chess thumping

If you like chess -- I mean, if you really like chess -- then you'll probably find Arimaa captivating.

Arimaa was invented by Omar Syed, a computer engineer trained in artificial intelligence. Syed was inspired by Garry Kasparov's defeat at the hands of the chess computer Deep Blue to design a new game which would be difficult for computers to play well, but would have rules simple enough for his four-year-old son Aamir to understand. ("Arimaa" is "Aamir" spelled backwards plus an initial "a"). In 2002 Syed published the rules to Arimaa and announced a $10,000 prize, available annually through 2020, for the first computer program (running on inexpensive, off-the-shelf hardware) able to defeat a top-ranked human player in a match six games or longer.