Author: Otello Gnaramori
Date: 10:50:49 07/08/01
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On July 08, 2001 at 12:47:36, Gordon Rattray wrote: >In *theory* chess is indeed only moves. So if any human or machine succeeds in >calculating all the possibilities then I'd agree that being able to calculate is >all that you need to do. Fortunately however we all know that in *practice* >this is very far from the reality - the amount of calculating required, far >exceeds the ability of any human or machine. > >Therefore, we need to support our calculation with other thinking methods, i.e. >strategy and positional considerations. These are absolutely essential in >helping to guide our thoughts through the overwhelming amount of possibilities. Exactly. But the positional considerations are involved at the end of the calculus and are pretty straightforward, don't you think ? King safety , doubled pawns , open files ,center domination etc. don't require a special effort to be evaluated. The major effort goes into calculus of variations, since IMO the evaluation of the goodness of the position is easily understood (by the computers too). > >The fact is that chess is too complex for any player to play well on the basis >of calculation alone. Talking about a theoretical machine that can calculate >everything is a valid point, but not a realistic one (not for the near future >anyway!). Remember that Deep Blue had lots of positional considerations in its >evaluation function - it was not a case of finding checkmate or not. > >Gordon
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