London-based RegTech firm ClauseMatch supports Pro-Biz Cup 2018

ClauseMatch, a London-based, award-winning RegTech company, is supporting the sixth Pro-Biz Cup.

As part of the UK’s largest chess tournament, ClauseMatch Head of Product Karina Vazirova is taking on the challenge of playing alongside Hikaru Nakamura, a Japanese-American chess grandmaster, who is a four-time United States Chess Champion and one of the top players in the world.

Organised by educational charity Chess in Schools and Communities, the Pro-Biz Cup is a fundraiser that marks the launch of the annual London Chess Classic. Now in its tenth iteration, the tournament welcomes some of the world’s greatest players, in the culmination of the worldwide Grand Chess Tour, as well as 1,000 of amateurs and children.

To take part in the event, businesses made a donation to Chess in Schools and Communities, which aims to make chess classes available for more children, in order to aid their social and educational development, including focus, logic, and strategy. Businesses participating in the tournament can apply valuable findings from the chess world to their work. 

Specifically, RegTech can learn valuable lessons from how the chess industry adopted artificial intelligence for higher results, particularly IBM’s Deep Blue, the first computer chess-playing system to defeat a world chess champion, in 1996, and AlphaZero, the game-playing programme developed by Google’s pioneering AI division, DeepMind.  AlphaZero has beaten the world’s best chess-playing computer programme, having taught itself how to play in under four hours. 

It is notable, that the Pro-Biz Cup will take place at DeepMind’s St Pancras headquarters, as part of the company’s ongoing support of Chess in Schools and Communities, and CEO and Co-Founder Demis Hassabis, himself a chess prodigy and England Junior Captain, is amongst the competitors at the Pro-Biz Cup. Garry Kasparov, too, considered one of the greatest chess players in the world, who famously played Deep Blue in a worldwide publicised event, will take part. Kasparov is working closely with DeepMind, recently saying that people should “treat AI as a tool that will augment human decision making”. 

In an age of fast-changing and growing regulatory requirements, with over 750 global regulators releasing more than 54,000 regulatory documents since 2009, it is essential to stay proactive. The game of chess gives advantages to innovative companies working on how to fix industry problems, complementing what RegTech is achieving.

Karina Vazirova, ClauseMatch Head of Product, said, “People become masters and grandmasters through a combination of human expertise and intuition. Yet use of computers is increasingly important for practice, study and simulation of certain moves.  AI is clearly the future, both for the gaming industry and for RegTech. With a chess-based expertise of how to apply artificial intelligence, at ClauseMatch we are now actively researching AI and machine learning capabilities. While the computer has proved to be more efficient and fast learning, it is still humans who lead the game. For me taking part in this tournament is an opportunity to play with one of the best players in the world, meet people from other businesses and see how they apply chess knowledge in work,” – Karina Vazirova commented. 

Hikaru Nakamura, world chess no.16 and Grand Chess Tour semi-finalist, drew parallels between chess and trading: “Top chess players, just like top traders, make a lot of winning decisions and not a lot of mistakes. It’s about evaluating all relevant factors – on the market or at the chess table – to make a move that is most likely to lead to victory. In both chess and trading, it’s not about being right, it’s about being successful; winning the game or making a profit. Both disciplines have also benefited from artificial intelligence – chess computers and trading algorithms have helped to automate decision making and moved both disciplines into a new level of sophistication and competition. Both disciplines serve as proof that artificial intelligence can bring considerable benefits and boost efficiency.”

The Pro-Biz Cup takes places on December 10, marking the launch of the London Chess Classic, the final event in the 2018 Grand Chess Tour.