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Subject: Re: Programs vs. the "Web", any statistics available?

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 16:38:31 03/30/01

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On March 30, 2001 at 18:23:54, Frank Quisinsky wrote:
>On March 30, 2001 at 17:35:06, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>On March 30, 2001 at 16:55:02, Brian Kostick wrote:
>>>On March 30, 2001 at 16:07:31, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>On March 30, 2001 at 15:20:05, James Robertson wrote:
>>>>>I've noticed that a lot of programs are now battling the web. Does anybody know
>>>>>how many people are actually voting though? Gambit Tiger, for instance, only has
>>>>>the percentages, and not the actual numbers of voters.
>>>>>
>>>>>Out of curiosity, are these programs actually playing the "Web" or are they in
>>>>>reality just playing a few dozen chess freaks from this site? Does anybody know
>>>>>how many voters (even a very rough average will be interesting) there are for
>>>>>the games Deep Fritz, Deep Shredder, and Gambit Tiger vs. the web?
>>>>>
>>>>>I'm hoping the numbers are not too low. The fact that Deep Shredder's game was
>>>>>advertized on kasparovchess.com and TWIC is really good. Maybe this will attract
>>>>>substantially more people.
>>>>
>>>>"X verses the Web" is an old gimmick.  Actually, most of the time, "the web"
>>>>plays much more poorly than a single good opponent.  Imagine, a big committee
>>>>voting on which move to make.  Are most of them spending 24 hours of computer
>>>>time analyzing a move or GM's themselves?  Surely not.  In general, it is a
>>>>farce (to my way of thinking) but a nice way to gather publicity.  I think the
>>>>Kasparov match was different, however.  For some reason, a very large group
>>>>galvanized resources very well, and organized fairly efficiently.  The
>>>>commentary by the experts was quite good (and gave me new respect for I. Kush).
>>>>At any rate, that sort of high quality match [despite the attempted sabotage] is
>>>>_by far_ the exception rather than the rule.
>>>>
>>>>If you want to see very high quality chess, you will get far, far better by a
>>>>match between two highly rated opponents than one high quality opponent verses
>>>>the web.  I think I could probably beat most people on the internet (which isn't
>>>>saying much) but I am absolutely sure that a really good player like Vincent,
>>>>Djordie, or Come would slaughter me repeatedly.  So you get ten thousand morons
>>>>to collectively make their choice -- how good is that choice going to be?  Even
>>>>if experts give excellent analysis -- will they even understand it?
>>>>
>>>>I suspect [snicker] that the higher the number of votes received, the LOWER the
>>>>quality of the move generated.  If a move got a million votes, it is almost SURE
>>>>to be a real dog.
>>>>
>>>>IMO - YMMV.
>>>
>>>Dann,
>>>
>>>   You write as if it's really ProgramX vs. the Web (where the Web describes
>>>thinking, chess playing individuals?). In reality I think the winning vote ends
>>>up being ProgramX vs. ManyPrograms, with 'ManyProgams' thinking maybe 16
>>>min./move average but that's really just a guess on my part. The major vote
>>>discrepancies I've observed seem due to opening book lines. Regards, B.K.
>>
>>Depends on who participates, doesn't it?
>>
>>I think this match was also broadcast to a wide audience.  If it was known only
>>here, that would probably be the case (with a few good chess players throuwn
>>in).
>>
>>In any case, I think that the "X verses the World!" matches are little more than
>>parlour tricks.  In fact, I don't like them.
>
>Hi Dann,
>
>yes to many of this games, but all is not very important.
>Important is that user have fun on the page and on chess programs.

Gotta agree with that.  Interpretations differ (however) about how to best
maximize the fun part.

>Not all have interest to play engine - engine matches, more people have interest
>to make long analyses with chess programs. So is an experiment with a strong
>chess program and hardware interesting in my opinion.
>
>01. The question is:
>    In how many time found Shredder a better move in position a or b !
>
>02. The question is:
>    Is ply 17-18 enough (I think the best chess programs play with 2.400 ELO
>    in correspondence chess (no more). Shredder is a program with a lot of
>    knowledge, World Champion, very strong in endgame ...

So why not play the chess engines in correspondence matches like Mr. Ham? Now
that's interesting.

>But very important is that the webpage is good enough. I think with a webpage
>with different possibilies user have more fun on this event.
>
>We will see, I like the idea and I hope to find a lot of analyses with other
>programs in the DEEP SHREDDER vs. THE WORLD forum.

I think that "FOO verses THE WORLD" is always a case of bamboozlement.  For some
reason the world seemed to galvanize in the case against Kasparov, but I doubt
if that will ever happen again.

The energy could be better spent elsewhere.  On the other hand, if a big army of
people have great fun with it, then I should just shut up and let 'em have it.



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