Author: Mark Young
Date: 02:27:59 04/23/98
Go up one level in this thread
On April 23, 1998 at 02:10:28, jonathan Baxter wrote: >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 --------------------------------------------------- I don't think that many people who watched the match or looked at the games after the match think Deep Blue was the better chess player. Garry's ego had no target to work on in this match. So he seemed to target himself. I have seen computers smash very strong GM players time and time again. Then I will watch the same program get smashed by a weaker IM or FM. Why? My only guess is that some people can mold there playing style to beat the computers. And it seems that the weaker players are able to do this better then the stronger players. Why this is so I can only guess at too. It may be that the weaker players play stronger computers more then the GM's do and they know how to beat them, or to reach the top levels in chess you need to have a fixed style of play so it is much harder for the GM's to mold there style of play to beat the computers. I tend to think the latter theory is more true.
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