Author: martin fierz
Date: 20:12:35 09/20/02
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On September 20, 2002 at 18:44:59, Chris Carson wrote: >On September 20, 2002 at 16:52:46, martin fierz wrote: > >> >>it was an even result, but not an even match. there's a big difference, and as >>long as you don't look at the games, you will never see it... >> >> > >I looked at the games and the results, however, what is your assessment? van wely self-destructed in game 1. to attempt to win an ending where you don't really have winning chances and have very little time on your clock against a computer is pure suicide (against a fellow human, why not - he is bound to make mistakes too...). when you see a human do that kind of stuff, you know he is not *really* prepared for a computer match, no matter how many training games he played. i guess he never played really serious games, with time trouble and all, else he would certainly have realized how dangerous this winning attempt was, because he would have lost some of his training games in this manner. the other 3 games seem fair to me. if you ask me what i see in these 4 games, it is that van wely should have won the match IF he had been in the right "frame of mind" to play against a computer. you might say that van wely just blundered, as humans do, and that my argument is wrong. but my argument is that van wely "blundered" long before his real chess blunder by not taking an easy draw in the position with the 2B-Q by doing nothing (i think he even declined a draw offer?!) - instead he went straight into a situation which favors the machine: little time & tactics. and it's only natural that he loses the game in this situation. my belief is that man-machine matches are all about who can force who to play on his territory. which is IMO why white has had such a high winning %-age in recent computer matches: van wely (100%! 4 games), gulko (75%! 8 games), smirin (62.5% 8 games), same pattern in all, white is doing much better on average than in "normal" computer-computer or human-human competition (i think about 55% is normal). the extra tempo allows humans to play cautious setups as white, and stay clear from tactics, while their attempts to do the same as black have been unsuccessful to put it mildly :-) aloha martin
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