First Kramnik vs DeepFritz, In Progress 198
An anonymous reader writes "Reigning world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik played the first match in a series of eight against the world's strongest chess computer. 'After the game Vladimir Kramnik said that he was never worried about losing the typical Berlin endgame that arose in his first game against Deep Fritz. The World Champion is the master of this line and Fritz was unable to take advantage of the white pieces.' There is live coverage of the event at the main website." We've mentioned this match a few times before.
No longer in progress: Draw (Score:5, Informative)
(For those who don't read the articles...
Summary could have been better.... (Score:1)
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:1)
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, I have a copy of Deep Fritz--the same program Kramnik is playing against. It's a comercially available chess program, designed to run on multiple processor computers. If you have a spare 90USD lying around, pick up a copy. It's a brutally strong program. You can buy it here: http://icdchess.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi (I have no affiliation with ICDchess, other than as a satisfied customer)
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:1)
Would someone please elaborate on this? I have seen this in other comments and do not understand the reasoning.
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:5, Informative)
When playing the black pieces you have a disadvantage because black always moves second. Basically, the player of the white pieces has a one-tempo advantage and can to some extent determine the shape of the game (by choosing which variation of the opening will be played). Strong chess players can take advantage of the first move advantage when playing white by forcing black to defend or play an opening which the black player isn't strong at.
With these disadvantages, black's behavior is usually to hold on and try to draw. Then to try and win when he has the white pieces (because the players alternate colors).
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:1)
I'm curious - why did you buy it? How is it fun to play against a machine that's so strong you can't possibly win?
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:3, Informative)
Wouldn't it also be a great tool for analysis and to check what the best move, in a game you have played previously, would have been?
Wouldn't it improve your game?
People would buy Deep Fritz would use it for training. I've heard this about playing chess:
1/3 of your competition must be the same level as you are (makes for an even, fun game.)
1/3 of the competition should be stronger than you (to challenge yourself to advance and learn--why not learn from DeepFritz?)
1/3 of the practice competition should be weaker than you are (a match where you kick butt and raise your self-esteem after losing to higher competition [DeepFritz])
And, it doesn't take a genius to figure any of the above out (from your sig
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:2, Informative)
There are a ton of features that make playing against Fritz wonderful. You can set the rating strength that it should play at. Of course, if you aren't an above average player Fritz will still be too strong most likely.
As others have mentioned, analysis with something like this is great. I feed my games to Fritz and look over them again. It really can point out when and how I went wrong.
But, my absolute favorite feature that Fritz has is something caled sparring mode. In sparring mode, Fritz will intentionally make mistakes at times. The difference between this and the average program is that an average program will just make a random mistake sometime. In sparring mode you first have to put Fritz under pressure and into a tactically active situation and only then will it make a little blunder (which you still have to catch). By being rewarded this way, I was able to learn what positions were putting pressure on my opponent and how to take advantage of mistakes. This is a great feature because its training in the middle game, which is much more difficult to capture in notes and books.
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:2, Interesting)
1. To analyze your own games more quickly with the engine, which is great for having new insight to your own games and evolution as a player.
2. Faster thinking times. A stronger engine is, well, faster... especially with SMP.
3. To play chess - Deep Fritz plays at a variety of levels. most of which are far easier than what Kramnik is playing.
4. Integration with a program called Chessbase, which is as you may have guessed, Database application for chess games.
Hope this helps!
- Cath
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:2, Insightful)
That raises another point, actually. It hasn't been proven that the "perfect chess game" doesn't exist. It's possible that someone could publish a book that consisted of an opening move for white, and the response to every situation that black could create from there, which would lead to mate for white every time.
If that happens, the whole game of chess is going to become pointless, because anyone with that book - or enough of it memorized - is going to be unbeatable. Sure, you could throw the book away, but as you played, you'd know that what you were doing could be flat out wrong - no better than not blocking your tic-tac-toe opponent when he/she has 2 in a row.
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:2)
Now a computer might be able to eventually play the perfect chess game, having pre-computed all possible responses for every move. But for now computers aren't smart enough. Which is why humans can still beat (or at least draw) even the best computers.
If that does ever happen, if computers become too powerful, then champs of the world might just move on to a new game, like Go, which few AI play well.
Perfect chess game some ways off... (Score:2)
However, it's not necessary for computers to do that to beat world champions. They're getting better all the time with heuristic searches, thanks very much.
Re:Perfect chess game some ways off... (Score:2)
It might be possible to reduce that state space quite a bit with some intelligent pruning, but even so I doubt it could ever be explored with a deterministic machine.
Re:No longer in progress: Draw (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed it can be proven that a "perfect chess game" does exist. In fact it is quite obvious that it does. Chess is a finite problem (due to rules about repeating a position 3 times being considered a draw). The question really is whether the "perfect game" results in a win for either color or in a draw.
Not much of a contest... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not much of a contest... (Score:1)
Re:Not much of a contest... (Score:2)
The question that I'd like answered (and the Fritz team probably won't tell because telling would compromise their machine's strategies) is how deep is Fritz's opening book, and to what extent is it weighted to play into enormously complicated positions where the human is more likely to screw up and the machine's inherent stupidity is less of a handicap (more of the lines are plausible, so the machine's difficulty in distinguishing between plausible and implausible lines is less important than its ability to quickly look through a broad game tree.
That box is certainly smaller than... (Score:2)
Size doesn't matter... (Score:2)
Many computers that took up whole offices/floors/buildings are beaten by a $90 graphing calculator nowadays.
One of the local business has a really year old computer that manages some critical software. They can't take it offline because the processes it handle are extremely important, and there is no software to attend to them nowadays (though I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to attend). The thing takes up half a room, has virtually no circuit pathways (all wires inside), and all of it's displays are etched with a nasty case of several years' burn-in.
10 years from now, Kramnik may be expending all of his brainpower beating Chess 2012 on a game-boy equivilent...
Re:That box is certainly smaller than... (Score:2)
In fact, the angle of the Deep Blue picture reminds me of the video cover!
Kasparov lost... (Score:5, Informative)
Currently, opinion is siding with Kramnik. GMs Nigel Short and Raymond Keene predict a Kramnik win.
The game went as follows:
Deep Fritz(2807) - Kramnik,V [C67]
Brains in Bahrain Man-Machine Match. Manama (1), 04.10.2002
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Nc3 h6 10.b3 Ke8 11.Bb2 Be7 12.Rad1 a5 13.a4 h5 14.Ne2 Be6 15.c4 Rd8 16.h3 b6 17.Nfd4 Nxd4 18.Nxd4 c5 19.Nxe6 fxe6 20.Rxd8+ Kxd8 21.Bc1 Kc8 22.Rd1 Rd8 23.Rxd8+ Kxd8 24.g4 g6 25.h4 hxg4 26.Bg5 Bxg5 27.hxg5 Ke8 28.Kg2 ½-½
Re:Kasparov lost... (Score:1)
Why would this matter? You are either able to beat arbitrary opponent "n" or you aren't. Sounds like a bunch of whining to me.
Re:Kasparov lost... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kasparov lost... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sorry because he's a great player and all, but all this crap about how unfair it was is pathetic.
Look over those matches. Deepblue didn't play spectacularly, Kasparov just played miserable. He used openings that he has never used in tournament play and just generally slopped his way through obscure theoretical lines.
Hell, I could've beaten him if he'd played like that.
Re:Kasparov lost... (Score:2, Informative)
Didn't actually _pick up the wrong piece_ (i.e. a mechanical error) during one game?
So yes, he was below par.
However, _not_ letting GK have access to DB's prior games was an asymmetric condition, which breaks the typical protocol for such competitions, and if you force me to use the word 'unfair' for that condition than yes, it was unfair.
THL.
Re:Kasparov lost... (Score:2, Informative)
None of the Deep Blue team is strong enough to program a specific strategy in particular to play against Kasparov, except US GM Joel Benjamin. And Joel knows nothing about computer chess programs. He came up with the opening book for Deep Blue and played a few training games to tune its positional coefficients, but there is little else he could do for that team. They could not feed it a specific anti-Kasparov strategy; they had to rely solely on technological advantages.
Kasparov also played in a style that he's never played in the past. It was bizarre, closed, and very passive. Completely opposite to how Kasparov plays normally (he is typically a very dynamic, tactical, and aggressive player.) Even given this choice of strategy, there are many other players in the world who can do that better that he. In any event, Kasparov's choice of playing strategy nullified any specific anti-Kasparov strategy they might have created.
Deep Blue was a very expensive technical experiment by IBM that played 6 games in its life, then was quickly dismantled and never heard from again, except in IBM's advertisements. Them trying to sell their computers based on its ability to beat Kasparov is no different from Intel trying to tell your that the Pentium 4 will improve internet speeds.
Re:Kasparov lost... (Score:2)
The DB team had logs of all Kasparov's matches, and so could program DB to apply extra weighting to those lines which would succeed best against Kasparov. Kasparov went in totally blind.
Grab.
Re:Kasparov lost... - I'm conflicting here (Score:1)
On one hand, the human brain can be reprogrammed to suit the competitor, but on the other hand a brain recodes itself in a manner of speaking, a computer doesn't.
Perhaps they should make it so it can self-compile changed code? Would be hard, but a definate advantage.
Re:Kasparov lost... - I'm conflicting here (Score:2)
Most chess programs are able to learn from their mistakes in a primitive way. They store earlier games and if they lost a game in a certain situation, they'll try a different variation next time.
Fair enough (Score:2)
Sounds fair. As long as Kramnik isn't reprogrammed either.
RMN
~~~
Kramnick will win it (Score:2, Interesting)
Kramnick will play the defense and wait for his opportunity -- for the critical mistake -- to take the win. And, unlike this score-calculating computer, once Kramnick has won one game, he won't bother taking any risks; he'll just play solid defense every match, aiming for the draw; whereas the computer would foolishly (if it wins) try to win each successive game.
Also, if I recall correctly, this isn't a strictly timed match; its not a 5 minute game. Don't expect a computer to ever win a blitz match, because computer's just don't have the insight to play well in those circumstances, which is where human innovation shows through.
Re:Kramnick will win it (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to utterly disagree with this statement. Blitz games are quick games, such as a time limit of 5 minutes per side per game Blitz games are where computers are strongest, where their tactical ability, coolness under pressure, and lack of obvious mistakes shine through.
In quicker games, even weaker chess programs can anihilate strong human grandmasters. It's the longer games where humans are able to hold their own.
Re:Kramnick will win it (Score:2)
Re:Kramnick will win it (Score:2, Interesting)
You can log on as a guest for 7 days I believe and watch rated games between players (which will include GM vs computer games).
Grandmasters regularly play computer programs in 5 minute games. The best computers online have ratings higher than any grandmaster.
The simple fact is that computers are so fast that they can do enough calculations to look ahead up to 5 or more moves in a matter of seconds. This means they can play "perfect" chess where perfect is defined by the standing in the next 5 moves. Grandmasters may be able to do this but they can't do it in 3 seconds.
Gratuitous Star Trek ref (Score:3, Informative)
Kind of reminds me of an ep of TNG, where Data lost a game against a Grand Master (when his strategy was to win), but won when he went for a draw (and the Grand Master gave up out of frustration).
Re:Kramnick will win it (Score:1)
I heard it described as humans being better at pattern recognition than computers, not necessarily "innovation". The computer is good at matching exact patterns, but not approximations, and even when it can it does not know how to process/handle the differences very well.
Gah! (Score:5, Informative)
In my opinion Deep Fritz will never beat Kramnik in a Berlin Defence. The team could try to deviate earlier, perhaps by closing the position with 4.d3, but this will also be easy play for Kramnik. They could also skip the Ruy Lopez altogether and play 3.Bc4 (Italian) or 2.f4 (King's gambit) instead, but these moves are not so common among the extreme elite. Kramnik would probably equalize comfortably against these moves. IMHO the team should try either switching to 1.d4 (at least for one game, to see where it leads) or just try to head for equal but tactically complicated positions after the King's gambit or the Italian, mentioned above. Playing 1.c4 or 1.Nf3 would probably be unwise. Kramnik knows these waters extremely well and could probably easily steer the game to a dull and totally safe position.
My money is on Kramnik, he will probably not lose a single game.
Re:Gah! (Score:2, Interesting)
(Deep) Fritz is a closed source program. It is impossible to say what its capable of in certain endgames. These programs have over a decade of programming in them, and they all have interesting strengths and weaknesses. While your analysis about its understanding of this endgame may be correct, I don't think your reasoning is necessarily well founded. Some ICCA (International Computer Chess Association) articles have shown methods for encoding algorithms for many endgames, such as pawn endgames in almost completely formulaic ways.
Of course Kramnik has been playing training matches against this precise version of Fritz for quite some time now. I would suggest that we *know* Fritz won't beat Kramnik in the Berlin Defence simply by virtue of him using it. The rules for this match stipulate that the Fritz team may not deviate its programming or openings while the match is going on. Thus if Fritz wants to change strategy, then its up to the program, not the programmers. It better have some kind of random opening generator, or opening learning system, otherwise a most embarassing thing will happen -- Kramnik will draw all his games with black with precisely the same moves.
Before I make a prediction, I want to see how Kramnik handles white. Of course, Kramnik is well known for his solid play, but if he can't make headway as white, he may feel he has to try harder, and screw up in the process. We shall see. But obviously drawing with black, and fairly easily shows that Kramnik is doing well so far, though perhaps not as well as we/he might have hoped.
computers better at blitz (Score:3, Informative)
its not a 5 minute game. Don't expect a computer to ever win a blitz match, because computer's just don't have the insight to play well in those circumstances, which is where human innovation shows through.
Actually, the exact opposite is true. Computers regularly beat even the best human players at fast time controls (blitz) since the humans are much more prone to making mistakes when they don't have time to think a lot. This is not merely my opinion - I think you will find few people who are familair with computer chess who would think otherwise. For example, here's what Robert Hyatt (author of Cray Blitz & Crafty) said in 1999( rec.games.chess.computer [google.ca] )
Re:Kramnick will win it (Score:1)
> match, because computer's just don't have the
> insight to play well in those circumstances,
> which is where human innovation shows through.
That was strange. I would expect computers to become almost undefeatable at blitz matches in the future (10 years maybe). My reasoning is as follows: Current computers can play at the level of the best grandmasters in slow games. I am not a chess player but I guess that the ratio between the times you have to think in "slow"/"fast" games could be about 100 or something of that magnitude. If you consider Moore's law+better clustering+algorithm improvements it is concievable that computers in the future will make moves that are as strong as those made today in "slow" games BUT at blitz match rate. A performace improvement of a factor of 100 is not an impossible jump. I still remember my 486 computer running at 33Mhz and now a P4 can almost do 3Ghz (I know Mhz!=performace don't flame me).
It is hard for me to believe that in about 10 years blitz match players will make moves as strong as current best grandmaster's when they have lots of time to think!. QED
Poor DeepFritz... (Score:1)
Berlin endgame? (Score:2, Funny)
Too bad the Russians couldn't say the same in World War 2...
What happened... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What happened... (Score:3, Informative)
Though this doesnt mean that Deep Fritz has ever played Deep Blue, I got this info from Deep Fritz's player stats http://www.brainsinbahrain.com/about/more_stats.h
1995: Won the world computer chess championship in Hong Kong, ahead of Deep Blue
First Post was... (Score:4, Informative)
then
2. Nf3 Nc6
Some notes on chess notation:
http://chess.about.com/library/ble21br
(it is common to omit the pawn designation, it seems)
Some opening moves (which was this one?):
http://chess.about.com/library/ble50ndx.h
The whole match:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Nc3 h6 10.b3 Ke8 11.Bb2 Be7 12.Rad1 a5 13.a4 h5 14.Ne2 Be6 15.c4 Rd8 16.h3 b6 17.Nfd4 Nxd4 18.Nxd4 c5 19.Nxe6 fxe6 20.Rxd8+ Kxd8 21.Bc1 Kc8 22.Rd1 Rd8 23.Rxd8+ Kxd8 24.g4 g6 25.h4 hxg4 26.Bg5 Bxg5 27.hxg5 Ke8 28.Kg2 ½-½
Hey, I learned something from the above links.
btw, where does 'DeepFrtiz' the name come from? The team flag looks to be Germany, but where did the name come from? They are using an 8-CPU Compaq machine, also. (Good thing chess opening moves are public domain... otherwise the US Fritz would be making sure they didn't fall into the hands of free citizens! erm. or something like that...)
Re:First Post was... (Score:1)
Live coverage..... (Score:5, Funny)
Boring? Oh please... (Score:1)
John Henry was still a steel-driving man, though, (Score:2, Insightful)
I give credit to Kramnik for taking Fritz on, I hope he gets big $$$ at least. It'll make big news if he loses, and not much if he wins, so it's hard for him to come out much ahead except for a payoff.
As for human dignity (see the web site) I can't imagine how we lose or gain any, geez, the machines don't even gloat. And, we can still unplug the machines. Seems like the human programmer of Fritz keeps the human dignity balance covered.
Re:John Henry was still a steel-driving man, thoug (Score:1)
The olympics have been pointless for many, many years now, but not for that reason. It's all about money, marketing, product placement, and hype. Lately, the IOC has been the main driving force for the debacle that is the olympics.
Whether it's issues with drug tests, corrupt judges, payola being passed around regarding location decisions, the olympics are a disgrace and yes, pointless.
I'd say that this event is really just a challenge for AI programmers. When you program a game that's designed to compete against human players, it's always fun to improve it and make it stronger. Who better to have it compete against than the best of the best so you can find the weaknesses in the code?
Re:John Henry was still a steel-driving man, thoug (Score:1)
Skip the hype (Score:1, Redundant)
Just because a computer can multiply two large numbers faster and more accurately than I do, does not prove that it is mathematically superior.
Time trial? Time stats? (Score:1)
One thing about the computer, it won't get distracted. Humans are affected by their environment as well, so things such as changes in temperature etc could affect the outcome
Of course, this is an honest match of brain against brain. But maybe if the chess pieces were drawn to the shape of playboy models Fritz would get the advantage next time
Computers are still limited to the logic of their creators. Humans are illogical, so therein lies the advantage. - phorm
Re:Time trial? Time stats? (Score:2)
Changes in temperature won't affect the outcome? Let's take away the heatsink/fan and see does. Man: 1, Egg cooker formerly known as a mutliprocessor chess computer: 0.
Re:Time trial? Time stats? (Score:1)
It's a notable point though, but in this case I was more pointing out standard environmental distractions, removing the fan/heatsink from the computer would be more along the lines of human error in the case of the design team.
Computers don't need to take pee breaks - phorm
Re:Time trial? Time stats? (Score:2)
The heatsink and fan are integral parts of the computer, necessary for its survival. How well would the human do without his lungs?
An intact computer can generally withstand much higher temperatures than a human.
Details (Score:1, Interesting)
Is the software low level assembly programming or does it run on top of an OS?
Info on Fritz (Score:2)
From looking at an ad for Deep Fritz 7, it runs under Windows and uses up to eight processors. No idea what language it is written in.
Re:Info on Fritz (Score:1)
Re:Info on Fritz (Score:1)
Trivial (Score:4, Insightful)
Machines have beaten man in many trivial games (tic-tac-toe. 100m sprint, weather prediction, etc). They have also failed in several "obviously easy" challenges (speech interfaces, AI, ...)
Before they play GO, I will not worry about my job.
Re:Trivial (Score:3, Insightful)
And the less said about AI the better.. I dont think you can really apply rules and reasons to intelligence!
Re:Trivial (Score:1)
given the speed computers advance, it is only a matter of time before no human can beat a computer in go. Traditional methods can't be applied (currently) to go because of memory/computation restraints, but it's only a matter of time. you'd better be fixing up your resume.
Re:Trivial (Score:2)
I started playing Go 2 month ago, and I can beat the computer in an even game most of the time. (igowin or gnugo 3.2) There are some computer go programms out there that are slightly better but not much better. Playing Go is very different from chess. Many moves are choosen by intuition and it thinking about the next move is often a shape recognition problem. Computers suck at shape recognition and humans are quite good at it. I don't think I will see a go playing software that can beat a human professional go player in my lifetime. Pro go players can beat go software with a 20 stones handicap.
Re:Trivial (Score:2)
If you look at Chess as a game, a human must learn how to use certain pieces effectively, with limitations on possible moves, etc, within an 8x8 board. A computer doesn't need to concern itself with strategies of certain pieces--it can just compute 20 moves ahead of all the possible moves and pick the best line. With Go, even if you're playing on a newb board size of 9x9 or so, the branching factor can still be like 80. It IS purely a matter of computational powers. If computers could brute force Go as much as they've brute forced chess, then no human could beat the computer at Go. I give Go no more than 20 years before it's "cracked" too (on non-super computing equipment).
You do make a point in that playing Chess and Go are for humans very different games--Go is largely about shapes and patterns. Chess is much more about strategic use of certain pieces.
Wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
If you use current strategies and scale according to Moore's law, then Go on a full sized board is literally safe for centuries. This is easy to verify. On a 19x19 board the branching factor is several hundred and naive evaluations only show up many dozens of moves later. Consider a mere branching factor of 100 with advantages being recognized a dozen moves later. That takes 10**24 which is roughly 2**80 evaluations. With Moore's law you improve by a factor of 2**80 in about 120 years. To brute-force several dozen moves forwards you will need literally centuries.
That is assuming that Moore's law lasts that long. Which classical computing can't without breaking physical laws. (Quantum computers could do it, in theory. But there are considerable issues there.)
Until a completely different strategy can be identified, top human players will continue to have nothing to worry about from computers in Go for the forseeable future.
Re:Wrong (Score:2)
Go (Score:2)
Yes, the branching factor makes a huge difference. Another, equally important difference is the cost of the evaluation function. In chess it only takes a few CPU cycles to see if the position is mate, or to count who has more material. There is no way to do this in go. Even the end of the game is non-trivial to recognize, and even then it is hard to say who won.
I do not know of any go program that does much of global reading. I know GnuGo does none at all, it "only" evaluates the position once (which includes lots of local reading), and uses some heuristics to propose moves and to estimate their effect. Then it chooses the best. This it can do in a matter of a few seconds.
I believe this sort of approach can be extended quite far, and take good advantage of increasingly powerful computers. But I doubt it will ever be sufficient to beat a professional player.
I know why! (Score:1)
But for languages and A.I., we have not, as humans, found the secret of the human body. We are not "Masters" of our bodies yet. God knows the solution! So in that sense, we only programmed the computers with the knowledge we know. Someone will always be able to fool them, by saying something that has never been said before.
My opinion
Re:Trivial (Score:2)
And before they read slashdot, I will not worry about mine.
Re:Trivial (Score:2)
Obviously extremely difficult to articulate... (Score:2)
Chess rules? No problem.
Laws of physics (100m sprint)? No problem.
Laws of statistics (weather forecast)? No problem.
Speech rules?
Intelligence rules (Short of simple logic analysis)?
The problem isn't the computer, but rather our inability to formulate and program the rules or adaptive algorithms that our brain work by, but that we take for granted and have no concious access to.
Your body knows how to break down an apple into essential chemical components and convert them to muscle movement (like your heart) and other things. But you can't sit down at a computer and tell it how.
Kjella
I dont' have time now, (Score:5, Interesting)
i do need to go, but here are some things for children of this post to do:
o Look up some original reference (I saw many, many) that talked about how Kasparov's playing style is perhaps less suited to showcasing humanity's superiority to computers than Karpov's was)
o Look up whether Kramnik most resembles Karpov's or Kasparov's style.
One last thing.
Is it still true that in Go, computers play with a 14-move advantage and still lose to people who aren't even world-champion? Go is a game in which, because at each point in the game, it is unclear what groups of stones are alive and what are dead, pattern-based thinking is much more important. Would Karpov (and perhaps Kramnik) have made a better Go player than chess player?
When I come back, I'll add more to the thread, to anyone who wishes to discuss it.
Re:I dont' have time now, (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not a child of your post, but I'm a drunk chess player.
Look up some refernece that talked about how Kasparov's playing style is perhaps less suited to showcasing humanity's superioty to computers than Karpovs's was.
Kasparov is lethal when he has the initiative. He wants complex, tactical, attacking positions, and he's better at them than any human. Unfortunately, these positions tend to depend on calculation, which is what computers shine at. Karpov, like Kramnik, is more about prophylaxis, which is preventing any active options the opponent may have.
Although it must be said that at top level, all these players have a universal style. You can't become the world top player with a purely positional or a purely tactical style. Give Karpov a position that calls for a tactical solution, he's likely to play it. Put Kasparov in a quiet, strategical position, he'll usually know exactly what to do.
The differences show, mostly, in the choice of openings. They like different setups. Karpov choses the Caro-Kann (1.e4 c6) vs 1.e4, which is a very positional, defensive opening. Kasparov goes for the throat with the sharpest lines of the Sicilian (1.e4 c5). [if you're not a serious chess player, please believe me, that one square further makes a huge difference].
Kramnik plays the Berlin (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6). An opening that gives White a positional advantage - just not enough of an advantage to win. It typically leads to an endgame that's better for White, though, in the hands of grandmasters, not yet winning. And he knows it well. There's no way a computer will understand all the subtleties in these quiet positions, Fritz isn't going to beat him here.
On the other hand, Kasparov actually lost to Judit Polgar, the world's highest rated woman, in the recent Russia vs Rest of the World match. Kasparov had a huge plus score vs Polgar beforehand, but he was tired, thought he could get an easy draw in that line just like Kramnik does. But he couldn't (a report of the match, including comments on the Polgar-Kasparov game, is at Chess Cafe [chesscafe.com]). He just doesn't have the feeling for defending those worse, yet not yet losing, passive positions.
So the difference in style in small, but it's certainly there. And Kramnik's is much better against computers.
Re:I dont' have time now, (Score:5, Insightful)
So when the poster says "14-move advantage" he means "14-stone handicap," which is huge. It's worse than that, though. A couple years ago, a dan-level player (a woman, not that it matters) beat the current computer go champion after giving it 27 stones. I can't find a bloody link right now, so you'll have to take my word for it. Go is all about pattern recognition. The game is huge - easily the most complex game that people have created (where "life" is not defined as a game
Newsflash! Deep Fritz 'seriously damaged'. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Newsflash! Deep Fritz 'seriously damaged'. (Score:1)
Unless Microsoft changed their licensing again...
Re:Newsflash! Deep Fritz 'seriously damaged'. (Score:1)
Machine wars! (Score:1)
How many people can beat the computer? (Score:2, Informative)
Can anyone recommend some good chess strategy books? I found this link [chess.it] but it does not give a very good indication of what book would be better than others. I guess it would have to depend on what I want to read about since it is a game of strategy.
So I was interested in how many readers are able to beat the computer when playing say the ChessMaster 7000 - 9000 series? I was interested in buying a chess game that teaches you tactics and strategy. I had heard good things about the ChessMaster series. Are there better titles out there? I think for what they offer it is really good. You can look at most of the famous past chess games to see how the professionals think about the game, well I guess if you could understand them I guess you would be wasting time with the game.
I used to play Kunfuchess [shizmoo.com] online alot until I was forced to connect on a dialup modem. It is a pretty addictive version of chess; anyone who likes chess and hasn't tried it, should.
While surfing for links for the loyal
http://www.wolffchess.com/php/home.php3 [wolffchess.com]
http://www.chessclub.com/ [chessclub.com]
Of course there are always the game sites that offer chess onlne. It is one of the more popluar classical games that are available by most any site. Here are some that I found.
http://games.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com]
http://www.pogo.com/ [pogo.com]
http://www.station.sony.com/ [sony.com]
http://www.playsite.com/ [playsite.com]
http://www.gamespyarcade.com/ [gamespyarcade.com]
and the list keeps on going... I know that I forgot a couple but if you want to play online these links will be more than sufficent to get you going.
Re:How many people can beat the computer? (Score:1)
Re:How many people can beat the computer? (Score:1)
Re:How many people can beat the computer? (Score:1)
Check out the above. That guy helped me learn the game a lot. Oh, and listen to what he says about not studying things that are beyond your ability (reading its ok, just don't study what you aren't ready for yet.)
Don't fall into the trap of studying chess and not playing it. I heard someone suggest that every beginner should learn the rules, the opening principles and basic tactics and then should play 200 games before picking up a book. I'd have to say that's good advice, the temptation is to read book after book when your best improvement would come from playing.
Re:How many people can beat the computer? (Score:1)
Is that Microsoft Press? What are they doing printing books about chess. Thanks for getting back to me. My Dad had showed some interest in becoming better at chess because I have beaten him everytime that we have played.
Re:How many people can beat the computer? (Score:1)
Yes.
Re:How many people can beat the computer? (Score:3, Informative)
Can anyone suggest some good chess strategy books?
"How to reassess your chess" by Jeremy Silman is probably the most-recommended chess strategy book, but it's not for beginners, more for somewhat advanced club players. A cheap, all-round good book to start with may be "The Mammoth Book of Chess", by Burgess and Nunn. Go to Amazon for reviews by people and sample pages, they're good for that sort of thing.
Of course there are always the game sites the offer chess online.
The best for Slashdot geeks should be FICS, at http://www.freechess.org [freechess.org], with its command line interface and geeky audience (usually 400+ players online). The best Linux client to play there is eboard [sf.net].
Incidentally, SCID [sf.net] is a *great* GPL'ed chess database, originally for Linux but also ported to Windows, that makes Chessbase obsolete as far as I'm concerned.
Hope this helps.Man vs Machine: A More Just Form of Competition (Score:1)
Your opinion... (Score:1)
I wrote the world's greatest chess program (Score:3, Funny)
My approach was simple: to compute every possible move in every possible game, and come up with the perfect sequence. It took 14 years to do, on a 700-CPU supercluster, but finally we 'solved' chess. The database was huge. The program was unbeatable.
Unfortunately it was also rather boring. The human would make the first move and, invariably, the computer would spend 4 hours sorting through the database and finally declared:
Checkmate in 14705 moves. I win.
RMN
~~~
Wrong (Score:2)
RMN
~~~
Now... (Score:4, Funny)
AUGH! Stop beating me!
All your pawns are belong to...
NO! Not the baseball bat!
How long til somebody mods DeepFritz to run Lin...
Ack! Ack! ugh...you win...
Kind of pointless... (Score:1)
There are two types of play:
Tactical play which is fairly straight forward and usually involves an immediate advantage. The thought process might go something like: If I take his pawn on e4 he can take it back with his rook but then my knight can fork his rook and queen. If he sees the fork and doesn't take back I'll be a pawn up.
Strategic (or positional) play which is far less straight forward and usually involves a more subtle advantage. The thought process might go something like: If I trade my knight for his bishop we'll have bishops of opposite colors and with this pawn structure I'll be able to draw even though he is a pawn up...
Computer's are very good at tactical play. Basically they look at every legal move and legal reply. The faster the computer is the farther ahead it can look. Then it's a simple matter to count pieces. The number of possible positions rises exponentially with each move so computer speed becomes a limiting factor. With various branch pruning algorithms we still need to make a computer go a lot faster just to allow the computer to think ahead one extra ply for a given time period.
Positional play is a lot harder to program. For one thing, most of us suck at it so we couldn't tell a program how to do it. But even so there are master chess players who can program and others who have been willing to work with programmers and the result is that the algorithms for positional chess are maturing. It will only be a matter of time until the advances in positional chess algorithms and the brute force of very fast computers make it impossible for humans to beat computer programs.
But don't feel bad. For a human to compete against a computer in some kind of 'best in the world' contest is a little like letting a hydraulic jack enter a weight lifting contest.
Re:Kind of pointless... (Score:1, Informative)
Actually, the branching factor in a chess game is so huge that a small increase in computer speed (say, doubling the processor speed) doesn't make much of a difference. You're better off trying to improve your algorithme, like the creators of Deep Fritz did. Deep Blue could search 200 Million moves per second, and Fritz can only search 2 millon, but (at least according to Kramnik) Deep Fritz is a better computer.
Besides, the speed of computers isn't increasing as much as it used to. With the lousy sales on the latest Pentium, do you think Intel is going to want to come out with another one twice as fast? That's going to be a problem for those who rely on the expected increase in brute power of computers to beat the next chess champion.
Will Chess becomeTic-Tac-Toe? (Score:1)
I wonder at what point Chess matches between AI opponents reach this same impasse?
Re:Will Chess becomeTic-Tac-Toe? (Score:1)
After about half a litre of vodka,or in computer terms, about Windows ME.
to quote a great Canadian band (Score:2, Funny)
(see the lyrics to "Kasparov vs. Deep Blue" [fruvous.com] off Moxy Früvous' album Live Noise.)
Flash (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's boycot them!
8 processors (Score:3, Interesting)
The Raven.
Second game. (Score:2)
1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Bxc4 c5 6.0-0 a6 7.dxc5 Qxd1 8.Rxd1 Bxc5 9.Kf1 b5 10.Be2 Bb7 11.Nbd2 Nbd7 12.Nb3 Bf8 13.a4 b4 14.Nfd2 Bd5 15.f3 Bd6 16.g3 e5 17.e4 Be6 18.Nc4 Bc7 19.Be3 a5 20.Nc5 Nxc5 21.Bxc5 Nd7 22.Nd6+ Kf8 23.Bf2 Bxd6 24.Rxd6 Ke7 25.Rad1 Rhc8 26.Bb5 Nc5 27.Bc6 Bc4+ 28.Ke1 Nd3+ 29.R1xd3 Bxd3 30.Bc5 Bc4 31.Rd4+ Kf6 32.Rxc4 Rxc6 33.Be7+ Kxe7 34.Rxc6 Kd7 35.Rc5 f6 36.Kd2 Kd6 37.Rd5+ Kc6 38.Kd3 g6 39.Kc4 g5 40.h3 h6 41.h4 gxh4 42.gxh4 Ra7 43.h5 Ra8 44.Rc5+ Kb6 45.Rb5+ Kc6 46.Rd5 Kc7 47.Kb5 b3 48.Rd3 Ra7 49.Rxb3 Rb7+ 50.Kc4 Ra7 51.Rb5 Ra8 52.Kd5 Ra6 53.Rc5+ Kd7 54.b3 Rd6+ 55.Kc4 Rd4+ 56.Kc3 Rd1 57.Rd5+ 1-0