Machines at the Board: teacher key

Chess, grade 9 edition, written for 9th grade. The story of people and machines playing chess, from a hidden-player trick to engines that learn on their own.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What did the Mechanical Turk hide inside?
   • A small computer
   • A skilled human player (answer)
   • A spare queen
2. How did the 1996 match between Kasparov and Deep Blue end?
   • Deep Blue won, 4 to 2
   • It was a draw
   • Kasparov won, 4 to 2 (answer)
3. How many positions per second could Deep Blue evaluate?
   • 200 million (answer)
   • 2 million
   • 32
4. What was AlphaZero given in 2017?
   • A book of old games
   • A list of champions
   • Only the rules of chess (answer)
5. How old was Gukesh Dommaraju when he became champion?
   • 22
   • 18 (answer)
   • 32
6. Why did the Mechanical Turk fool so many people?
   • It looked like a machine but hid a person (answer)
   • It could jump over pieces
   • It never lost a game

Words

• engine: chess program
• processors: computer chips
• Mechanical: machine-like
• online: on the internet
• grandmaster: top title