Author: Albert Silver
Date: 14:49:13 01/25/02
Go up one level in this thread
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. Two things: Heinz's study showed that adding plies doesn't linearly
add strength. Second, I think the comparison with Kasparov is amiss. Kasparov
does far more than calculate plies, and he would bring that with him in any
game. You can take a dry middlegame with no magic ruptures or sacrfices, and
Kasparov might tell you in a second that it is a draw. Why? Not because he
calculated it to the last ply, but because his judgement and vision allow him to
make that assessment. I do not believe for one second that perfect play would
suddenly change that. The perfect player might know that h4 and an enormous
number of useless moves can or will lead to a loss, but that doesn't mean
Kasparov will play them.
Albert
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