Author: Howard Exner
Date: 10:58:03 11/11/98
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On November 11, 1998 at 12:42:08, Howard Exner wrote: >Just read Shirov's article in Chess Life, Nov. 98. This player is >becoming one of my favourites. He annotates two of his games and also has >some comments on chess computers. Quoting Shirov, > >"Even though the games are completely different (one extremely positional in >nature and the other very tctical), they had one thing in common; my >difficulties in analysing them with Fritz 5! I entered some of the lines I >calculated during the game into Fritz5 and it proved useless!" > >Well so far so good. He in a way is giving Fritz5 a plug by revealing >to the world that he uses it. He also says that in the positions in his game >Fritz5 was useless. That's ok with me also since all computer programs >have a certain blindspot for particular positions. > >Shirov continues... > >"Yes, the computers can also see many more simple things than the human >GMs do, but can they compete with the best human players in depth? I am not so >sure." > >So I am in a sense still agreeing as many magficant human moves are >difficult for humans oops, meant to say "for computers to find" to find. But now my interest is peaked as to what the >positions are. The tactical position is this: > >6r1/2rp1kpp/2qQp3/p3Pp1P/1pP2P2/1P2KP2/P5R1/6R1 w - - id "Shirov - Krasenkov"; >bm Rxg7; > >This is a possible variation in the game and Shirov's comments are, > >"White would have a forced mate in 14 moves! Don't try to put this particular >position on Fritz5 or any other program, as it would never suggest 33. Rxg7+! >as the stongest move!" > >I looked at the diagram and thought to myself I'll bet that Rebel 10 >would have a good shot at this as it seems to have a powerfull mate finder. >Sure enough after 2:34 it plays Rxg7 with an ever increasing eval. That on >an AMD K-6 233 in dos with 60 mb hash. > >So the moral of the story is not to generalize from one computer program to the >next. Probably safer to say that "some computer programs will not solve >such and such a position". My take is that the programs are as unique as the >programmers who work on them. I think they are entitled that rather than >lumping them all together. > >So Ed and other programmers whose program can solve this in a tournament time >setting can email GM Shirov with the news that Fritz5 (or any single program) >does not represent the entire pack. I'm sure some other programs will play >Rxg7 also but I only own Rebel 10 at present so cannot verify this. What >does the rest of the pack play? > >Just a small note that the point of my sharing this is not to belittle >Fritz's play - it makes great moves in many different positions. It is more >a sharing that all programs are unique in their strengths and weaknesses >and that one program cannot possibly be singled out as representative of >the whole. It would be as faulty to say, "Rebel 10 finds this position >relatively quickly so the computer programs of today are routinely find >such difficult moves." > >Enjoy the position. By the way, I'll enter in the other positional >epd that Shirov was reffering to in a follow-up.
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