When you visit the History of Computer Chess exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the first machine you see is “The Turk.” In 1770, a Hungarian engineer and diplomat ...

If you walk into a screening of Computer Chess without any prior knowledge, you’ll likely think two things. First, this is a real documentary about tech nerds from the 1980s. Second, it looks rough.

It was a war of titans you likely never heard about. One year ago, two of the world’s strongest and most radically different chess engines fought a pitched, 100-game battle to decide the future of ...