The thing is, for a guided interceptor, the speed ratio between the interceptor and it's target has an extremely strong effect on how difficult the intercept is. In practical situations increasing speed is the best way to increase intercept chance.
The premise is a bit of a stretch to begin with, and the idea that people would not believe a fable transcript circa 2020 (as long as explained as 5 year future tech) is absurd. But even if I take that "AI can do all cognitive and physical work, at human level or better, and cheaper than humans" is true, the article seems to silently layer on "and can run autonomously, indefinitely", then "can also operate independently of any instructions", and finally layers on "has emotions, has moral values, is a conscious being"
For the purposes of chess the domain knowledge is the game rules. And from this pov there is really not much to describe, knowing en-passant exists is the peak of domain knowledge.
The other things you describe, such as endgame tables, are really more related to the domain of chess-computing, a subdomain of algorithms, and likely something you exceed your friend's knowledge in.
Getting to a high rank in chess isn't about better domain knowledge, is about application and experience.
IDK if it's just me, but I also find Claude, whether it be the model or the harness, is a lot more "forgiving" of poor prompts than many of the open models