I guess I should have bought the CD's

[thop]

Actually what i meant is that it's not so easy for a chess programmer to beat someone like kasparov. IMO chess programs won't beat grandmaster on a regular basis for years to come, maybe decades.

Tournament chess programs calculate about 18 plys these days each turn, with peeks up till the 40th or so ply. That will of course increase drastically over the years. However the problem is not really the raw power, but the position evaluation. Fritz might be happy to have found an excellent position 30 moves ahead ... when in fact the position might be crap. Well not exactly crap but not necessarily winning. The positional evaluation will never be quite there.

That's what i meant when i referred to the Kramnik quote

[Gurm]

Reminds me of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Data is playing a game against some grand master... who of course is arrogant and feels that a machine will never beat him.

Data loses over and over, but decides that he has a new strategy to win...

When he does, they all ask "how did you beat him" - to which Data replies "I stopped trying to win, and instead tried to not lose."

- Gurm

[Byock]

I remember that one. He never really won, he just extended the game, by avoiding obvious moves to improve his chance of winning, and instead, kept the game going. The opponent became disgusted, and walked away.

[M|x]

well, as the chessmaster i am, i beat my sister in three, or or was it two, moves. was done in aboute a minute.

[Kurt]

I can see 3...but it wasn't fair of you

[Kurt]

Originally posted by thop
Actually what i meant is that it's not so easy for a chess programmer to beat someone like kasparov. IMO chess programs won't beat grandmaster on a regular basis for years to come, maybe decades.

Tournament chess programs calculate about 18 plys these days each turn, with peeks up till the 40th or so ply. That will of course increase drastically over the years. However the problem is not really the raw power, but the position evaluation. Fritz might be happy to have found an excellent position 30 moves ahead ... when in fact the position might be crap. Well not exactly crap but not necessarily winning. The positional evaluation will never be quite there.

That's what i meant when i referred to the Kramnik quote

Maybe the programmer doesn't look at the problem the right way, but don't forget that a computer is basically a serial device while the human brain is massively parallel and is using it's memory extensively (sort of a lookup table) while the computer tries to calculate everything (even if it too has a lookup table). The Grandmaster might as well recognize a pattern or another game/position that looks similar to what he already knows -sth that the computer might not see in 30 moves.
Or he can bluff and maintain status-quo with the computer (à la Kasparov...)

[The PIT]

Thop I'll think you'll find it a lot quicker than that.

[Wombat]

The grandmasters do indeed pattern match. They've done MRIs of chess players, and that's the part of the brain that's working. That's how they can play eight people at once, and whatnot.

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by thop
Gurm, actually it is not so easy. Kramnik hit it quite on spot once when he said: The computer looks at 3 Mio. moves per second, i only look at one - the best.

Thats rather arrogant.. really, in most cases there is no clear "best" move. When you have gotten yourself in trouble, yes, but ideally you will keep every option open to yourself in order to counter some specific thing your opponent might be doing, or to take advantage where it's offered.

TP, you must be damned good.. your attrition style is something many great masters get themselves into. You need a more worthy opponent to kick you in the pants and make you start thinking again.

[thop]

I agree, that is very arrogant He said that before the Fritz vs. Kramnik matches in Bahrain when a reporter asked him about the raw power of his oponnent. I still think that describes the problem fairly good.

Actually i'm not even such a good player. The computer beats me all the time. I just have faith into the human brain

[The PIT]

The highest grading I ever got was 150 BCF I don't know what that is on the ELO scale. So I wasn't that good.
Unfortunatley my playing style annoyed some people and they wouldn't play me on the top board even though I was the only player that didn't lose that season.
My best season was playing for a club in High Wycombe playing for the 2nd team. You never ever saw the first team players at the club which annoyed me. I did play a few games for them and won. That season I played 20 games all but two on the top board. I won 18 off them 18 in a row. I replaced our board one player after two games which he didn't like despite the fact that he could never beat me in a friendly or in a serious game.
The downer came at the end of the season when I played in the major of the Sheffield congress where I lost four out of five games. The most annoying thing three of the games I was only one move from forcing the win myself. Even better the opponent said they nearly missed it themselfs. But I can only blame myself and I was due for a bad run. I was hoping to win the darn thing.
Unfortunatley I never played at my best in any serious chess. Thats was when I was around 16 to 18. It was suggested I played chess to help my slight depression at the time.
The other thing I regret is not starting at earlier age. I didn't start playing until I was 9 or 10.

[The PIT]

After that long waffle my funniest moment was at Scarbourgh chess congress in the intermediate section.
We'd been drinking a fair bit at dinner time and at that time I wasn't a big drinker. So we came out and checked who we were playing and took the beer to the table.
I was playing a 10 year old. His eyes lit as he saw me wobbling to the the table. Being pissed I gave him a piece in the opening which got him over excited.
He said to his friends too loudly he's rubbish. Major mistake time to teach the young whipper snapper a lesson. Pint pushed to one side swaying room ignored and half hour later the whipper snapper leaves the table bottom lip trembling tears in eyes caught with the classic back rank check mate sucker punch.
Moral of the story yeh who's pissed may still be dangerous.

[TnT]

If I recall correctly, the last match would have been won by the computer if it would have accepted a draw. The program has no knowledge of match strategy though, so it declined. It was something like that.

lol @ PIT's story

My bro, when he was younger, elementary school I think, played in a chess tournament. One kid he played against had a dad that stood there and eyed the whole game like a coach. My bro whooped him.

I prefer Go myself, but I suck due to lack of practice. Go also is the big thing in AI right now, because a Go playing computer cannot just rely on looking at 30 moves ahead. The branching factor is so much higher.