Author: Vine Smith
Date: 21:55:45 04/15/02
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On April 15, 2002 at 18:18:17, Terry McCracken wrote: >On April 15, 2002 at 17:21:39, Otello Gnaramori wrote: > >>On April 15, 2002 at 15:09:46, Terry McCracken wrote: >> >>>>That's not the point, and if I dig up some of the most brillant combinations >>>that human's have played, the machines would go vastly awry. They are simply >>>just too deep for any machine. >>> >> >>Sorry to disagree, but in the combinatorial field machines are unbeatable,full >>stop. >> >>w.b.r. >>Otello > >Funny that is how I win against machines! > >I do have somewhere combinations by humans that would make DB II "Blush"!;) >Some are over 20 moves in the main line with with many sub-variations. > >Terry Since no one claims that humans can search 20 moves, or 40 ply, full width, it is obvious that 20 move combinations of the sort you refer to in fact are more positional than tactical, with entire branches ending with short dismissals like "of course not 3.'such and such a move'?? because of the resulting kingside weaknesses". But after such combos are more fully analyzed, it often turns out that moves like 3.'such and such' are actually good upon further inspection because the kingside weaknesses or whatever were not so serious after all. Flaws based on positional assumptions seem to arise quite frequently, and to support this I quote from the introduction to GM Nunn's "Understanding Chess Move by Move": "As the power of computers grows, they become more and more adept at finding holes in games formerly thought to be sound. My new 950 MHz machine is a monster in this respect, and after it had torn many of my intended games to analytical shreds I had to go back to my database to look for further examples, only to have the process repeated." Remember, he was looking only at GM-level games thought to be good. So I think it is not impossible to imagine that GMs err tactically quite as often as programs err positionally, and that these respective weakness may cancel out. Just imagine if computers had somehow preceded humans to the chessboard, and demanded perfection according to their standards from the newcomers. Fritz might opine "True, these biological units have some interesting ideas, but just look how the best of them can blunder pieces, forget openings, overlook mates, misplay tablebase positions...how can they ever hope to be our equals?" Regards, Vine Smith
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