Data is considered, basically, a sentient supercomputer. The ultimate AI. He was built with an ultimate storage capacity of eight hundred quadrillion bits and a total linear computational speed rated at sixty trillion operations per second.
Chess is not a game of intuition or empathy, it's a game of computational skill/power and positional manipulation. Even today's crude computers can beat the best chess players on the planet.
Data is programmed with "extremely advanced" chess routines yet...he loses a chess game to a relative novice chess player. If Diana was a strong player who actually studied the game, she would be reasonably comparable to a modern day 1700-1800 rated 'B' level player. Data on the other hand with his 'extremely advanced' chess routine programming would likely be equivalent to a modern 2800+ rated Grandmaster. At the beginning of TNG 5x14 - 'Conundrum', Counselor Troi--having shown no particular skill much less highly advanced chess skills in her entire existence-- beats Data in a game of chess.
How can this be?
Answer
I wouldn't overanalyse this too much - it's just a case of bad writing. Furthermore, it was written in the early 90s, back before computers surpassed humans at chess, and people still thought that magical human intuition could beat brute force calculation every time.
Really, the ludicrous part is the idea that a 'classic attack', which has apparently been sufficiently well analysed that it has both a name and a 'characteristic response' which also has a name, could be refuted by a 7-move forced checkmate (over the board by an amateur, no less). This is typical ignorant TV chess writing, where the response to everything is an overlooked checkmate.
The whole scene is the chess equivalent of technobabble.
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