Author: Otello Gnaramori
Date: 12:26:27 10/11/02
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On October 11, 2002 at 15:00:05, Roy Eassa wrote: >I have very gradually come around to the idea that what makes a chess computer >good against other chess computers may be quite different from what makes it >good against strong human chessplayers. > >Some years ago, PCs were slow enough that the chess author had no choice but to >write the program to maximize the search, or else even moderately strong humans >could win simply by tactics. But I think now, with PCs over 2 GHz, just 25% of >the computer's power is more than sufficient tactically against humans. Against >other computers, every ounce of speed must be used to search deeper, as in Fritz >or Ruffian. But against humans perhaps the great majority of the power of the >CPU needs to be used exclusively to play anti-human chess: avoid locked >positions, avoid allowing certain types of attacking formations, "understand" >many, many types of positions better, etc. Such a program would likely perform >very poorly against the likes of Fritz but could perform much better than Fritz >does against top humans. > >My thought: there should be two totally different classes of chess programs: >those that are designed to win against other programs and those that are >designed to win against humans. And if you want to create a program that claims >to do both, you should have it swap in a completely different set of algorithms >-- and not just change a few settings -- depending upon the opponent (human or >computer). Hi Roy, I think that this idea isn't completely new to CC, in fact e.g. Rebel by Ed Schroeder works in anti-gm mode without decreasing the score against other machines. More info is found here: http://www.rebel.nl/anti-gm.htm Then I would like to show an excerpt from the interview to Ed after the match with Anand (found in http://www.rebel.nl/aaron.htm): [...] "Q: How do you define the anti-grandmaster style? A: This is based on my experience in the Aegon tournaments playing against grandmasters. I have played all kinds of people. Against people rated till say 2200, REBEL always wins. Almost without an exception. If you go one step higher to say 2400-2450, you see another pattern. You see that REBEL mostly wins, the struggle is closer for the iniative. If REBEL wins the game, it has happened because the player in that area makes a minor positional mistake or big blunders. But in the fight for the initiative you can see that the human player had the positional understanding than the computer on the long term but still REBEL mostly manages to win the games. Then if you come to the point, it is against the grandmasters. It is always that a grandmaster gets the initiative. It is good strong position. Anti-grandmaster style is about having the initiative. Don't lose it. It is important. It will not always play the best moves in respect to the normal REBEL. It will play moves that will confuse the grandmaster and keep the initiative. It is the first time for it. It has never been practised before against humans. If you look at all eight games, I can see it works. Because REBEL always got chances in the games against Mr. Anand. It wasn't locked in a position where it had no chance. But I have seen so many times that when you play a game, after it you say you lost to a grandmaster I had no chance at all. In these games, it always had chances. Also in the two tournament games, it could play. This is anti-grandmaster. Create chances, don't let yourself get slaughtered by a grandmaster" [...] I just wonder how good Rebel would perform with this option turned on against GM's of the calibre of Kramnik...could be a real surprise! w.b.r. Otello
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