Twitch Plays Chess beats a Grandmaster

And you thought Twitch Plays beating Dark Souls was impressive?

As part of the promotional drive for Pure Chess, the hive mind of Twitch was pitted against British grandmaster Simon Williams, Rock Paper Shotgun reports.

No contest, you’d think? Well, Williams won the first two games, the second of which he was blindfolded for and keeping track of proceedings in his head. However, in the third game – in which he was facing off against the collective will of 600 people, he lost.

As the site speculates, maybe this isn’t as surprising as you’d initially think. It’s likely that a large bulk of the 600 were themselves analysing the game with their computers, meaning he was not only battling a Borg-like strategic hive mind but also possibly a computer network.

You can watch an archive of the entire thing below:

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