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Subject: What is the problem then? Why should chess be perfect?

Author: Laurence Chen

Date: 11:47:26 11/19/00

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.<snip>
>
>But . . . it is really irritating to know in advance that your trusty
>chess-playing software is going to give you bad advice occasionally.
>
I gather that you never heard of the "Pareto" Theory, it is alright to be
correct 80% of the time, and miss 20%. Humans also make mistakes, and they make
far more mistakes than computer engines.  At least the chess engine is
consistent with its mistakes, the human is much more unpredictable.  What it
boils down to is that some chess positions, the chess engine still have
difficults with, especially in closed positions, where maneuvering and placement
of pieces is the key.  Human GM's excel in this area, however, remember that it
has taken many years for a chess engine to come this far to excel in open games.
 No human GM would play against the chess engine in open positions.  They would
certainly loose 99% of the the games.  So you are complaining that because chess
engines evaluated closed positions, or positions which require maneuvering wrong
the chess engine is useless.  Quite the contrary, how many human players do you
know will play closed positions?  Very few games played by 1600 ELO players are
closed positions.  I've seen very few games from this category play the players
playing the Stonewall formation.  Also Kasparov use the chess engine for his
training, I remember that Kasparov said in an interview that (Fritz) helped him
to improve his ability to calculate deeper and more accurately.  Yet, in the
games played by Kasparov you won't find closed positions, stonewall formation,
when he plays against other GMs.  He goes for dynamic positions, semi-open
positions.  And some chess engines are capable of playing well and analyzing
well in these type of positions.  Yes, there will come a time when the chess
engine will play perfect chess, when that time comes it will certainly be the
death of chess.  Why would anyone want to play the game, if a machine is capable
of playing flawless chess to a perfection.  Which human wouldn't use the
machine, and all the games would end up in a draw. So what is the point of
reaching chess perfection? If reaching this perfection will bring the game to
its doomsday!!! My two cents worth.
Laurence



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