Chess - 2070 CPUs vs 1 GM

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)."

I'd love to see a Beowolf cluster of those

I'd love to see a Beowolf cluster of those... Oh damn... it is =:-)

Re:I'd love to see a Beowolf cluster of those

Oh yeah, that'd be right.

Finally I thought I could get a 5+ funny and here you go and steal my joke. I mean, what are the chances of somebody else thinking of this exact same joke on Slashdot? 1 in 3?

For those too lazy to read the article...

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

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

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 :-)

Well that's great....

Sure Chess it great, but can it find me a date?

Here is mirror of the game :)

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

Re:Here is mirror of the game :)

You're missing the remainder of the game:

26.f5 gxf5 27.Bxf5 cxd5 28.Bxe6 Rxe6 29.Rxf7 Kxf7 30.Qh7+ Ke8 31.Qxh5+ Ke7 32.Qg5+ Ke8 33.Qh5+ Ke7 34.Qh7+ 1/2-1/2.

What's the point?

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?

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.

Chess

You know, I just love chess. I wonder if I'd be able to beat a super computer at it. Maybe I'm not that good...
---
http://conradsheldon.web1000.com [web1000.com]
The story of an Internet hoax, and the game it inspired.

May I suggest...

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.

clock troubles

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Chessbrain hadn't had so much trouble with its clock. Likely a draw also, but under better circumstances.

sciencewhiz - ranked 445th during world record attempt, 214th before that

Draw game against 2070 CPUs?

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?

Results

"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

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

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)

• Who was 13th [imdb.com]?
• And did anyone Eat their Victims [crichton-official.com]?

featured on slashdot before.

This is Chessbrain's second appearance on slashdot. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/09/157257 [slashdot.org]

Intangibles...

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.

2070 CPUs?

Pfft. Even now computers need to cheat at games.

I'd like to see a Beowulf cluster of Chess Grand Masters take on Big Blue.

Comp. vs. Comp.

I want to see this cluster take on IBM's system!

GM vs. thousands of humans?

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?

Re:GM vs. thousands of humans?

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

chorus of tortises vs. array of hares

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

computers and chess is still no biggy

Really I still dont see what all the hype has always been with computers and chess. While chess is a decent strategy game, it no way compares to go(igo). No computer to this day can really be considered a go competitor. Though the day that computers can play go against strong players is when will we probably have true AI of human level.

Even in the AI feild they believe when go is a better measure for thought capacity for a computer than chess...so once again.. just another chess game. I want to see the go games start, when that happens I will be alot more excited about the news, and actually read through the kifu(match record) of the games played, though it probably does help that I do like go more so i find it more interesting than chess.

heres the wikipedia section on go, its got links for probably any other question you might have and even mentions AI and go and the difference in the amount of moves between chess and go(go has a heck of alot more).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(board_game) [wikipedia.org]

Perfect!

Finally! A computer that can really give me a run for my money! Where can I get one of those? I can't wait to take one to a LAN party! What a hit I'll be!

What about parallel GMs?

All this parallel CPU processing is very well and good - but why don't these challenges become team (on the human side) challenges?

I understand that this is about the human mind vs computer algorithms/power, but surely there is an argument that most great human advances were made by teams of humans...

2070 CPUs? How many is enough?

For those who didnt bother to check who won, it ended in a tie.2070 cpus couldnt beat one brain...that says a lot about the complexities of the human brain. But the question is why are we doing this? Do we want the computers to win? Do we want to create the ultimate computer who knows more than we do and can do it better?

2070 CPUs

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.

Not enough machines

The supernode was obviously lacking an Intellivision cluster. I'm gonna port the ChessBrain client to IntyOS right now. Er ... wait ... 2070 Intellivisions would still be a little less powerful than a single 2GHz CPU. Oh damn!

Atleast

deep blue was one machine... here the GM can claim to have beaten thousands of machines all working against him..

closed source client :(

I wouldn't take part as the client
is closed source. I asked for it and
was politely told sorry, no chance.

Must be too early to read slashdot...

> and the equivalent of SETI@home (which similarly, has some people looking for a Mate).

I had always wondered why people ran SETI@home; now I know: they have given up on mating fellow humans (Is their self esteem that low? Has obesity gotten that bad in America?) and are looking to find love with aliens, once we decrypt the personal ads they have been sending us via interstellar radio.

(I think ambiguous appositives like these are a good reason to switch to Lojban [lojban.org])

Am I doing my maths correctly?

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

In other news...

...Waffle Iron still hasn't taken the time to learn chess strategy; gets soundly beaten once again by a cluster of one Z80 running the chess cartridge on a 1992 vintage Gameboy.

To hell with those spammers

Chessbrain is kind of a cool hack, and I would respect that, if they weren't filthy spammers. Here is a typical Chessbrain spam [tartarus.org]. Notice the spam body image is hosted off of chessbrain.net. (Filthy [gnu.org], filthy [lysator.liu.se], incompetant [redhat.com], spammers [wearlab.de].

GM

Did anybody else see the title and think, "What does a Game Master have to do with chess?"

Too much RPGing, I guess...

Don't take this as an offense

but why does every chess player have funny hair?

Yes, it's offtopic, do be understanding

My first contact with GNU was GNU Chess on Win3.1, mind you.

It was a pretty good player (better than the other chess programs I had), but it was so desperately unstable, it'd crash at random times.

Sheesh, some things never change.

The same as SETI@Home?

Am I the only one that noticed that the author directly compares the 2070 cpus to "playing S@H"? Uh, sorry but S@H has millions of cpus participating in its distributed project. Not the same at all. :) Cy

Finally, we can help!

Humans, join the resistance! Hack your copy of beowulf!

Seriously, though, this is stupid. Chess is a boring algorithmic game that has nothing to do with intelligence. It's no feat for a computer to win chess. Make a Go playing computer, and I will be impressed.

mlylecarlin

Bullshit...

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...

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!"

Re:Bullshit...

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]

Re:Understanding vs. Processing

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

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.

Re:Understanding vs. Processing

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.

Re:Understanding vs. Processing

> 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 exception that makes the rule on how future masters play? Think of a video game you have played where some rare ocurrence opened up a new way to play that allowed one to defeat the AI in trivial fashion.

Sure the computer can look out 10+ possible moves on any piece on the board, but if the player can manipulate the program from the beginning in some exceptional way, the AI could stumble easily.

After all, it is just an algorithm. I am sure several "bugs" will be found and abused in different variations in the future.

Re:Understanding vs. Processing

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".

Re:Understanding vs. Processing

You do know FUD means "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt", right? I think the acronym you are looking for is "BS."

Re:What's the big deal?

Genetically Modified?

That'd be cool...

Re:What's the big deal?

and here I thought it was 'Game Master'...

I was thinking: A chess role-playing game? Now that's news for nerds!