Are there Practical Alternatives to Alpha-Beta?

The success of the alpha-beta algorithm in game playing has shown its value for problem solving in artificial intelligence, especially in the domain of two-person zero-sum games with perfect information. Still, there are different algorithms for game-tree search which challenge the value of the alpha-beta algorithm. This paper describes and assesses the alternatives proposed according to how they try to overcome the limitations of alpha-beta. We conclude that for computer chess no practical alternative exists, but many promising ideas have good potential to change that in the future.