Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 06:15:25 07/24/98
Go up one level in this thread
On July 24, 1998 at 04:58:05, Joe McCarron wrote: >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.) > I've been doing this 20 years longer than either of you, and have had a chance to watch this stuff over a much longer span of years. In the 70's, I was asked on many occasions to "bring your program and play in our tournament" because it was a 15-16-1700 player back then. In 1980 we moved to a Cray. We were invited to a tournament that we had played in (and gotten killed in) many times, the Mississippi State Closed Championship. We won without losing a game. Boy did things change. First someone pointed out that we shouldn't really be called the "Mississippi State Champion" because the computer wasn't a resident of Mississippi, it was resiging in Mendota Heights, Minnesota at Cray Research headquarters. The thing went downhill from there and we were never invited back. In the 1970's, you could play in *any* USCF event with a USCF computer membership, which was no problem to obtain. By the 1980's we had "Citizens Against Computers" as a USCF "faction" that were against *any* more computers in USCF tournaments. The USCF rules were modified to allow a TD to declare a tournament (NC) in the advertisements and close the door. Now, all events are flagged (NC) as the default, to keep computers out. What changed? Obviously computers went from 1500 to 2000 to 2300+, and the more players that couldn't play with a computer skill-wise, the more players you had complaining. Tournament rules were modified so you could sign up in advance and not play the computer. Our 1981 win proved the folly of that, because we beat the best player in the tournament (he was a 2260 player, USCF) while another player (ultimately the player that ended up with the best score not counting Cray Blitz) elected to not play the computer. Sentef lost to us, while the other guy never played us and finished ahead of Sentef because of his loss to the computer. That became totally unworkable because suddenly computers could do well enough to finish near the top, and screw up final standings because of who chose to play them and who didn't. So is it any wonder that no one wants to play computers now. A computer can beat *anyone*. At Blitz, computers are clearly GM players, and maybe even can play at "super-GM" levels with good hardware. At game/30 time controls, they are also GM-class players, as we have too many tournaments that have proven this. At 40/2 they are not GM yet, but they are pretty close, and if the human GM doesn't take care, he can get rolled up pretty badly, since the computer is going to be quite attentive toward the least tactical mistake, where another human might miss it entirely. The better they (the programs) get, the harder it will be to attract human GM players to play them. > >>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.) > remember that the first games rebel/anand were blitz, while the entire match DB/Kasparov was all 40/2. That makes a big big difference. >>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? GM's are interested. But they are also quite "larcenous" at heart. I was invited to the US open in 1984 with Cray Blitz, to participate in the speed chess tournament. They also wanted us to play an exhibition game vs a GM for interest. I said sure, just let me know the schedule so we can arrange machine time. I was later contacted with the typical "we have everything set up, but the GM wants Cray to pay him $1,000 for the game." I told them Cray gave us machine time, but they didn't give us a budget to spend. We ended up playing a 2350 USCF master that wanted to play just to see how it looked (he lost in what was one of the wildest tactical games I have ever seen). > >>- 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. I'd bet *every* GM has a program he can use. I don't know of a single one (I know maybe a dozen well enough to ask) that doesn't have a huge database of openings and at least one program to help them analyze tactics...
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