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Subject: Rebel10/Fritz5 GMs

Author: Shaun Graham

Date: 08:04:40 07/25/98


"At 40/2 they are not GM yet, but they are pretty close, and if the human GM
doesn't take care, he can get rolled up pretty badly, since the computer is
going to be quite attentive toward the least tactical mistake, where another
human might miss it entirely.  The better they (the programs) get, the harder
it will be to attract human GM players to play them."

(A quote from Robert Hyatt)

  He says "pretty close" now, that's not what my memory recalls him saying.
Regardless of that however, what does it mean?  "Pretty close" to a Shirov?
Certainly not.  "Pretty close" to a Kaidanov or Gulko?  Hmm almost certainly
not.  "Pretty close"  to a Kempinsky, Groszpeter, or Morovic(GMs you have
probably never heard of)?  Well the truth is that these latter GM's would have
(probably) been toasted by Rebel 10 if they had played it 2 40/2 games.
Regardless of what statistics say how often would you think Anand fails to beat
2500 rated GMs?  And i do mean beat them handily, not a situation where everyone
is wondering who is winning as occurred during the Anand Rebel 40/2 games.  Now
of course the draw that Rebel got could have been luck, it could have even been
the 1 out of however many games a "maybe weak IM"(Robert Hyatt, 1998) might have
been statistically expected to draw in a match with a GM of Anand's caliber(more
games are certainly needed to be definitive).  Anands caliber bieng World
Champion caliber.  To illustrate what i mean by this(World Champion Caliber) i
will quote Kasparov reffering to another GM.

"I had a big discussion with my seconds over lunch about whether to play my new
plan against Shaked. I would have preferred to see another player's face across
the board after 13...Rd8--not necessarily Karpov,
but ANY STRONG PLAYER. IT WAS lIKE USING AN ATOM BOMB TO SHOOT BIRDS."(Inside
chess magazine)

 The so called bird, that  Kasparov is reffering to is none other than the
current WORLD junior champion GM Tal Shaked.   Perhaps Kasparov is using a bit
of bravado(??).  Hmm nope Shaked stood no chance whatsoever.  Yet we have just
been witness to a match where a program (Rebel 10), first drew a game, and then
put up an amazingly staunch resistance, so staunch in fact that Anand famous for
his speed used as much time as his computer opponent.  When we see such a
performance against a player of "WORLD CHAMPION CALIBER"  by said program we can
definitely feel safe in positing the likelyhood that programs such as
rebel10/Fritz5 are indeed GM strength.  Especially when we can feel certain that
if we took the weakest GM and paired him against the mighty Anand the outcome of
the match would have indeed in all likelyhood been far  far more clear.



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