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Can a person's chess mind outlive them? An attempt with 41 masters

Can a person's chess mind outlive them? An attempt with 41 masters

Apr 30, 2026 Other

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Can a person's chess mind outlive them? An attempt with 41 masters

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Two years ago I sat down to build a chess engine for my kids' Christmas present. Wanted it to play badly enough to be beatable but not randomly bad: different styles so they could choose what to face.While building those styles I noticed the choices started looking like actual historical players' tendencies. Went looking. Turns out: given enough games from one person, you can extract enough of their decision pattern to reproduce it.Two years later, 41 players, ~3,000 games each. Tal sacrifices unsoundly. Morphy attacks like it's 1850. Capablanca grinds endgames. Same engine underneath, visibly different choices each time.playchessgate.com: browser, no signup. The kids never got their Christmas present.

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