Author: Albert Silver
Date: 15:22:15 01/25/02
Go up one level in this thread
On January 25, 2002 at 17:53:39, Dann Corbit wrote:
>On January 25, 2002 at 17:49:13, Albert Silver wrote:
>[snip]
>>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.
>
>I think it's hero worship. If you take a 2400 player against Kasparov, and the
>2400 player is going to get slaughtered for the very reasons that you mention.
>If you take a 3200 player against Kasparov, Kasparov will look just as bad as
>the 2400 player did. Deep Blue, the second version, made Kasparov look almost
>human. A computer that searched 500 times deeper would humble Kasparov. I
>believe it would win 1000 out of 1000 games with no draws.
Really, it's not hero worship. You presented his name, not I. Had you said
Kramnik, I'd have replied the same. In any case, humbling Kasparov and scoring
100% are very different things. Certainly if they play very complicated tactical
postions, Kasparov's chances of losing are going to rise enormously, but in a
quiet position I doubt it very much. There are two things I think you aren't
appreciating: first is Kasparov's non-propensity to make fatal mistakes. The key
word there is fatal. You are presuming that not only will the perfect player
will have forced winning sequences at hand at every move, but also that Kasparov
will forcibly make a fatal mistake. I think you are very strongly mistaken about
the number of non-losing moves. In many quiet positions the chances of him or
another player of his knowledge to make a fatal blunder is _extremely_ low IMHO.
Kasparov and many top players choose these extremely aggressive and double-edged
positions to try to obtain winning chances, not because they are incapable of
playing quieter and solider moves. They are trying very hard to find a way out
of the draw, which means taking risks, and that has been the entire tendency of
opening theory development. The lines that are dropped from GM play aren't
because they are deemed losing, but because they are not deemed to offer good
chances of not _drawing_.
As to DBII, well, it was worse in many games despite its outstanding depth of
calculation, its win in game 6 is hard to understand, and the one in the second
game wasn't from the position. Kasparov psyched himself out, but wasn't beaten
at the board. Nunn analyzed one of the endgames and showed that Kasparov could
have won forcibly.
Albert
>
>I think most openings have some small bugs in them. Probably mainly
>undiscovered and it will take centuries to discover them. A perfect player, by
>definition makes no mistakes. If there is a move that is one trillionth of a
>pawn better than any others, then he takes it. If there is any way to lose at
>all during any move of the game, then it will occur playing against the perfect
>player.
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