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Chess - 2070 CPUs vs 1 GM

Posted by timothy on Tue Feb 03, 2004 02:37 AM
from the hitting-all-the-bases dept.
Puzzle Games (Games) Entertainment Games
jvarsoke writes "ChessBrain.net broke the world's record for 'largest number of distributed computers used to play a single game' by holding a chess match between Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen and the equivalent of SETI@home (which similarly, has some people looking for a Mate). 2070 CPU's from 56 countries aided Black by running the chess program Beowulf, including a couple of University clusters. Their supernode ran Linux, and MySQL. The game was relayed by FICS. Results can be viewed here(1) and here(2)."
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  • I'd love to see a Beowolf cluster of those (Score:4, Funny)

    by odeee (741339) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:38AM (#8167155)
    I'd love to see a Beowolf cluster of those... Oh damn... it is =:-)

  • For those too lazy to read the article... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gogl (125883) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:43AM (#8167176) Homepage Journal
    Or in case it gets Slashdotted or something, I may as well note who actually won the game (although I do think that is something that should have been noted in the submission itself but oh well).

    Our World Record attempt is now complete. We had serious technical difficulties early in the game, but managed to resolve them! The result of the game was a draw.

    • PS (Score:5, Informative)

      by Gogl (125883) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:48AM (#8167200) Homepage Journal
      It was a draw by repetition. The human grandmaster had a position advantage and was able to force a draw that way despite being down a significant amount of material.

      • Re:PS (Score:4, Informative)

        by arvindn (542080) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @03:14AM (#8167280) Homepage Journal
        Not exactly. Nielson had a positional advantage but decided to force a draw anyway by sacrificing material to obtain a draw by repetition. Your version sounds more romantic, but is not accurate :-)
        • Heh fair enough. Technically what I said is accurate, just omits that point about his sacrificing the material. Thanks for the clarification, though.

  • Well that's great.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by filtur (724994) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:43AM (#8167177) Homepage
    Sure Chess it great, but can it find me a date?

  • Here is mirror of the game :) (Score:5, Informative)

    by doomy (7461) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:43AM (#8167178) Homepage Journal
    Nielsen,P - ChessBrain [E94]
    Guinness record attempt, 30.01.2004
    1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.e4 d6 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 a5 8.Re1 exd4 9.Nxd4 Bd7 10.Bg5 Nc6 11.Nxc6 Bxc6 12.f3 Qd7 13.Qd2 Rfe8 14.Rac1 h5 15.Kh1 Nh7 16.Bh6 Bxh6 17.Qxh6 Re5 18.Nd5 Rae8 19.Qd2 b6 20.Bd3 Qd8 21.Rf1 Nf6 22.b3 Bb7 23.Qc2 Nd7 24.f4 R5e6 25.e5 c6

  • What's the point? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by syrion (744778) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:44AM (#8167181)
    The problem with this is that it seems to assume that chess is a difficult problem. It isn't. Modern chess algorithms are really simple search-and- prune systems, relying on the computer's immense number-crunching ability to overcome the more heuristic human mind. Unfortunately, this isn't very interesting. What's the point? We know that computers can search faster than a human. See: Google. All these projects (DeepBlue, Fritz, this) accomplish is trivializing the game of chess, which is rather sad. Now, I'll be really annoyed when Go programs start improving to a 'decent amateur' level...

    • Re:What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by vidarh (309115) <vidar@hokstad.com> on Tuesday February 03 2004, @07:50AM (#8167920) Homepage Journal
      Any turn based board game are "really simple search-and-prune" systems. The problem is how to minimize the time taken by the search, and how to decide what a to prune, and how to decide which move to take.

      Brute forcing a chess game tree based on basic alpha beta minimax for instance is no way to play well against an experienced human player - first of all you won't get many moves ahead, and a good player that know how the computer work can easily set up a trap that will make the board look good X moves ahead, to make the computer to do stupid moves they can't easily reverse later.

      Second you face the problem of definining and weighting what a "good position" is. What is a good position depends on the strategy of the opponent.

      Most modern chess programs will augment the basic search and prune with a lot of heuristics to guide the search and weighting of choices, exactly for that reason. They also often contain massive databases of games, sequences of moves etc., to hunt for known strategies that humans might try to recycle against it.

      Chess isn't "simple". Chess is a game where it's easy to beat beginners, possible to beat intermediate players on modest hardware, and possible to face grand masters if you have lots of time and access to millions of dollars worth of hardware, and you can still expect to be surprised every now and again.

      It makes it interesting, because you have a good foundation to research algorithm improvements on, and because a good algorithm will be more and more useful as hardware costs come down, but it certainly doesn't invalidate the need for better algorithms.

      It's also interesting because better algorithms might help us appreciate how humans approach the problem, and as such benefit AI research.

  • May I suggest... (Score:4, Funny)

    by kamapuaa (555446) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:46AM (#8167190) Homepage
    which similarly, has some people looking for a Mate

    May I suggest, that neither the SETI@Home, nor Chessbrain.net, is the best place where one can find a Mate.

  • Draw game against 2070 CPUs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vchoy (134429) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:46AM (#8167192)
    To give credit to Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen, I would have to say if there were only 2069 CPUs then he might of just won... :P (J/KING)

    More interestingly, would the ChessBrain.net team would of won with more CPUs?

    • "might of"

      "would of"

      Make the hurting stop!

      The sad part is you correctly said "would have" earlier in the post.

      Yeah yeah, evolving language. Some adaptations should be thrown in the chlorinated pool!

      I'm not usually a grammar nazi. But hey, chess is neat. Those fancy chess playing computers are going to take over the world some day, yessirree!

  • Results (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stalyx (633692) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:47AM (#8167195)
    "The game lasted several hours before resulting in a draw. Chess Grandmaster Peter Nielsen commented that he had set several traps for ChessBrain which computers normally fall for... but was surprised that ChessBrain refused them! "

    So what does this tell us? Nothing really, however it would be interesting how the computer will perform in a 5 match series.

    Although I still think the GM would win handily.

      • Re:Results (Score:4, Insightful)

        by azaris (699901) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @04:52AM (#8167510) Journal

        Why do you believe that over a 5 match series the GrandMaster will win handily?

        If you look at the position at move 26, it's obvious ChessBrain is being pressured. In fact the article gives a possible move that could have resulted in ChessBrain losing. Instead Nielsen went for a forced draw because he only cared about not losing to a computer.

        If ChessBrain refused some normal traps that computers normally fall for, then could it be the case that the computer is better than you realise. What if the drawn match was a bad one for the computer?

        I suspect Nielsen sacrificed the win to see if ChessBrain would fall in his standard tricks, and when it didn't he settled for a draw. With that knowledge he'd probably play the second game much differently, and based on ChessBrain's poor position in the first game, would likely win.

        But the fact that ChessBrain didn't fall in those standard traps tells us it's better than most computer opponents.

  • Obligatory Slashdot Comment (Score:5, Informative)

    by Crypto Gnome (651401) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:47AM (#8167198) Homepage Journal
    It's only a large aggregation, not really a cluster in that sense.

    Anyway apparently it worked! (ie not a cluster in that sense either)

    If it WAS implemented on the clustering technology we-all-know-and-love as Beowulf, would that make it a Beowulf-Squared?

    And, of course, we have to ask the (obvious) question(s)

  • Intangibles... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John Seminal (698722) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @03:03AM (#8167251) Journal
    Computers playing chess is not the same thing as two people playing the game.

    With two people, there are some elements that can not be programmed into a chess game. I remember in high school playing chess, there was a differance between playing a math academy team and a school best known for its basketball program. Expectations were different, the pressure was different. I remember the pressure of the state finals. There is the look the other person has, almost like poker. Can I bluff this person? Can I trick this person? What about the clock, can I manipulate that to cause an emotion in the other person.

    Maybe Spock can play a PC and have no differance in quality of play. But I prefer humans.


    • Reminds me of the kid who was a year older than me who was in the Chess Club. Big guy, joined the Marines right out of highschool, played on the football team etc. Anyway, when he would go into a match he would pull out his chair about 5 feet or so - really far. He would then sit down in it, bend at the waist, grab the table and pull it over to him with the board and pieces jumping all over making a huge racket. It invariably ended up with him sitting at the table fiddling with his pieces while some shimp o
      • Have you looked through a recent edition of MCO? Even since I was interested in chess, professional level chess increasingly involves memorization. If your opponent can force you into an opening that he knows well, and you don't, he has a very great advantage. People used to study and work to invent novel openings (just consider the Orangutang), but now it's reached the point where the well researched openings cover more than it's reasonable to memorize. This has changed the nature of the game. (For

  • Comp. vs. Comp. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by John Hurliman (152784) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @03:08AM (#8167264) Homepage
    I want to see this cluster take on IBM's system!

  • GM vs. thousands of humans? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by schm00 (639953) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @03:12AM (#8167271)
    Has anyone ever written a system by which a large number of average chess players could collaborate to play a single game? The individuals could vote for the best move, and the majority would rule. Would a group like this be able to beat a high ranking player?
    • Offhand, I would think not. Tests with monkeys have shown that intelligence is not cumulative. Ten half-power monkeys just can't equal five regular monkeys no matter what, to put it simply. Assuming that each player acts intelligently, i.e. non-randomly, there is about epsilon chance of them winning. Where epsilon is the chance that one of those players does act randomly... and randomly picks the best move... enough times to win. 0.02EU

    • Re:GM vs. thousands of humans? (Score:5, Informative)

      by sciencewhiz (448595) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @03:20AM (#8167294)
      There are many systems like this. Chessworld.net is one, and they just challenged chessbrain to a match. You can see a full list of chessworld.net's ongoing games here: http://chessworld.net/chessclubs/event_show_chessw orld_summary_rowgames.asp
    • This was done, in Kasparov v World.

      It was done on the Zone.

      http://classic.zone.msn.com/kasparov/Home.asp

    • No. Popular != best. 100 average people just gets you an average mob. If the average person is an expert then perhaps it works, but the average person isn't an expert.

      Many average eyes only make obvious bugs shallow. You need skilled eyes.

      A chess grandmaster aided by a bunch of high powered chess computers and programmes, might be able to beat the world number 1. The grandmaster provides strategy, and tells the computers which paths to look into. The computers provide search depth and protection against s
    • Would a group like this be able to beat a high ranking player?

      I seriously doubt that the group would win. Some of the moves suggested by individuals in the group would likely be the best choice. But more votes would probably come in for another move - one which doesn't hold up as well.

      Some time back, I saw an average or slightly above average player play "everyone at the event" by allowing anyone who wanted to make one move in the game. Many people felt this put him at a disadvantage. But it actual

  • chorus of tortises vs. array of hares (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @03:34AM (#8167323) Homepage Journal
    It's really "10 trillion neurons" vs. "2070 CPUs", but the neurons are about 40Hz, while the CPUs are in the GHz class. My bets are on the homegrown favorite, the MPP integrated analog processor with the "intuitive" OS. Although v2 of the digital SW will benefit from the digirally-distributed analog MPP network of metaprogramming, and might come out on top in round 2.

    "Chess is for computers" - Usenet 1997

  • 2070 CPUs (Score:5, Funny)

    by Duncan3 (10537) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @04:53AM (#8167513) Homepage
    1 CPU to beat the GM.
    +2069 CPU's so it could get on Slashdot.

    There are very few humans on the planet that can beat even one computer. That's been true for how many years now? Neither beating a GM or 2070 CPU's is impressive anymore.

    Someone go built a robot that can shovel snow, now THAT would be useful.

  • Am I doing my maths correctly? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Knx (743893) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @08:35AM (#8168119) Homepage
    There are approximately 35 moves per position in Chess (average value). Thus, the branching factor of the search tree is ~35 with a simple min-max search. Assuming that the program is always picking the best move to search first -- which is obviously not systematically the case -- alpha-beta pruning allows us to get a branching factor equal to approximately the square root of 35, that is: close to 6.

    Assuming that 2070 CPU are able to do the calculations 2070 times faster than 1 CPU -- which, again, is not the case -- it appears that the resulting supernode is able to 'see' up to 4 or 5 half-moves deeper than a single CPU in the same amount of time:

    6^4 < 2070 < 6^5

    It doesn't seem to be *that* useful. For most strategical positions, thinking 5 half-moves deeper just doesn't make any difference. Game 3 [x3dchess.com] of 'Kasparov vs X3D Fritz' is a good example: I'd be willing to bet that 2070 X3D Fritz playing together would have lost the game the same way, since the serious troubles caused by the pawns diagonal are still far beyond the resulting analysis depth. (Well... At least, I think so. I'm not a Chess expert!)

    Anyway, this is quite an interesting project. I hope to see it grow up in the future.

    -- Arnauld
    • There is a difference between "participated" and "worked flat out on the problem".

      In this case they had some serious bottleneck issues and at least the machines I had involved spent most of the time idle, throughout the game I probably got only about five moves per CPU, total.

      Poul-Henning

    • Bullshit... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Transient0 (175617) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:44AM (#8167183) Homepage
      It is very rare that a common opener played at the GM level results in a discrepancy greater than about a quarter of a pawn. And it takes a great strategic thinker to understand the advantages and disadvantages of all the available branches in the opening against different types of players.

      Of course, it should be obvious that your line of reasoning is totally bogus. The totality of possible moves in chess is simply incomputable and somehow magically trimming this tree to "good" moves still leaves a fundamentally unmemorizable realm of possibilities even at only ten moves depth.

      • Re:Bullshit... (Score:5, Informative)

        by DAldredge (2353) <SlashdotEmail@GMail.Com> on Tuesday February 03 2004, @03:01AM (#8167247) Journal
        10^120 is the number of possible chess moves. From a google link.

        " If you were to fully develop the entire tree for all possible chess moves, the total number of board positions is about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
        000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,
        000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,00 0,000,
        000,000,000,000, or 10120, give or take a few. That's a very big number. For example, there have only been 1026 nanoseconds since the Big Bang. There are thought to be only 1075 atoms in the entire universe. When you consider that the Milky Way galaxy contains billions of suns, and there are billions of galaxies, you can see that that's a whole lot of atoms. That number is dwarfed by the number of possible chess moves. Chess is a pretty intricate game!"
        • For example, there have only been 1026 nanoseconds since the Big Bang. There are thought to be only 1075 atoms in the entire universe.

          The universe must be much smaller than I am prepared to comprehend.

        • For example, there have only been 1026 nanoseconds since the Big Bang. There are thought to be only 1075 atoms in the entire universe.

          Mental note: <sup> doesn't work on /.

        • Re:Bullshit... (Score:5, Informative)

          by product byproduct (628318) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @04:50AM (#8167508)
          Watch your terminology:
          • The number of chess moves is at most 218.
          • The number of chess positions is estimated to be between 10^43 and 10^50.
          • The number of chess games is infinite, as the 50-move rule and the draw by repetition of position don't apply if no player makes the claim.
          • The game tree complexity is about 10^123. That's the number of chess games you may have to consider to play perfect chess.
          Source: http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess [wikipedia.org]
      • While this is true and I definitely agree with your sentiments, it should be noted that players at the GM level spend a considerable amount of time in preparation for their specific opponents. They spend countless hours analyzing the games of the person that they will be playing tomorrow. In this sense, a computer will and already is better facilitated to analyzing styles/methods/openings/etc. to play against a human than any human being is capable of. A computer could easily go through every game someone h
        • They spend countless hours analyzing the games of the person that they will be playing tomorrow.

          Yeah, if "countless" is by your definition "less than 24".

    • Re:Understanding vs. Processing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by njan (606186) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:44AM (#8167184) Homepage
      The theorists would disagree with you; computers are extremely good at assessing a *large* number of potential outcomes. Humans, however, are much better at pattern recognition and whilst they can only consciously assess a dozen or two moves, they have most of the work done for them by the functionality in the human brain which causes them to recognise patterns and possibilities far more efficiently than any computer we have now (or will in the forseeable future) will.

      Computers can certainly give GM chess players a run for their money - no-one's disputing this; but ultimately, barring a total change of direction in programming/processor/logic/chess theory, they're still just applying what basically boils down to a probability-based brute force method to chess-playing - the human method is far more elegant.

    • Re:Understanding vs. Processing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by vontrotsky (667853) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @02:46AM (#8167193)
      We're getting closer and closer to the days when humans won't be able to compete with computer's at chess. Even so I don't think this is such a big deal. We haven't be able to compete with computers at arithmetic for half a century and this doesn't bother anyone.

      Losing to computers in chess will be like losing to calculators in a addition match. People and computers aren't really in competition. They do very different things.
      • It's gotten to the point that even Kasparov is only playing the best chess computers to draws. Of course, he did lose to Deep Blue, but despite all his insistance that IBM cheated, he got beat mentally, not necessarily because the computer was better.

        Incidentally, there is a new documentary, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine [imdb.com] about the Deep Blue rematch, which I had the opportunity to see at the US premier a few weekends back. I'd link to the review I wrote on my blog, but I don't think the sysadmin would

        • Of course, he did lose to Deep Blue, but despite all his insistance that IBM cheated, he got beat mentally, not necessarily because the computer was better.

          But that's part of the game. You can't seperate the mental part of the game from the psychological part of the game. This is one of the big advantages that computers have, they don't get psyched out. It might be more fair to say that Deep Blue didn't beat Kasparov at his best. The computer always plays its best game, humans only some of the time.

      • Re:Understanding vs. Processing (Score:4, Insightful)

        by prockcore (543967) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @04:40AM (#8167483)
        Losing to computers in chess will be like losing to calculators in a addition match. People and computers aren't really in competition. They do very different things.

        Damn straight. A computer may be able to beat me at chess, but at least I can visually identify a chess set in a crowded room.
    • > It's too bad that chess has become a matter of memorizing a series of opening moves rather than a game of strategy.

      I do not play much chess but this statement interests me.
      Someone replied to you saying that the amount of possible moves is incomputable.

      I am just thinking if I was a Master Chess Player. Would I be studying the source code for the chess program before the match? It seems only fair because the creators studied many previous matches and played countless simulations. Will it be the excep

    • Re:Understanding vs. Processing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by arvindn (542080) on Tuesday February 03 2004, @03:33AM (#8167320) Homepage Journal
      Hey! This is pure FUD.

      GMs don't even play to mate anymore

      Only rank beginners (say less than a couple months into chess) ever play to mate. Its obvious who's going to win long before mate happens. To continue playing is a waste of both players' time, not to mention an insult to the opponent's intelligence.

      they just play out an opening move .

      I don't even know what this is supposed to mean. Grandmasters do an enormous amount of research into finding new moves in openings. They don't "memorize" them. There are five volumes of the ECO chess encyclopedia, and that just covers the basics!

      and whoever has the upper hand at the end takes the game

      No of course they don't. This is simply false, period. Why do you think there are things called "middlegame" and "endgame"??

      Its sad that because most moderators aren't chess players, anyone can write ridiculous BS and get modded up "+5, interesting".

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