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Subject: Re: Some Philosophical questions on the limits of Computer chess

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 14:46:39 01/25/02

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On January 25, 2002 at 17:39:19, Uri Blass wrote:

>On January 25, 2002 at 17:31:56, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>On January 25, 2002 at 17:25:56, Albert Silver wrote:
>>[snip]
>>>I don't think that's necessary, unless by playing nearly perfectly you just mean
>>>avoiding losing moves. The way you put it, it sounds as if there are very few
>>>non-losing moves (i.e. a narrow road to avoid losing against perfect play)
>>>whereas I believe there are many many roads to a draw that even perfect play
>>>from the other side would not easily avoid.
>>
>>Perhaps.  Imagine this:
>>
>>How many times will a 5 year old, who correctly knows the rules of chess but
>>never sees beyond 2 plies do against Kasparov?  I submit that they will never
>>win or draw, for all practical purposes.
>>
>>A perfect player verses Kasparov should be far more dominating than that.
>
>I disagree here.
>I believe that the difference kasparov and a 5 year old is bigger than the
>difference between the perfect player and kasparov.

A child that sees 2 plies compares with Kasparov's 14 plies is 1/7th of the
depth.

From the Chess FAQ:
Subject: [24] Trivia
How long is the longest possible chess game?
The basic idea is a player may claim a draw if fifty moves elapse without a
capture or a pawn advance. Ignoring the special cases where more than 50 moves
are allowed by the rules, the answer is after Black's 5948th move, White is able
to claim a draw. The simple calculation is (<Pawn_moves + - +
<Drawing_interval_grace_period) * <Drawing_interval, or (16*6 + 30 - 8 + 1) * 50
= 5950; we're able to trim two moves from this total by observing that sequences
of Captures/Pawn_moves must have (at least) 4 alternations between the two
players.

That means the perfect player can see (5948 * 2)+1 plies = 11897 plies.
That's a ratio of 11897/14 = 850/1

Have you ever watched two programs that play against each other and one is
constantly getting outsearched by a mere 4 plies?  It's not a pretty sight.



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