Chess2vec: Learning Vector Representations for Chess

We conduct the first study of its kind to generate and evaluate vector representations for chess pieces. In particular, we uncover the latent structure of chess pieces and moves, as well as predict chess moves from chess positions. We share preliminary results which anticipate our ongoing work on a neural network architecture that learns these embeddings directly from supervised feedback. The fundamental challenge for machine learning based chess programs is to learn the mapping between chess positions and optimal moves [5, 3, 7]. A chess position is a description of where pieces are located on the chessboard. In learning, chess positions are typically represented as bitboard representations [1]. A bitboard is a 8 8 binary matrix, same dimensions as the chessboard, and each bitboard is associated with a particular piece type (e.g.