Author: Mogens Larsen
Date: 03:33:15 04/17/01
Go up one level in this thread
On April 17, 2001 at 05:05:02, Rajen Gupta wrote: >if one sits backand and takes a dispassionate view of the upcoming man vs >machine event i think we are all missing the woods for the trees. > >1)that Braingames has manged to get kramnik's agreement to play such a match is >itself extremely creditable; besides being able to find the necessary >sponsorship etc. Kasparov after losing to deep blue has on several occasions >refused to participate against a computer. For all we know it could be mentioned as an obligation for the BGN champion. I think it was mentined as a preface to the Kasparov-Kramnik match. >2) in order to find a worhty opponent for kramnik the best commercially >available hardware/software combination needs to be found-ideally something that >a budding bobby fischer can say ''wow'' thats a neat programme i want it-and get >his mom to pop down to his friendly neighbourhood store(or cyberstore) and buy >it.with dual athlons being available in the near term even explosive hardware is >within the reach of joe public It doesn't have to be commercial, free or anything else. It's a man vs. machine event, not commercial demonstration. >3) while there are a lot of strong single cpu progs that could be in contention >there is no doubt that any of the 3 SMP progs on a 8 way xeon 933 with 2mb on >die cache would clobber the best single CPU prog rather badly. That is most likely true. The SMP requirement is okay. >4) currently there are only 3 commercially available SMP progs available and >they will be playing each other to find which is the best one. whats wrong with >that? if shredder is the best no doubt it will beat the other 2. if it loses >then it wasn't the strongest any way in spite of it being the world comp >champion.in the meanwhile we''l get the added benefit of enjoying a series of >smp comp vs comp matches!on top level hardware. Shredder has pulled out, so it's only two. Not surprising since they've probably been confronted with terms they found unacceptable in the original negotiations. May I suggest reading this article http://www.computerchess.com/news_e.html#living_room. Obviously, the content isn't exactly unbiased, but it's better than nothing. >5) someone needs to organise the above selection and in the considered opinion >of the sponsor braingames and perhaps their chess expert(GM Keene) enrique >irazoqui and bertil eklund are the best people to do so having had a great deal >of expertise and experience in comp chess.i dont think anyone really doubts >their personal integrity. Probably, but the arrangement stinks. >6)there is obviously a time frame for such things-quite certain that kramnik as >well as the sponsors could change their minds at the drop of a hat so this has >to get going while the time is right-which menns that the time available for >testing (as well as developing the software is limited). if only one of the >above 3 was arbitrarily selected there would have been more questions as to >whether it is the srtongest. The event is scheduled in october if I remember correctly, so there's time. Selecting Shredder wouldn't have been an arbitrary choice, because it has a title. The only justification for choosing between Junior and Fritz now is their commercial status. >7)no method of testing or selection is perfect-but this seems to be quite a >reasonable method Nope. >8) i think all of us computer chess lovers should encourage this venture raher >than trying to tear it aprt.after all if it is succesful there would hopefully >be repeat performances. The match will probably be interesting regardless of challenger. But I believe that discarding titles and fairness on behalf of commercial interest to accomplish that, is too high a prize to pay. In essence, it was a Kramnik vs. ChessBase match from the minute the invites were sent. That shouldn't be repeated. >i think its time to close this chapter and move on to other matters That is true. Mogens.
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