Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 14:29:20 07/26/98
Go up one level in this thread
On July 26, 1998 at 17:10:43, Don Dailey wrote: >>My guess is around 2500 (2450 - 2550). As the 40/2 games trickle in >>we will have the guess work lifted. I've pretty well given up in somehow >>analyzing the quality of the play as an indicator of strength. I enjoy >>very much and find usefull all the post game comments on chess games but in >>the end a rating is just numbers and a formula. Similar to your >>"black box" comparison - whatever is going on inside of the machines, they are >>churning out moves which result in a win, draw or loss. >> >>>Part of this discussion >>>was spawned by the GM norm discussions however so I'm weighting >>>my responses accordingly. In other words all my guesses (and that's >>>all they are) are based on the following conditions: >>> >>> 1) Of course 40/2 time control, serious tourment conditions. >>> >>> 2) General knowledge and interest in whatever the target program >>> is. In other words GM's are analysing it's games and have the >>> general expectation of having to play against it sooner or >>> later. >>> >>>On top of these 2 conditions, I would add that if long matches are >>>being played, there will be a modest lowering of the computers >>>expected win percentage. >> >>Is that due to the notion that humans will learn, adapt and conquer? >>My thoughts on this are that it simply has to happen in the form of consistent >>results. It is extremely difficult to steer a game they way you would want it to >>go, even knowing the computers weaknesses. Chess is much like the weather, a big >>randomly moving beast with unpredictable turns and twists. > >That's how I feel about it. In chess it takes two to tango, >the computer gets a chance to control the play too. > while this is true, the computer has only one "tango" it can dance to. It won't self-modify as the games are repeated. It will learn to avoid losing openings, but it won't learn to avoid losing "plans." I could show you about 500 different ways to transpose into a stonewall. Roman ragged hell out of me about this until I simply decided to "teach" crafty about the stonewall system directly. I've watched him do this to many programs also. And all he has to do is to find different transpositions, even if he gives up a tempo or two to accomplish it. That's the serious problem... A program has a hole, but doesn't realize it, and is helpless to "repair" it without the programmer stepping in... > >> If the undisputed best player vs computers, Anand, >>struggled then why would we think it is an easy task to steer the machine into >>positions that will make it lose? I have no doubt that Anand is totally informed >>of the weaknesses and strengths of the computer. That he would discover anything >>new about what to exploit in the course of a longer match seems remote. What >>could he possibly have discovered that he didn't already know? >> >>>I don't think the effect is huge however >>>but I'm sure this is highly debatable so I won't go into it! >> >>Are my above ramblings what you were thinking? If not, oh well. > >Pretty much. I have watched players get more and more comfortable >with computers over the years and in the process learned a lot >about how to exploit them. But they have learned pretty much >all the problems, they have little else to learn so I don't think >they'll get much better against computers than they already are. >If they play a single computer opponent in a long match >they will not learn additional anti-computer strategies >(or at least very litle), but they will definitely learn >some things about that particular computers strengths and >weakness. But the computer team also learns things. This helps >(but doesn't fully compensate) things a bit. So I won't go so >far as to say this is not relevant, it is. > >One thing never discussed is that it is NOT a computer >against a human. It is really a human playing against a device >designed by other humans. In other words the whole thing is a >competition between humans. Creativity, skill, learning ability >and all of things that are atributed to the grandmasters are >also qualities the computer team has and uses. It's my opinion >that humans adapt and I'm not speaking only of the human GM opponent. > >- Don
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