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Subject: Amir Ban will have his chance to prove that DB was NOT better

Author: Jorge Pichard

Date: 01:32:11 11/13/02


This was article was copied from, Mig is the editor-in-chief of
KasparovChess.com.

"So we know that Deep Blue was much faster than anything around today, even
hundreds of times faster. But does that mean better? You can always count on
Amir Ban to cut through the hot air and he does so admirably here, "I've written
on this several times, and to summarize my position, it is that a machine that
is much better than all the others must be shown to play an objectively good
move that the others don't, or at least the others need much more time to play
it.

During the debate the supporters of Deep Blue's exceptional strength were asked
to name such a move, but failed to show anything convincing. This was the
situation even in 1997, when PCs and engines were weaker.

If Deep Blue did not play in its entire career a move that shows exceptional
depth, then I'm not prepared to believe it had it (and if it had it, it was a
wasted career)."

In other words, Deep Blue, put up or shut up! Falling back on theory and one
fluke result of six games is no substitute for empirical evidence. From the hard
data we have we know that Deep Blue's potential was far beyond what current
programs on current hardware are capable of. What we don't know is if this
potential was ever realized in the quality of its chess, and we won't know as
long as DB remains mothballed. (A Deep Blue Jr. is still around and has made
sporadic appearances.)

My thanks to Prof. Hyatt, Amir Ban, and everyone in the Computer Chess Club
discussion group for their input and views."




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