Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 13:19:25 04/30/01
Go up one level in this thread
On April 30, 2001 at 11:26:48, Albert Silver wrote: >On April 30, 2001 at 10:15:16, Uri Blass wrote: > >>On April 30, 2001 at 10:01:09, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >>>On April 30, 2001 at 07:22:24, Alvaro Polo wrote: >>> >>>>Hello all, >>>> >>>>In a recent interview Kramnik states that "We are in a very interesting phase, >>>>when the strength of the best GMs and that of the best chess engines run by the >>>>best processors are about equal." >>>> >>>>I know that this point (machines being GM strenght or nor) has been debated >>>>again and again and I don't intend to post a troll. I would just like to know if >>>>the consensus now among chess programmers is wether Kramnik is right or not. For >>>>instance, I remember Bob Hyatt saying that computers are really 2450, etc. But >>>>software evolves, CPU power evolves and perhaps now there is agreement that >>>>machines are finally GM strenght? >>>> >>>>Thanks. >>>> >>>>Alvaro Polo >>> >>> >>>I personally think my estimate is still pretty close. Computers have two >>>serious problems: >>> >>>1. opening books. They depend on a human to "play the game" of choosing good >>>and bad openings. This leaves them highly vulnerable to opening preparation and >>>traps. Particularly when you practice against one copy and then play another >>>copy which doesn't have the 'learning' from the practice games. >> >>I think it is unfair to use this way to decide about the level of chess >>programs. >> >>I am more interested to know the results of programs when the opponent cannot >>get a copy of the program. >> >>When Deep thought and Deep blue played against humans the opponents could not >>get a copy of the program so I see no reason to let them to get a copy of the >>programs before the game. >> >>I think that letting the opponent to get a copy before the match should be >>allowed only after programs can prove that they can beat the best humans without >>giving them a copy before the match. >> >>Uri > >Here's a little story: > >Somewhere around 1988/1989 in Paris, the large department store chain FNAC >organized some kind of chess challenge in order to draw publicity for their >section selling chess playing machines (all stand-alones). The challenge went >like this: 8 players would qualify for a knockout event of 20 minute games, the >top 3 of who would win some prizes. To earn a spot, you had to beat the >Constellation Forte B (rated around 2000 Elo - in France - in 40/2h) in a 5 >minute blitz game! No doubt to guarantee players of at least master strength. >The trick was that you could play against the machine all you wanted, but had to >call over the attendant of the department to watch your qualifying attempt. You >could only try once, and if more than 8 succeeded, the shortest wins would be >awarded the spots. You must understand I was rated 1580 Elo at the time. I spent >the whole afternoon there, noticing how it treated a few openings, and finally >was confident of my ability to score a win at will. I qualified by mating the >machine on the 20th move in its ill-fated Najdorf (0-0-0, g4 and h4 and kill the >comp!). Naturally, I also lost to my 2280 Fide rated opponent in the first >round. My first experience against a chesscomputer was around 1992 when i just had become 19. I won that day the dutch championship rapid quite surprisingly as some players had hundreds of points more. After i got the title i was challenged to play in a stand against the topmodel chess computer a rapid game. I moved quickly and after 3 minutes i had a complete winning position. A few moves later short after move 20 i mated the computer, leaving the operator who had won that day nearly all games with the computer in complete amazement. "How could this kid just crush the computer in a few moves"? A year later, september 1993, i started studying at university and started my first chess engine in ansi-C and dos-console. It was full of bugs and crashed all the time. But i learned quite a lot about searching. Working close together with me was Remy de Ruijsscher. An interface i had already written at age=16, 17 and 18 at the computer. In 1994 i would restart the engine from scratch and for myself DIEP. I directly integrated it from the first moment into the interface i had written some years before, this provided me with a lot of test information. Note that in the first version of DIEP which had no hashtable and no nullmove at the time and searched to a depth of 5 ply at most, that i had already figured out a form of singular extensions (without depth reduction by the way) which was triggered if only a single move failed high and under some king safety conditions. Also figured out i had extra check extensions in a 'selective search'. Testing positions at it i did by hand at the time. No autotesters to test all positions in 1995. Very popular was win at chess where i solved at a 486dx66 around 280 of them with 5 to 7 ply searches. The biggest amazement which i have today is that in 1995 i had big problems to beat in blitz a program called genius. Of course my chessrating was way lower as it is nowadays (i was around 2100 in 1995 i'm 2285 now) but i lost in blitz simply everything! This where if i would play that same genius at the same 486dx66 i would probably do way better in blitz against it and NOT because i know how to outbook it or something. In 1995 i still tried to directly mate it or win tactical from it by setting up a deep trick! It seems you simply get USED to the fact that they search deeper nowadays and that you can better beat them in a safe way as trying to win tactical from them! Programs out of those days searched not so deep in blitz. So a 6 move combination (12 ply) on the king side they would nearly always miss in those days. >I understand that this was a long time ago, and that programs and hardware have >gone a LONG way, however the fact of it remains that the program's opponent >isn't rated a measly 1580, he is rated a good 1200 points more and is the >current World Champion. He won't be preparing for a single afternoon, but rather >3 full months. No disrespect meant to Amir or Frans, but you can imagine what my >prognostic is. The only positive thing is that it may serve to recover mankind's >pride after the DB-Kasparov fiasco; though I think the general media (and >people) will simply conclude that PCs have a long way to go before reaching DB's >heels. It depends upon whether the sponsor of this match is going to drum bigtime. Already one drum they managed to get in a big newspaper namely that it gets more nodes a second as deep blue. Remember it is called 'deep <something>'. That's a bit similar to 'deep blue'. If i would play with DIEP in a blue background there, then i am pretty sure 99.999% of all people would confuse me with the IBM deep blue. That's what they did in Aegon. Only the programmers knew the difference. Even the organization (of course not cock) thought i was deep blue! If they invite television and many magazines there, then they can undo quite some damage which DB did. The effect is of course more long term as it is short term. Obviously the fact that it runs at more as 1 cpu is very important here. If you run on 1 cpu versus kramnik they will say definitely the above, now you can to some extend limit the effect. > Albert
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