After discovering refutation screening—the application of alpha–beta pruning to optimizing move evaluation—in 1957, a team at Carnegie Mellon University predicted that a computer would defeat the world human champion by 1967. It did not anticipate the difficulty of determining the right order to evaluate moves. Researchers worked to improve programs' ability to identify killer heuristics, unusually high-scoring moves to reexamine when evaluating other branches, but into the 1970s most top chess players believed that computers would not soon be able to play at a Master level. In 1968, International Master David Levy made a famous bet that no chess computer would be able to beat him within ten years, and in 1976 Senior Master and professor of psychology Eliot Hearst of Indiana University wrote that "the only way a current computer program could ever win a single game against a master player would be for the master, perhaps in a drunken stupor while playing 50 games simultaneously, to commit some once-in-a-year blunder".
After discovering refutation screening—the application of alpha–beta pruning to optimizing move evaluation—in 1957 a team at Carnegie Mellon University predicted that a computer would defeat the world human champion by 1967 It did not anticipate the difficulty of determining the right order to evaluate moves Researchers worked to improve programs' ability to identify killer heuristics unusually high-scoring moves to reexamine when evaluating other branches but into the 1970s most top chess players believed that computers would not soon be able to play at a Master level In 1968 International Master David Levy made a famous bet that no chess computer would be able to beat him within ten years and in 1976 Senior Master and professor of psychology Eliot Hearst of Indiana University wrote that "the only way a current computer program could ever win a single game against a master player would be for the master perhaps in a drunken stupor while playing 50 games simultaneously to commit some once-in-a-year blunder"