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Subject: Re: That's funny

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:21:30 10/17/02

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On October 17, 2002 at 01:05:46, martin fierz wrote:

>On October 17, 2002 at 00:49:56, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On October 17, 2002 at 00:18:02, martin fierz wrote:
>>
>>>On October 16, 2002 at 22:51:14, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 16, 2002 at 20:35:49, martin fierz wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On October 16, 2002 at 18:03:10, Johan De Bock wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Last line of the live analysis of game 6 of Kramnik-DF:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Mig: Btw, if white takes the bishop on a6, then b2 is a winning shot.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Isn't that funny :-)
>>>>>
>>>>>i'm not sure why that should be funny. i have seen no analysis which proves that
>>>>>the position after b2 is in fact a draw. besides, it looks completely lost,
>>>>>which is also the reason why kramnik resigned - it's quite natural to assume
>>>>>that it is lost.
>>>>>if it is in fact a draw, it is still very doubtful that kramnik would have been
>>>>>able to hold the endgame as obviously a lot of precision on the white side is
>>>>>required (unlike the famous DB-kasparov game where kasparov missed a perpetual
>>>>>check).
>>>>>
>>>>>aloha
>>>>>  martin
>>>>
>>>>Why is the DB/Kasparov draw _easier_?  It took a _bunch_ of us, working all
>>>>night, to
>>>>prove that Re8 led to a draw, and the line was very precise.  One wrong move and
>>>>the
>>>>draw turned into a loss instantly...
>>>>
>>>>It doesn't seem that "easy_ to me...
>>>>
>>>>It wasn't so easy for Kasparov either.  :)
>>>
>>>i guess i'm wrong then :-)
>>>all i remembered was that people said "kasparov missed a perpetual". and i
>>>thought i remembered that kasparov was disgusted that he missed it - but my
>>>memory is of course not very reliable :-)
>>>a perpetual is something you can calculate. in the kramnik DF potential draw,
>>>*if* it were possible for white to force that RPP-QP drawn endgame, then it
>>>would be "easy" in the sense that you can find it at some point, and once you
>>>have found it it's game over again. however, if white cannot force that endgame,
>>>then he has to defend RR-QN+passed-pawn, with great accuracy.
>>>why is one easier than another? because once you see the perpetual, you see it
>>>and it's a draw - and you cannot lose any more.
>>>defending a possibly tenable but inferior position on the other hand is *never*
>>>over. the computer will torture you for 50 or 100 moves (assuming you cannot get
>>>into this drawn RPP-QP endgame), and any slip will lose the game.
>>>
>>>aloha
>>>  martin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>The DB perpetual was very deep.  IE there were many "set-up" moves that had to
>>be
>>played perfectly, before the position with the perpetual was reached...  Many of
>>the moves
>>are one-only type moves, but they are very difficult to find if you don' t know
>>they are
>>there, which is why it took almost 24 hours to convince everyone that this was
>>drawn.
>>Everytime a draw was disproven, another was found, until it finally could not be
>>refuted...
>
>i looked at the position of DB-kasparov again, and i stay with my conclusion:
>the DB-kasparov draw is easier. two reasons:
>1) it seems the kasparov-DB draw can be proven. there are not that many lines
>that white can try alternatively. the kramnik-DF potential draw will be very
>hard to prove if it is provable at all.
>2) much more important: in the DB-kasparov position every decent chess player
>will see that Qe3 is *potentially* a perpetual. i'm not saying he will see a
>perpetual (probably he won't), but he will easily recognize the "drawing
>potential" in this position. in the kramnik-DF game it takes quite a conceptual
>leap to realize that you can draw with 2 rooks against Q+N+passed pawn. normal
>"chess common sense" just tells you that this is dead lost, while the same
>normal chess common sense tells you that the kasparov position might be a
>perpetual.

The first move is not hard to find.  The others are, however...  And that is the
problem
with the position...



>so even if the kramnik position does turn out to be provably a draw (and
>therefore computationally approximately as easy as the kasparov draw), it is
>conceptually much harder to find the kramnik draw.

I'm not convinced yet.  Both appear difficult to me, as a human.  Both seem
difficult even
for GM players OTB...



>
>aloha
>  martin



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