

CHM had a panel. I had autographs of the Panelists & Moderator.

• Professor John McCarthy (LISP inventor, Time Sharing System)
• Professor Edward Feigenbaum (Computer Expert Systems)
• Murray Campbell (Member of CMU Deep Thought & IBM Deep Blue Teams)
• David Levy (Programmer & Chess Master whose wager with Professor Don Michie led to the rise of Computer Chess)
• Monty Newborn (Organizer of Computer Chess Tournaments)