Walker Chess-player
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The Walker Chess-player was a
chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...
-playing "machine" created by the Walker Brothers of
Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...
. The machine was produced in the 1820s to compete with
The Turk Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Turkey * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic lan ...
, a world-famous chess "machine". Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, a
Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
n musician with an interest in various machines and devices who owned and operated the Turk, viewed the competing machine and attempted to buy it, but the offer was declined and the duplicate machine toured for a number of years, never receiving the fame that Mälzel's machine did, and eventually fell into obscurity. These 19th-century machines were hoaxes that disguised a human player with stage-magic devices; unlike modern chess playing machines which play without human intervention.


References

* Tom Standage, ''The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine''. Walker and Company,
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, 2002. * Gerald M. Levitt, ''The Turk, Chess Automaton''. McFarland and Company Inc. Publishers,
Jefferson, North Carolina Jefferson is a town in and the county seat of Ashe County, North Carolina, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 1,622. History The North Carolina General Assembly created a special commission in 1799 to found a county seat fo ...
, 2000. 1820s in Baltimore 1820s establishments in Maryland Chess automatons Chess in the United States 19th-century robots {{chess-stub