Author: Pete R.
Date: 10:35:29 12/13/00
Go up one level in this thread
On December 12, 2000 at 16:19:27, Robert Hyatt wrote: >I would totally disagree. You won't _ever_ find a GM that is willing to >sit down and play a game against a totally unknown opponent. Because they >like to prepare for the opponent directly. Preparing for a computer is >simply another type of preparation. And saying that doing so is not legitimate >means that _no_ GM game is legitimate, since they do this for each other all >the time. > >The real problem is that GMs that are not in the top 100 give programs fits on >ICC all the time. I won't mention names, but it is common. Because they tend >to play the opponent, which is perfectly normal. I don't think a GM would care >_which_ computer he has to play, but he would certainly want to know that he >is playing a computer (I think computers are more similar than most would give >them credit for being). I agree that it's normal to play the opponent, however this is a much larger advantage in the case of playing against a program because there is such a stark difference in their strengths and weaknesses. They have a choice to face a machine gun or a pea-shooter if they can steer the play to certain positions. GMs play simuls all the time, so it is not the case that they always know their opponent. In that case they simply rely on their "pure chess strength", if we can define such a term, meaning just the sum of their positional knowledge, tactical ability, and experience, including familiarity with opening lines. While knowledge of the opponent is important, if you remove that knowledge, there is still a spectrum of pure chess strength, and the top GMs will still be the top GMs if they didn't see their opponents in a match. That would be easy to prove with such a match, and I doubt anyone would disagree that there would be a strong correlation of the results with current ratings. I believe that if a computer participated in such a "blind" tournament where players simply move pieces on a screen, its strength would be very obvious. I don't dispute that there would be a larger difference if the players knew they were up against a machine, but that's the difference between actual intelligence and a piece of silicon. I'm simply defining chess ability as something separate from the extra advantages of preparing for a specific opponent. It would also just be funny to have Kasparov give a simul somewhere, where a number of people get moves fed from a computer, and see how he does. :)
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