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Subject: Re: Against Club Players: Are Top Programs Stronger than GM?

Author: Serge Desmarais

Date: 16:57:19 09/04/98

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On September 04, 1998 at 13:59:01, blass uri wrote:

>
>On September 04, 1998 at 13:40:56, Fernando Villegas wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>Hi all:
>>Many times it has been said here, specially by Bob Hyatt, that there is not
>>transitivity in terms of strength between programs: If A beat B and B beat C,
>>that does not means, then, that A surely beats C. This is true and the same is
>>true, as experience show, in the realms of human players of any category. But
>>then I wonder if also is true in the  mixed field of programs vs human Vs GM.  I
>>wonder if the known fact that GM are still stronger than programs in long games
>>and the also known fact that top programs are far stronger than A and even
>>expert level players, then that necessarily means that GM are stronger than top
>>programs in relation with those low level players.
>>My feeling is that this is a debatable issue. In fact, I even have some
>>arguments to say that maybe top programs are stronger than GM in that specific
>>relationship with low level players. Let me explain my point.
>>What makes a GM a GM and not just a master or IM is specifically his superior
>>positional grasping of the game. They see, in that field, things that we does
>>not even suspect. In the most rarified layers of that stratosphere, say, in
>>games between Karpov and Kasparov, we just don’t understand what is happening,
>>why one of them resigned or offered a draw; they see things far beyond our chess
>>understanding.
>>Nevertheless, it is very unlike that a game between a GM and an expert o A class
>>player could ever reach a depth where such kind of subtile things becomes
>>necessary. The weaker player will be finished long before just on the ground of
>>tactical shots or, more likely if we are talking of an expert player, with
>>positional pressure of the kind you can meet in a Master or IM level player.
>>That is more than enough 99% of cases. So, with this low level players, the
>>knowledge and expertise of GM in the most subtile areas of positional
>>understanding will stay without use, or, in other terms, will become marginally
>>useful for the strongest player.
>>But then, look what happens from the point of view of the weaker player. When he
>>is playing -in a simul or, like in my case, in my home with a friend GM- he
>>surely will be defeated, but as much the GM is nevertheless a human being, there
>>is a likelihood that maybe, maybe, MAYBE  you will be capable sometime to kill
>>him with a tactical bullet in the head before he can use his superior positional
>>understanding OR, more probably, that the GM will miss a tactical shot you made
>>possible due to an inexact move or even an straight blunder and do you will be
>>let playing with a hope to get something. And you know it. You know you can do
>>it, that you have the chance. You know that maybe a minute imprecision will be
>>not detected after all.
>>But against top programs the feeling is entirely different. What you know from
>>the beginning is that nothing of all those tactical tricks you learned after an
>>entire life of chess playing will be useful at all
>
>No, I do not know it before the game.
>There are tactical tricks that are too deep for the program to see and if you
>learned a tactical trick like this before the game then you have a chance to
>win.
>There are mistakes that I know that all the top programs do but I cannot be sure
>about a mistake that all the grandmasters will do.
>I think I have better chances to win a game by home preperation before the game
>against a program than against a grandmaster.
>
>Uri


Good! That was exactly what I was trying to say in the story book I wrote above!
"Short and sweet" is always the best to express an idea/opinion!


Serge Desmarais



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