Author: Joe McCarron
Date: 01:58:05 07/24/98
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On July 23, 1998 at 20:29:44, Don Dailey wrote: >On July 23, 1998 at 18:42:42, Joe McCarron wrote: > >>Just today I told someone about this Anand rebel match. The fact that rebel is >>a program that most people can buy and it was on a computer that was (or at >>least soon will be)available to your average consumer is what made me so >>interested in the match. This is exactly what my friend think the match was >>insignificant. After all, this is a program thats freely available you should >>know what the results will be. Of course he's right. Theres no excuse. The >>reason we don't know is humans are afraid of computers. >>The way I view it Ed and other programers (with the glaring exception of IBM) >>have made there programs freely available. Programers have told the world that >>they will take on all comers any time any day. So the blame is on the humans. >>So just like I resolve doubts in favor of Paul Morphy that he would have beat >>Staunton if they played I resolve doubts in favor of computers that they are >>GM's. *Any* time a *any* GM would want to set us straight they could just >play >>rebel in a 20 game match at whatever time controls they want. I just find it >>hard to believe this has never been done. Why the mystery and beating around >>the bush??? >>-Joe > >It's not so simple Joe. I agree about the reluctance of humans to >play but there are some other issues. First of all, grandmasters >rarely play serious games without getting payed money, after all they >are the best at what they do. I don't fault them for this. I have a >feeling it would be easy to get serious matches as long as the price >was right. They only other way is to play in tournaments, but computers >are not generally welcome. I am on the side of humans on this one. >People always expect me to be "pro-computer" on this issue but my >program has been in a few of these tournaments and it's invariably >disruptive and quite often a small group of humans get quite upset. >In my opinion they have a right to expect to play humans. I agree that it might be disruptive at a tournament. But the games don't need to be at a tournament. I have fritz5 and can play it at home and post the results of my my games on a newsgroup etc. Again my point is they can play it *any* time *any* place. How much money does your average GM make at the average tournament he goes to? If that is all they would charge for a match with a computer than you are right. But if they insist on charging much more than they would make at a good tournament then I fault them very much. (wasn't Staunton making some quibbles about the purse with his anticipated game with Morphy? Next thing you knwo GM's will be saying they need some time to review their openings and endings. :) In the mean time the programs will be sitting on their shelves ready to play any time any place.) >Another issue is that the top players are under no obligation to >prove themselves, they have established long ago that they are >the dominant players, not our computers. So it is us that have >to take the initiative to make matches happen if we can, they >have no obligation of any kind to do this. "Long ago" computers were 286's with 2 meg of ram. So saying they proved it long ago is like me telling Gary Kasparov 'remember when I played you when you were 6 years old and beat you 3-0!?! Now you have to pay me a million dollars if you want a rematch'(BTW I never did play him when he was 6.) Who would I be kidding? Perhaps alot of the poeople who still insist that thses top programs on fast hardware can't play as well as GM's. Recent times have started to indicate that computers can play as well aws Gm's and all of a sudden the games between Gm's and computers at tourny time controls became quite scarce. That is evidence in my book adn it is unrebutted evidence to date. Also in recent times we had the deeper blue match (which I have no reason to believe is better than what Anand faced as the number of games from both matches was too few. Deeper blue match's first games went 1-1 whereas Rebel 10's games went 1-.5 I forgot what the first two games of kasparov vs. Anand were.) >Of course some of them are very interested in computer chess >and will enjoy the challenge of testing themselves against >us and we will enjoy the same challenge against them. That >is what is happening anyway. > >Keep in mind that the general question of who is better, >computers or humans is a question YOU and ME are interested >in, but not necessarily them. We cannot require them to be >interested in settling this for us. Oh I think it is of interest to more people than you and me. In fact of all the Chess issues to surface in the last two decades it really is the only one that transcended chess circles into the general public.(I'm speaking of the general public I know of and that is here in the U.S.) Of course GM's themselves aren't interested how well computers play because they have played these programs in the privacy of their own homes - and apparently want ot keep the results private as well. And besides if they can get payed what they would have made in a tournament (and I'm assuming this is true but I could be wrong) isn't it strange that they don't have the interest? >- Don To Dragos: I guess I was exagerating when I said "freely" available the best programs do cost about $100. I would think most Grand masters would have one or would know a friend that had one that they could play. Once you have access to the program then the games are free.
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