Your Check Mate

Abstract

Chess is a complex game with a staggeringly large set of possible positions. Still, the first moves made in each game of chess (the opening moves) are very well-studied; most of them even have names. In this paper, we tackle the challenge of producing an interactive visualization that allows users to explore chess openings across several parameters, namely time and player skill. We utilize a treemap and a stacked bar chart to visualize information, such as the popularity and success of different openings. Through interactive elements such as an interactive chessboard, tooltips, and autoscrolling to enable a user-friendly exploratory experience, even for users unfamiliar with chess.