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Subject: Re: Xie Jun vs Deep Junior : No game today?!

Author: Eelco de Groot

Date: 20:14:15 03/11/00

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On March 11, 2000 at 19:41:15, Mogens Larsen wrote:

>On March 11, 2000 at 19:02:10, Eelco de Groot wrote:
>
>>I just think someone should tell Xie Jun that she should not play under these
>>conditions. If she loses in a match where she had enough time to prepare and
>>rest-days between games, at least the match, Xie Jun, Junior and KC would have
>>been taken seriously. About Junior being just a machine, people took Deep Blue
>>seriously enough in and certainly after the match against Kasparov. Just see how
>>much publicity that match generated. And if she wins or loses, I don't think she
>>would have to lose, but it depends if she had time to prepare, what would it
>>matter what the world thought? Knowing that you have played your best is more
>>important. So, big money or not I don't think she should play now if she can
>>afford to wait for better conditions.
>>
>>Just my opinion
>>Regards, Eelco
>
>I don't know how much money Xie Jun will receive for the match and I certainly
>don't want to speculate. I think you're right about motivation. It would be a
>well placed uppercut to 2700+ GMs of the male gender if she won. That's the only
>motivation I can see, but then again she might not care. There's not much money
>to be made when you're a sub 2600 GM, so take the money and run. That's my
>advice.

So "Grab the money and run", I still think that is a bad long-term strategy, for
any professional sportsman or sportswoman. (It would be different if you are a
marathon-runner from Africa and your whole family depends on you and the number
of races you run or if you are called Spassky and get offered a million dollars
or so just to play Fischer one more time. Going by some Grandmaster comments the
overall level of that match was not very high even if these two chess geniuses
could and can still play brilliant chess if they had to. Given the dubious
sources of where that money came from they shouldn't have played but then again
I did buy Seirawan's "No Regrets" about the match so in a way that makes me
equally culpable. But, about their genius, still some good  games were played
also. Peter Leko it seems sometimes visits Fischer and Fischer still can find
moves Leko had never thought of in positions of his, Peter's, own games although
he had analyzed them at length.)

If there is prize-money and not just some starting fee I don't think Xie would
be totally without chances for that in a "proper" match. I think the Rebel
Grandmaster Challenges have made that clear enough. Given enough preparation
there are still holes to be found in any program, in my lowly opinion. And again
according to Peter Leko, this time in "Computerschaak", grandmasters can also
learn from playing computers, find more computerlike moves, that can be good or
bad if you overdo it by looking at too many implausible moves. So wouldn't that
fit in with Xie's "tactical" style? But that is not something you can develop
quickly of course.

So the general public may think that the human cause is lost. That is sad but
Xie could prove it wrong! And apart from that I don't see why any professsional
player would turn down playing against a computer if suitable playing conditions
and prizemoney, maybe starting money if computers really get invincible, were
offered. Even playing against an allknowing database could be interesting of
sorts, just to see who would last more than thirty moves for instance or to see
if somebody could memorize a theoretical draw with all its possible
subvariations... Given the state chess for professionals below the absolute top
that gets invited for Linares is in I suppose we can't blame Xie Jun if she can
earn some money this way. But if Kasparov's site could organize this better,
everybody would profit from that and the match would be much better propaganda
for chess, for Junior, Woman's chess, computerchess, the "human cause" with or
against computers, better propaganda for Kasparov's Chess Club..

Right, that took me about two hours to think up and I had promised to try to do
some more analyzing. Rebel Century 1.2 does not sac a rook for nothing!

Regards to everybody here,
Eelco

>
>The Deep Blue match against Kasparov buried "man vs. machine" interest in the
>media. As far as the news media are concerned the machine is superior at chess.
>I don't think a new match would raise the same attention outside the chess
>community. Kasparov probably won't play again and I don't think anyone else
>wants a go. Kramnik vs. Deep Something would be interesting though.
>
>Best wishes...
>Mogens



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