Author: jonathan Baxter
Date: 23:10:28 04/22/98
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On April 22, 1998 at 22:15:27, Doody Ungson wrote: >5. On Deep Blue's rating- I wish most of you would read the latest books >on Deep Blue vs. Kasparov (i.e. one is written by a chess instructor >Bruce Pandolfini). Gary Kasparov was definitely playing his hardest to >WIN. As the previous TIME MAGAZINE article wrote about the match. He was >playing to prove that MAN was still superior. The machine especially on >all the drawn games found the proper combinations and moves to MATCH >Gary's best skills. Even the best Grandmasters following and analyzing >the game were not accurate in their analysis because Deep Blue at times >was playing equal or beyond Gary's rating - definitely above anyone >else. Gary tried his hardest to win- throwing his best shots and Deep >Blue with its enormous crunching power and of course a good chess >program matched his chess skills move by move. Deep Blue was definitely >playing at Gary's peak strength. The reason Gary lost was because of >exhaustion. Period. That is the only explanation. Since Deep Blue never >gets tired, it definitely has an edge over the world's TOP grandmasters- >ANAND, KARPOV. Whoever plays it- 6 games or more. DB would *not *continue to win if it was in open competitiion. To think it will shows a lack of understanding of the way computers play chess. DB simply uses brute force to analyse every possible variation some 12-14 ply ahead (and much deeper) in the end-game. But there are strategic considerattions in chess which often dictate one side or the other is lost, even if it might take 60 ply to do it. Although a lot of energy has been invested by the chess programming community in coding evaluation functions that capture such strategic knowledge, I think it is fair to say that there is simply too much of it and it is often too "fuzzy" for anything more than a small fraction to have been captured by today's evaluation functions (DB's or anyone elses). This means that all programs must have weaknesses in the way they play. A six game match is definitely not long enough to find these weaknesses out, but in open competition they certainly would be discovered. I can just imagine the conversation between DB's programmers and IBM management after the win against Kasparov: Management: "If we let this thing loose will it crush everyone?" DB team: "At first, yes, but given enough time to analyse DB's games, the top GM's will start to find weaknesses and beat it:" Management: "Oh well, scrap it then. We can't afford to jeopardize all the good publicity." DB Team: <stunned silence> On another note, I think many GMs, Kasparov included, get psyched out by the tactical ability of computers. They seem not to have a good appreciation of exactly how simple the program is. Instead they judge its play in their own terms, and get really freaked out by a player that in some kinds of position has much greater strength that themselves, especially the top players who are used to winning because they can see deeper than the rest. I think if the GMs learnt more about how the programs worked, they would be more comfortable playing them. Jonathan Baxter
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