The Architect of Intelligence: Demis Hassabis

Photo: Arthur Petron / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

In August 1988, at a big open tournament in London, a 12-year-old sat down with the black pieces against Rani Hamid, Bangladesh's first Woman International Master. Over 38 moves, one of his pawns walked from d7 all the way to d1 and became a second queen.

His name was Demis Hassabis. Years later he would share a Nobel Prize. Here is his story, that game, and five more of his early games you can study.

A Boy From North London

Demis Hassabis was born on July 27, 1976, and grew up in North London. His father is Greek Cypriot and his mother is Chinese Singaporean. He learned chess at four, by watching his father play his uncle.

• He reached master standard at 13, with a rating of 2300.
• He captained many England junior teams.
• In 1984 he bought his first computer, a ZX Spectrum, with money he had won at chess. He taught himself to program from books.

The Game: Rani Hamid vs. Demis Hassabis, London 1988

Rani Hamid 0-1 Demis Hassabis Lloyds Bank Masters Open, London · Round 10 · August 29, 1988 White: Rani Hamid, Bangladesh · Black: Demis Hassabis, age 12

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 Be6 9.Nc4 Rc8 10.Bxf6 gxf6 11.Ne3 Bh6 12.Ng4 Bg7 13.h3 f5 14.exf5 Bxf5 15.Ne3 Be6

The opening is a Sicilian Defence. For the first 15 moves our Stockfish 16 check rates the game close to level, within about a pawn.

16.Be2 O-O 17.g4 Ne7 18.g5

White pushes her kingside pawns forward, but her own king is still in the middle of the board. Our engine rates Black about three pawns ahead here.

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After 18.g5, Black to move. White has pushed pawns on the kingside, but the white king has not castled. Our engine's best move is 18...d5, opening the centre. Hassabis found it.

Analyze this position in the full game

The Pawn Starts to Walk

18...d5

When your opponent attacks on the side of the board, a good answer is often to open the centre. That is what 18...d5 does. Watch this pawn. It will not stop until move 38.

19.Ng4 Nf5 20.h4 b5 21.Qd2 b4 22.Nd1 e4 23.c3 a5 24.a3 d4 25.axb4 d3

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After 25...d3, White to move. The black pawn on d3 attacks the bishop on e2. It is deep in White's half of the board, and it has a lot of help from Black's pieces.

Analyze this position in the full game

26.Bf1 axb4 27.Ra4 bxc3 28.bxc3 Nd6 29.Nge3 Qc7 30.c4 Bxc4 31.Bh3 Bb3 32.Ra6 Ra8 33.Rxa8 Rxa8 34.O-O Qc5 35.Ng4 Qd4 36.Qf4 Ne8 37.Nde3 d2

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After 37...d2, White to move. The pawn is one step from d1. Black's queen on d4 guards it, and the bishop on b3 guards d1, the square in front of it.

Analyze this position in the full game

A Second Queen

38.Nf5 d1=Q

White's knight on f5 attacks the black queen on d4. Hassabis does not move it. He makes a new queen instead. Our engine rates 38...d1=Q as Black's best move.

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After 38...d1=Q, White to move. Black has two queens. The new queen on d1 protects the queen on d4, and attacks the rook on f1 and the knight on g4.

Analyze this position in the full game

The new queen protects the old one. If White takes the queen on d4, Black takes back and still has a queen. The new queen also attacks the rook on f1 and the knight on g4.

39.Ngh6+ Bxh6 40.Nxd4 Qxd4 41.gxh6 Qf6 42.Qxe4 Qg6+ 43.Bg2 Qxe4 44.Bxe4 Rd8 45.Bf3 Kf8 46.Rb1 Bc4

The queens come off, and Black is left a knight ahead for a pawn. The official game score ends here with Black's win.

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Final position after 46...Bc4. Black has a rook, a knight and a bishop. White has a rook, a bishop and one more pawn. Our engine rates Black more than four pawns ahead.

Analyze this position in the full game

Five More Hassabis Games to Study

These five games are from 1988 and 1989, when he was 11 to 13. Set each one up on a board, or play through it on your computer, and look for the idea in the note. The engine numbers come from our own Stockfish 16, searching to depth 16.

• Ove Weiss Hartvig vs. Demis Hassabis, Lyngby Open, 1988 (0-1). A strange queen trade. 13...e4 attacks the white queen, White takes Black's queen with 14.Rxd7, and Black takes White's with 14...exf3. After 20.gxf3, which our engine rates as a mistake, 20...Bxf3 gives Black the better position. Then watch Black's pawn on c6 march all the way to 40...c2.
• Demis Hassabis vs. Goran Fant, Lyngby Open, 1988 (1-0). A French Defence where White gains space with 13.g4 and 15.g5. Our engine rates White better from about move 12. At the end, a pawn on c5 wins it: after 41...b5, which our engine rates as a big mistake, 42.c6 and 43.c7 leave the pawn one step from queening.
• Demis Hassabis vs. Mervyn J. Hughes, Edinburgh Open, March 27, 1989 (1-0). A long game against a player rated 2230. In the final position White has a dark-squared bishop and Black a light-squared one. Endgames like that are often drawn, but here White's two extra pawns decide. Our engine rates White better from about move 16 to the end.
• Peter G. Large vs. Demis Hassabis, British Championship, Plymouth, August 2, 1989 (0-1). At 13, against a player rated 2340. Another pawn walk: Black's f-pawn goes 14...f5, 22...f4, 34...f3, 35...f2 and 36...f1=Q+. White has to give up a rook to get rid of it. Our engine rates Black better from about move 22.
• David Coleman vs. Demis Hassabis, British Championship, Plymouth, August 9, 1989 (0-1). Against a player rated 2295. After 26.Kg2, which our engine rates as a mistake, the knight jumps to 26...Nd4. Later Black's b-pawn runs to 38...b2, and the endgame is won.

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Large vs. Hassabis, Plymouth 1989, after 36...f1=Q+, White to move. The black pawn has become a queen with check. White's only legal move is 37.Rxf1, and then 37...Rxf1+ wins the rook.

Analyze this positionReview the full game

From Chess to Computers

Hassabis finished his school exams two years early, at 16. At 17 he co-designed and lead-programmed the video game Theme Park, which sold several million copies. He then studied computer science at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 1997, and played for Cambridge in the Oxford-Cambridge chess matches of 1995, 1996 and 1997. He later earned a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at University College London.

In 2010 he co-founded DeepMind. Its program AlphaGo beat the former Go world champion Lee Sedol 4-1 in 2016, and its AlphaFold system predicts the shapes of proteins. In 2024 Hassabis and John Jumper were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this protein work, and he was knighted the same year.

A Habit to Practice

Set up the position after 37...d2 and play it as Black against a friend or a computer. Then look at your own games: when you have a passed pawn, count how many of your pieces can help it move forward.