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

Author: Jesper Antonsson

Date: 16:36:03 01/26/02

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On January 25, 2002 at 17:25:56, Albert Silver wrote:
>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.

Well, assume that chess is a draw and that in each position in the drawn part of
the game tree, there is four moves that keep the draw. If you have to play
randomly for, say, fifty moves before the game is settled, the likelyhood that
you keep the draw against perfect play is (4/36)^50 = 2*10^-46%. Not very good
chances, eh? But on the other hand, how easy is it for a super GM to always play
one of the four moves for 50 moves? If the likelyhood of him choosing the wrong
move is just 5% per move, he'll still lose 8% of the time. But I think chess is
harder than that, and that GMs would almost never be able to draw a perfect
player, even as white.

/Jesper



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