Author: Hans Gerber
Date: 17:21:54 06/28/00
Go up one level in this thread
On June 28, 2000 at 13:10:01, Pete R. wrote:
>On June 28, 2000 at 11:35:27, KarinsDad wrote:
>
>>It may be as you say, or it may be that Kasparov is correct, has little proof,
>>but IS a man of integrity who sticks to his guns, regardless of how weak his
>>position is. Quite frankly, we will never know.
>
>Well in such a weak position, I think sticking to his guns is simply a matter of
>stubbornness, I don't think it's based on any admirable quality. To be a
>champion you have to believe you are great and deserve to be the champion, so a
>certain amount of attitude is understandable. Anand would never behave this
>way...but maybe that's why he's not the champ. ;)
>
>>You have your opinion. Hans has his. My feeling (more of a guess than an
>>opinion) is that Kasparov is in a state of denial. His knowledge of chess
>>programming and programs told him at the time that some of the moves looked
>>extremely suspicious [snip]
>
>>This does not necessarily make him a poor sport. It makes him human.
>
>That part I disagree with. I fully believe he may be in a state of denial. A
>lot of these top chess guys are a bit "interesting" in terms of personality.
Is this really something we should search for exclusively in the population of
chessplayers? Hsu email exchanging with a Kasparov spokesman is also a very
interesting performance and Hsu therefore a candidate for such a "research"...
To give just a single example. There are many others of course. But it is
interesting. Computerchess programmers often object personal attacks against
themselves while Kasparov is insulted as e.g. "jerk" or "outright liar" "lacking
of character" without greater protest by the members...
>It
>is OK to have the suspicion pop up in your mind, it can't be helped. But you
>have a conscious choice about how you respond in public, and that is *always* a
>matter of character. Let's suppose Martians intervened in the game and
>manipulated the computer. Regardless, Kasparov's words, in the mind of the
>general public, clearly and deliberately continue to cast doubt on the DB team.
>He knows what his words will sound like to the public, and the fact that he
>doesn't directly say "the DB team cheated" is irrelevant because the public
>reads his words the same way, and he knows that. He has had plenty of time to
>cool off and be rational about it, but he can't stand reading in the papers
>"Deep Blue, the machine that defeated chess champion Garry Kasparov". Sure it
>must irritate him, because in reality he is stronger than the machine overall,
>and the general public may not appreciate that. But *nothing* excuses
>deliberately casting aspersions on the other side without anything more than
>suspicion, even if his personality causes him to genuinely suspect that he was
>cheated. Sure it's human to be a poor sportsman, or a total whack job even, but
>what does that mean? There is a standard of public behavior a sportsman should
>aspire to, and if he falls short of that it simply reflects on him.
>
>>One thing you should consider. Kasparov's knowledge of the intricacies of chess
>>is so advanced that even most grandmasters cannot understand his ideas. As proof
>>for this statement, I point out an interview (sorry, I do not have a link for
>>it) by GM Joel Benjamin (who worked on the DB team) in 1998. Joel said that
>>Kasparov's knowledge is beyond Joel's just like Joel's knowledge is beyond that
>>of your average Expert.
>
>Yet Benjamin would have been one of two realistic candidates (discounting the
>Martians) of making this move for the computer. It had to be either him, or
>Illescas, realistically. But that doesn't make sense, if Kasparov is so far
>beyond average GMs, how could a weaker GM know to override the machine, when
>even Kasparov says that the machine is stronger than they are (he said only four
>or five people in the world could beat it)? It just doesn't add up.
This is absolute nonesense.
1. It does add up.
2. It would take a IM or even a good expert to find the situation where a
overruling of the machine would change the whole game.
3. Interference for a move or two -- this is nothing where you must be a GM, not
to speak of top players. There are positions where a good expert has a better
judgement than the machine. In special you must not be able to play a whole game
against such a machine.
>
>Regardless, you don't even have to know how the pieces move to conclude that a
>suspicion of cheating that you cannot prove should not be voiced. It is poor
>form and makes you look bad. The fact that we are having this discussion is
>proof of that! There are many intelligent people on CCC, to whom Kasparov looks
>bad because of this inexcusable attitude. I'm very sure that someone like Anand
>would never have voiced suspicions of cheating, because a gentleman doesn't do
>that without proof.
How many times must I correct such misinterpretations?
1. Kasparov did not accuse them.
2. Kasparov asked in private, not in public, for the logfiles.
3. They said yes, then no and then it was a conviction for Kasparov that
something was wrong.
4. If it could be proven that the published logfiles are ok, then the reaction
of Kasparov could not be interpreted as wrong in the aftermath. Because the
question still remains why they behaved like that if they had nothing to hide.
More, as KarinsDad argued, Kasparov with his superior chess understanding might
have smelt a rat so to speak... That question is still open and will remain open
until new informations will be published. At the moment it looks as if the
logfiles are ok, thanks to the explanation of R. Hyatt.
5. I have the argument of science. Perhaps we should look at it this way:
IBM's machine played suddenly something astonishing (for Kasparov!). Kasparov
asked for the logfiles because he had the impression that no machine could play
this with the concepts we have today in computerchess. Now it is a very strange
reaction to simply deny any explanation. Even more suspicious it is if the whole
machine is quickly destructed and sold elsewhere even if the whole setting could
be rebuilt. Two years later the leader of the team is emailing Kasparov's
spokesman that he could, if all money questions could be solved, build up a new
machine. Kasparov's reaction was more or less 'then build it up, go through the
qualifications and we will see'. Hsu commented something like 'no, this way
round, that's not making sense, I have better things to do in life...'. As if,
as if Kasparov, the actually best player in the world, needed Hsu and DB III to
find new challenges. It is the other way round! Perhaps Hsu knows exactly that
under such conditions his new machine could not compete with Kasparov because
all the advantages of DB II were gone and the advantages of the human race would
dominate.
I hope that the last doubters now will understand how wrong Hsu and his team
acted when they treated Kasparov just like an unwanted producer of noise. Ok, if
it was just about sports and money, but IBM itself had declared that it was also
about science. It seems as if Hsu Feng was destroyed between these two
contradicting spheres. If he had reacted like a scientist he would have
convinced IBM that such a method would destroy the cooperation with Kasparov and
hereby the golden future of
many series of such matches. Because he would have made reflections about all
the questions about personality, and he would have found out that he could not
humiliate Kasparov in such a way ("yes", "no", "after the match", "in
appropriate period of time", and making jokes in the New York Times...).
I suppose that they did not contact Kasparov to this very day with the proposal
to talk it all over.
I wished this could be changed.
Hans Gerber
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.