Author: Stephen Ham
Date: 13:16:56 05/16/00
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Dear Aaron, Jouni, Georg, Uri, Mogens, and Readers, Thank you for your continuing interest in our experiment. Let me just clarify a few questions raised. 1) No, I do not use a computer to generate my moves. I do have an old computer at home with Hiarcs 3 on it, but I haven't played with it for years since it causes my computer to crash (I'm too much of a computer dummy to understand why that happens). Besides, that violates the whole point of this experiment. One of the things we want to determine is whether a very fast computer with the srongest chess software could compete against humans at the 2500+ ICCF level in Corr. Chess. For example, one of the fears we CC players have is that a weak CC player could simply buy technology that would make him/her competitive even against stronger than normal CC players. I think we now see that it is entirely possible that this could happen, although I don't think the chess engines show any ability to actually defeat a strong human yet, unless the human pushes too hard to win. As such, I don't think the technology yet exists where the computer could do any better than break even on the score of a CC tourney. But, what we do see is that the chess engines are difficult to defeat quickly. Given the deep searches allowed (now over 23 ply in some cases), they are certainly very strong. Finally, this experiment only works if I play against the machine as I would against any human. After all, we CC players are blind to whether we are playing against a human or a computer aided human or a computer alone. 2) Yes, I am allowed to use databases and books, as are all other CC players. I have an old Chess Assistant at home, but didn't use it for this match. You will see in my notes that I sometimes referred to the ChessLabs database. I did this merely for commentary purposes, since I never used that database for any ideas. Finally, you can tell by my commentary that I have some unique (shall we say, highly subjective?) notions about openings, so databases really have no influence on my opening ideas. In short, I have some strong opinions about certain opening lines; these opinions remain until convinced otherwise 3) Finally, yes Jouni, I may be too optimistic about my assessments of the positions. Thank you, Aaron, for agreeing with my assessments. As you can see, both Jouni and Aaron have diferences of opinion about these assessments. Being human, my assessments are subjective, although I try very hard to maintain objectivity. Thus we'll only find out who is correct as the games progress. However, Ham-Nimzo 7.32, which Nimzo 7.32 once thought was highly favorable for itself, has now been downgraded by the chess engine to 0.00 pawns on its last move. Soon, I expect it to admit that I have a clear advantage as I've been claiming all along. Something similar was seen in Ham-Fritz 6a too. I've been away from the chess board since 5/11 since I had relatives visiting until today (5/16), so I'll start updating my moves and commentary within 24 hours. Once this experiment finishes, I think the next step will be to have a computer aided human play 4 games versus a strong CC master who plays without a computer move generator. We are open to suggestions regarding how to do this. Thanks again for your continuing interest. Sincerely, Stephen Ham
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