Answers.Body: <p><a href="http://chesstempo.com/" rel="noreferrer">ChessTempo</a> uses a chess engine to analyze positions from a large database of master games. It looks for interesting positions that can be presented as chess problems. Specifically it looks for positions in which one side has a way to win material within a few moves, but where alternative moves do not. These positions are then offered to users of the site who try to find the computer's selected best move. The users can also comment on the problems, tag them and rate how they liked the problem. Each problem is also given an ELO-like rating based on which users solved or failed to solve the problem.</p>
  
  <p>Many of the problems turn out to be uninteresting (e.g. simple captures with no strategy involved) or flawed in some way (due to the chess engine not seeing some detail of the position). The easy problems are quickly given a low difficulty rating and are not shown to high rated players. Flawed problems are identified in comments and are disabled by the site administrator.</p>
  
  <p>The result is a large body of interesting chess problems found by a computer, moderated by humans, and arranged by difficult level.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-07-22T11:45:42.580Z
Answers.Text: lichess.org has also computer selected puzzles from online games.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Roland
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-04-28T07:36:17.580Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2015-04-28T07:36:17.580Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Mark Byers
Answers.Body: <p>I don't know if such an engine exists, but there probably might not be one yet and here's why-</p>
  
  <p>It's hard to explain to engines what is "obvious". What might be obvious to you might not even be obvious to me. However, there is some recent research in the area of <a href="http://en.chessbase.com/post/a-computer-program-to-identify-beauty-in-problems-and-studies">beauty</a> in chess problems. Even if one takes such factors as "depth appeal", "visual appeal", etc. as outlined in this research, there still remains the fundamental problem of generating chess positions.</p>
  
  <p>Considering the fact that there are at least <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number">10^43</a> chess positions, it is not yet computationally feasible to generate positions and apply "beauty" analysis to them to see which ones are "quality" problems. </p>
  
  <p>However, we do have <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase">endgame tablebases</a>. It could be possible that one could use the already generated 6 piece tablebases and apply the algorithms of the research on them and generate quality problems. However, I do not know if anyone has done that yet. </p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2014-02-13T17:51:07.240Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2014-02-13T17:51:07.240Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: NM Wesley Falcao
Answers.Body: <p>Azlan Iqbal (PhD) has programmed a chess problem generator. The problems are completely synthesized from only some rough inputs, the way most problems are composed by composition masters.</p>
  <p>In the <a href="http://en.chessbase.com/post/computer-generated-chess-problems-for-everyone" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ChessBase article</a> announcing the work, he says:</p>
  <p>&quot;Chesthetica neither takes these constructs from actual games nor extrapolates them from endgame tablebases (which are currently limited to seven pieces, I believe). It is composing them by itself. It is not programmed or told what sort of compositions to create (beyond being of the #3 variety, at this point). There have been no detected repetitions of the compositions generated to date.&quot;</p>
  <p>To the date of the article, Iqbal has only explored using the program, <em>Chesthetica</em>, to compose mates in 3.  He also states:</p>
  <p>&quot;One might ask where does Chesthetica “get its ideas”? I do not know. How or why should a computer be able to compose chess problems like these at all? Can computers autonomously do this sort of thing? These are also good questions and I believe the answer lies with the DSNS* technology. Again, why it works is still an open question but clearly, it does work.&quot;</p>
  <p>If you're interested in knowing more about how the system was constructed, a brief recap of how DSNS functions is described in slides available <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293817210_The_Digital_Synaptic_Neural_Substrate_A_New_Approach_to_Computational_Creativity_Slides" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>here</em></a>.</p>
  <p>However, other than describing the algorithm and a few comments about the inputs he is using, Iqbal doesn't provide enough material for you to do this by yourself. The software isn't released, and no plans to release it have been announced. In addition, the method for choosing, capturing and inputting the inputs has not been divulged. You're welcome to search for more publications on the topic, available <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/search?q=digital%20synaptic%20neural%20substrate" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>here</em></a>.</p>
  <p>*DSNS: Digital Synaptic Neural Substrate.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2021-06-22T17:49:33.987Z
Answers.Text: Yes,  chessthetica is the best in the chess world in terms of really quality puzzles. I haven't seen any second that even comes close to it.
Answers.UserDisplayName: daparic
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2016-10-08T20:56:46.673Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2016-10-08T20:56:46.673Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2020-06-17T09:59:59.497Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: jaxter
Answers.Body: <p>This program has a generator chess problems but the quality of these tasks is low... <a href="http://chessexplorer.republika.pl/" rel="nofollow">http://chessexplorer.republika.pl/</a></p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-03-11T08:58:13.663Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2015-03-11T08:58:13.663Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Jan Nowakowski
Answers.Body: <p>I'm not sure if any exist but the problem shouldn't be too difficult using a decent engine. As long as time wasn't too big an issue they could be generated by having the engine play itself at different depth ply searches. </p>
  
  <p>For example, if one of the engines only saw two moves ahead a position will eventually arise where the other engine (which can see further) can manoeuvre his opponent into a forced mate in three. This position could then be saved as a problem. The difficulty of the problem would be based on the strength of the two "players". Tweaking of player strength could be used to generate problems of varying difficulty.</p>
  
  <p>I don't think time would even have to be too big a concern. Computers can generally make decent moves very quickly. </p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2014-02-18T12:07:25.723Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2014-02-18T12:07:25.723Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: OnABauer
Answers.Body: <p>The Chess.com has a feature called the tactics trainer.  It gives users a chess position and as for best move.  Which i believe is what you are trying to create/ asking about. </p>
  
  <p>They have a small FAQ about how they came up with these questions here: 
  <a href="https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444815" rel="nofollow">https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444815</a></p>
  
  <p>Basically, they look for blunders in real games, and have an engine to analyze the positions to make sure there is only one winning line (that's the way they set up tactics trainer, only 1 possible good move, for easier implementation of the trainer. In most problems, it is possible to have multiple equally good best moves)</p>
  
  <p>They however, they also have humans to go through the problems before they post it. </p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-05-11T14:16:01.707Z
Answers.Text: Any reason for the downvote?
Answers.UserDisplayName: vincentleest
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2014-04-24T03:24:28.873Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2014-04-24T03:24:28.873Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: vincentleest
Answers.Body: <p>yes! check out this chessbase article
   <a href="http://en.chessbase.com/post/computer-generated-chess-problems-for-everyone" rel="nofollow">http://en.chessbase.com/post/computer-generated-chess-problems-for-everyone</a></p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-05-01T20:00:01.637Z
Answers.Text: Hi magd, can you elaborate on what the link says?  Links don't work forever, and I'm not sure where to download the program or the problems it creates.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Andrew
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-03-11T12:38:45.263Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2015-03-11T12:38:45.263Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: magd
Body: <p>Is there a chess engine that automatically generates quality chess problems. For example I will input 3 - it produces a mate in 3 problem. But the problem shouldn't be so obvious that one can solve in microseconds.</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2014-02-14T08:41:56.577Z
Comments.Text: Not quite the same as your question, but I wonder if the daily puzzles on the front page of chessvibes.com are computer generated?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Dag Oskar Madsen
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2014-02-14T20:42:13.920Z
Comments.Text: Perhaps one idea could be to comb through Master Game databases (preferably Blitz games?) to mine for such positions. Blitz to weed out more "ends by mate" type of games and Master-level to ensure that the tactical shots leading to it are challenging enough to not be obvious.
Comments.UserDisplayName: shivsky
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2014-02-18T13:32:50.093Z
Comments.Text: @DagOskarMadsen: those daily puzzles are from Chesstempo, which does indeed extract puzzles from real chess games.
Comments.UserDisplayName: RemcoGerlich
Tags: <engines><software><problems>
Title: Is there a computer program that generates quality chess problems?
ThreadText: # Is there a computer program that generates quality chess problems?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2014-02-13)
  
  Is there a chess engine that automatically generates quality chess problems. For example I will input 3 - it produces a mate in 3 problem. But the problem shouldn't be so obvious that one can solve in microseconds.
  
  **Tags:** engines, software, problems
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: Not quite the same as your question, but I wonder if the daily puzzles on the front page of chessvibes.com are computer generated?  
  > **username_2**: Perhaps one idea could be to comb through Master Game databases (preferably Blitz games?) to mine for such positions. Blitz to weed out more "ends by mate" type of games and Master-level to ensure that the tactical shots leading to it are challenging enough to not be obvious.  
  > **username_3**: @username_1: those daily puzzles are from Chesstempo, which does indeed extract puzzles from real chess games.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 7 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_4 on 2015-04-28. Score: 6
  
  [ChessTempo](http://chesstempo.com/) uses a chess engine to analyze positions from a large database of master games. It looks for interesting positions that can be presented as chess problems. Specifically it looks for positions in which one side has a way to win material within a few moves, but where alternative moves do not. These positions are then offered to users of the site who try to find the computer's selected best move. The users can also comment on the problems, tag them and rate how they liked the problem. Each problem is also given an ELO-like rating based on which users solved or failed to solve the problem.
  
  Many of the problems turn out to be uninteresting (e.g. simple captures with no strategy involved) or flawed in some way (due to the chess engine not seeing some detail of the position). The easy problems are quickly given a low difficulty rating and are not shown to high rated players. Flawed problems are identified in comments and are disabled by the site administrator.
  
  The result is a large body of interesting chess problems found by a computer, moderated by humans, and arranged by difficult level.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_5**: lichess.org has also computer selected puzzles from online games.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_6 on 2014-02-13. Score: 5
  
  I don't know if such an engine exists, but there probably might not be one yet and here's why-
  
  It's hard to explain to engines what is "obvious". What might be obvious to you might not even be obvious to me. However, there is some recent research in the area of [beauty](http://en.chessbase.com/post/a-computer-program-to-identify-beauty-in-problems-and-studies) in chess problems. Even if one takes such factors as "depth appeal", "visual appeal", etc. as outlined in this research, there still remains the fundamental problem of generating chess positions.
  
  Considering the fact that there are at least [10^43](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number) chess positions, it is not yet computationally feasible to generate positions and apply "beauty" analysis to them to see which ones are "quality" problems.
  
  However, we do have [endgame tablebases](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase). It could be possible that one could use the already generated 6 piece tablebases and apply the algorithms of the research on them and generate quality problems. However, I do not know if anyone has done that yet.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_7 on 2016-10-08. Score: 3
  
  Azlan Iqbal (PhD) has programmed a chess problem generator. The problems are completely synthesized from only some rough inputs, the way most problems are composed by composition masters.
  
  In the [ChessBase article](http://en.chessbase.com/post/computer-generated-chess-problems-for-everyone) announcing the work, he says:
  
  "Chesthetica neither takes these constructs from actual games nor extrapolates them from endgame tablebases (which are currently limited to seven pieces, I believe). It is composing them by itself. It is not programmed or told what sort of compositions to create (beyond being of the #3 variety, at this point). There have been no detected repetitions of the compositions generated to date."
  
  To the date of the article, Iqbal has only explored using the program, *Chesthetica*, to compose mates in 3. He also states:
  
  "One might ask where does Chesthetica “get its ideas”? I do not know. How or why should a computer be able to compose chess problems like these at all? Can computers autonomously do this sort of thing? These are also good questions and I believe the answer lies with the DSNS\* technology. Again, why it works is still an open question but clearly, it does work."
  
  If you're interested in knowing more about how the system was constructed, a brief recap of how DSNS functions is described in slides available [*here*](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293817210_The_Digital_Synaptic_Neural_Substrate_A_New_Approach_to_Computational_Creativity_Slides).
  
  However, other than describing the algorithm and a few comments about the inputs he is using, Iqbal doesn't provide enough material for you to do this by yourself. The software isn't released, and no plans to release it have been announced. In addition, the method for choosing, capturing and inputting the inputs has not been divulged. You're welcome to search for more publications on the topic, available [*here*](https://www.researchgate.net/search?q=digital%20synaptic%20neural%20substrate).
  
  \*DSNS: Digital Synaptic Neural Substrate.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_8**: Yes,  chessthetica is the best in the chess world in terms of really quality puzzles. I haven't seen any second that even comes close to it.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_9 on 2015-03-11. Score: 2
  
  This program has a generator chess problems but the quality of these tasks is low... <http://chessexplorer.republika.pl/>
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_10 on 2014-02-18. Score: 0
  
  I'm not sure if any exist but the problem shouldn't be too difficult using a decent engine. As long as time wasn't too big an issue they could be generated by having the engine play itself at different depth ply searches.
  
  For example, if one of the engines only saw two moves ahead a position will eventually arise where the other engine (which can see further) can manoeuvre his opponent into a forced mate in three. This position could then be saved as a problem. The difficulty of the problem would be based on the strength of the two "players". Tweaking of player strength could be used to generate problems of varying difficulty.
  
  I don't think time would even have to be too big a concern. Computers can generally make decent moves very quickly.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_11 on 2014-04-24. Score: 0
  
  The Chess.com has a feature called the tactics trainer. It gives users a chess position and as for best move. Which i believe is what you are trying to create/ asking about.
  
  They have a small FAQ about how they came up with these questions here:
  <https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444815>
  
  Basically, they look for blunders in real games, and have an engine to analyze the positions to make sure there is only one winning line (that's the way they set up tactics trainer, only 1 possible good move, for easier implementation of the trainer. In most problems, it is possible to have multiple equally good best moves)
  
  They however, they also have humans to go through the problems before they post it.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_11**: Any reason for the downvote?  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_12 on 2015-03-11. Score: -1
  
  yes! check out this chessbase article
  <http://en.chessbase.com/post/computer-generated-chess-problems-for-everyone>
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_13**: Hi username_12, can you elaborate on what the link says?  Links don't work forever, and I'm not sure where to download the program or the problems it creates.  
  
  ---
  
  