Author: Enrique Irazoqui
Date: 11:31:25 09/06/98
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On September 06, 1998 at 13:15:47, Don Dailey wrote: >That is a good one! I forgot to mention this one, I've heard it a lot >of times too. I think this one is based on the idea that computers >ALREADY outsearch humans, but need to play "catch up" positionally. It >is easy to imagine someone reasoning this way and thus drawing this >conclusion. I think this kind of reasoning is a fallacy although I >have no idea if the original assertion is true or false. Except I >do believe that either way it's probably quite minor. > >I really think we have a long way to go in terms of how to think about >these things. We have not developed the correct terminolgy to even >talk about it. For instance: What is positional play? What is tactics? >What is a combination? You will get a different answer from each one >and the answer will not be one that can be used in any kind of proof. > >Shall we try it on the group? What is a combination? Give an answer >that has no ambiguity whatsoever. I have never seen one in any book, >but I've seen many attempts. You may be able to come up with a strict >definition of what a combination is, but I'll be many will disagree >about what this definition should be. Your definition will probably >not match peoples perception of what they think a combination is. Funny that the most elementary concepts in chess lack a definition. Call it science. :) It reminds me of a poll we conducted at the university of Paris: we asked a large number of economists for a definition of "capital", and we got as many definitions as answers. Call it science too... :) So we seem to have a field of technical nature and lacking the theoretical body needed to do science. And then we talk in metaphors... Let's imagine that an immensely fast computer started playing a game of chess a thousand years ago. By now it declared that 1.e4 wins by force, 1.d4 is a draw, etc. I mean: the game is solved, the variations are immense but finite, so in theory we can consider a perfect game of chess as a finite series of forced moves. Back to real life: beacuse we don't know this series, we talk about patterns: positional and strategic play, and in order to recognize patterns more easily we create the Openings, the Middle-game, the End-game. Which can be translated as: guessing how to follow when the search goes too deep. Or else, "positional", "strategic" are metaphors. About guessing: I remember what Danny Kopec told me in early eighties about the way GMs answered to his Bratko-Kopec test. In the positional part of it, they would do little more than mumbling: "the knight must go there, well... it belongs in there... well... it's clear, no?" About patterns and therefore strategy and positional play, I wouldn't be surprised if after asking GMs we would get similar results to the answers about "capital": all different, based on educated guessing (so called intuition). How about: - Tactics: a forced sequence of moves that maximizes material. - Combination: a form of tactics that necessarily leads to material advantage. - "Strategy", "Positional": pattern recognition needed when the search is too deep for us to follow. As you know, asking for definitions is a very tricky thing to do. Those were my 2 cents again, knowing that it's a quick and dirty first approximation. I don't know if it's of any use, but at least it has been fun. :) >Those are great observations. I thought I was the only one who felt >this way. I want to point out that I don't believe it is impossible >to have this behavior, (I can by construction create 3 programs with >intransitive behavior) I just don't think it's really happening very >strongly with modern programs. We often (as humans) see patterns that >do not exist. Happens in all fields of knowledge. Desperating at times, isn't it? Interesting too. Enrique >- Don
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