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Subject: Re: I can't understand....

Author: Howard Exner

Date: 10:53:32 11/18/00

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On November 18, 2000 at 08:40:36, Arshad Syed wrote:

>
>
>Fritz and Junior completely anhilated their opponents in the KC human-machine
>challenge. Junior played some remarkable human-esque chess in a couple of its
>games. One of them was a gem, where DJ disregards pawn material and instead
>launches a ferocious attack on the kingside. The only other computer game that
>was so human-like was the Hiarcs-Deen Hergott match which involved a
>Queen/Knight sacrifice by the computer.

I agree with Junior's nice play in that double - edged game. There are more very
nice computer victories over strong humans. One of my favourites was a Century
win (forget the human im or gm). Playing black it built up nice kingside
presuure due to a pawn sac. Century then continued to the attack by first
marching its king from the kingside to the queenside before a final pawn break -
very humanlike to my eyes.

>All this and hardly any mention in this NG, except for a handful of
>congratulatory messages. I mean I have seen much longer and more animated
>discussions for lesser quality comp-human games on the ICC, with moves being
>discussed in microscopic detail.

There are interesting summaries of the games from the participants over on the
KC site. Levitt wants longer time controls in the future. Others posted that
they were tentative in opening up the game due to respect of the silicon
strength there. And of course comments on the comical Alterman victory over
Fritz - was Alterman showing off with the string of pawns on the fourth?:)

From their comments I believe most are well aware of the computer's
shortcomings but that it was not so easy and straight forward to dictate the
game play to achieve these favourable positions. In the games I noticed the age
old difficulty of trying to convert a plus position to a win when facing a
computer opponent. Computers, Fritz and Junior in this case, are tenacious
defenders.

>...and finally, there was this thread on the US electoral system which possibly
>was the longest and most elaborately discussed in recent weeks.

Here are some questions ...
-How fast are 4X 500 xeons compared to a single processor?
-What was the average elo of the 10 opponents?
-Will the KC crew consider longer time control events in the future?
-Why not an on going challenge at 40/2 or similar of one game a week? I think
there is nothing to lose for either side. If the program gets beat the team
learns from it. If the human loses I think they realize by now that they is
no shame in that.
-Will Levitt's suggestion of allowing the players to play on real chess boards
be implemented?
-Many opponents from the match have commented on the games ... what are the
Junior and Fritz team's thoughts and feelings about the performance of their
programs?



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