Chinook (written by Jonathan Schaeffer) in 1989 became world human-machine champion, ending the 40-year reign of human world champion Marion Tinsley. Chinook used an endgame database defining perfect play for all positions involving 8 or fewer pieces on the board, a total of 443,748,401,247 positions. Schaeffer later developed Nemesis (2002).

• Powerful parallel computer (with a very deep search)
• Retrograde endgame analysis
• Excellent book: One Jump Ahead (Springer-Verlag)