Shura-Bura's Program

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Shura-Bura's Program, an early Soviet chess program developed by a group of scientists at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics headed by Mikhail R. Shura-Bura, including Igor B. Zadyhailo and Marat A. Evgrafov, with further support of physicist and science journalist Volʹdemar Smilga. A brief description of the program was given in an interview with Shura-Bura on computer chess by V. Tumanov, published as part in the 8th Bulletin of the Botvinnik Tal 1961 revenge-match for the world chess championship - entitled "The best move in 58 seconds", cited in Jaap van den Herik's Ph.D. thesis Computerschaak, Schaakwereld en Kunstmatige Intelligentie. Further, two games of the program were published. A more elaborate description was given by Evgrafov and Zadyhailo in 1965, featuring some M-20 machine code with comments.

=Description=

Board Representation
The chess position structure obtains a piece to square interaction map, that includes seven different features to speed up move generation and evaluation :
 * 1) Piece attacks and can move to Square
 * 2) Piece does not attack but can move to Square
 * 3) Piece attacks and but can not move to Square
 * 4) Piece indirectly attacks Square through a sliding piece
 * 5) Piece indirectly attacks Square through a pawn attack
 * 6) Piece indirectly attacks Square through a Piece not attacking Square
 * 7) Blocked pawn target

Evaluation
The program is reported to select the best move with the help of a static evaluation function, which had seven distinct components:
 * 1) Material (Pawn 1; Knight, Bishop 3.5; Rook 5; Queen 9.5; King 109)
 * 2) Mobility
 * 3) Static Exchange Evaluation
 * 4) Pawn Structure
 * 5) Center Control
 * 6) King Safety - Patterns
 * 7) King Safety - Pawn Shield

=See also=
 * ITEP Chess Program

=Publications=
 * В. Туманов (1961). «Лучший ход» — за 58 секунд. Таль—Ботвинник: матч-реванш на первенство мира. Бюллетень Центрального шахматного клуба СССР, № 8
 * V. Tumanov (1961). The best move in 58 seconds. 8th Bulletin of the Botvinnik Tal 1961 revenge-match


 * М. А. Евграфов, И. Б. Задыхайло (1965). Некоторые соображения о программировании шахматной игры. / Сб. Проблемы кибернетики, №15
 * Marat A. Evgrafov, Igor B. Zadyhailo (1965). Some Considerations for Chess Game Programming. in Problems of Cybernetic, No. 15


 * David Levy, Monroe Newborn (1982). All About Chess and Computers. Springer
 * Jaap van den Herik (1983). Computerschaak, Schaakwereld en Kunstmatige Intelligentie. Ph.D. thesis, Delft University of Technology. Academic Service, The Hague. ISBN 90 62 33 093 2 (Dutch), 2.2.9. Sjoera-Boera

=Forum Posts=
 * Re: The mystery of Alex Bernstein by Sergei S. Markoff, CCC, June 08, 2019 » Alex Bernstein
 * Re: The mystery of Alex Bernstein by Roman Zhukov, CCC, June 08, 2019
 * Re: The mystery of Alex Bernstein by Sergei S. Markoff, CCC, June 08, 2019

=External Links=
 * Schachcomputer - Geschichte - 6 by Karsten Bauermeister (German)
 * Computerschach - ein Überblick von Mathias Grontzki (German)

=References=

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