Author: Mike S.
Date: 15:02:34 12/02/02
Go up one level in this thread
On December 02, 2002 at 13:24:18, Bob Durrett wrote: >On December 02, 2002 at 12:00:13, Art Basham wrote: > >>(...) >>Also, maybe "planning" was a poor word to use here... >>I rather think of it as "seeing" into the future, >>and then, making it happen...:-) >Predicting the future??? Hmmm. > >Well, as far as I know, no human has been able to do that with any degree of >certainty. Perhaps you mean predicting the opponent's moves, after several >intervening moves. Two people who play often together may be able to more or >less accurately predict each others moves and plans, based on past history and >knowledge of the other's style, preferences, etceteras, but not with absolute >certainty. "Seeing into the future" seems to me to point to a basic difference between a human's and a computer's method to go for a certain goal: Human planning means, I see the goal *first* which I decide to go for (or to check if it's possible), and *then* search for ways (variants) to achieve that goal. The chess program OTOH searches - more or less - all the variants first and then chooses from them, comparing all the possible "goals" (= end positions of the variants) which can be reached. This is the major difference of the methods IMO. Some time ago, I used the following example in an article about the topic of "vision" (imagination) in chess. The following training position is from a game Yates-Nimzovitch 1923, where I tried an alternative idea for White: [D]r4r1k/p5pp/b1p5/3pNp2/3Q1P1P/q2P2P1/P5B1/1R4K1 w - - 0 27 The simple tactics-orientated plan is to bring the queen to h5, creating threats connected to the idea Ng6+ etc. - So I imagined the queen being at h5 first, decided (or evaluated) that it would be to my favour, and then searched for the moves which would achieve that goal: 27.Qf2 Qc3 28.Qf3 Rab8 29.Rxb8 Rxb8 30.Qh5 Bxd3 31.Ng6+ Kg8 32.Ne7+ Kf8 33.Ng6+ Kf7 34.Ne5+ Kg8 35.Qf7+ Kh8 36.Qe6 h6 37.h5 Qc2 38.Nf7+ Kg8 39.Nxh6+ Kh8 40.Nf7+ Kg8 41.Ng5+ Kh8 42.Qg6 Kg8 43.h6 Qb1+ 44.Kh2 Qb7 45.Qh7+ Kf8 46.hxg7+ 1-0 That's how I played against Hiarcs 4 at 15 seconds per move, IIRC on P133. I took that as an acknowledgement for the idea, because Hiarcs 4 was much stronger than me. Unfortunately Black can defend better. Maybe you can spot the major hole in my plan :o). After Black's move 35...Kh8, we have a nice example of *pattern recognition* because I think it's much easier for humans to find 36.Qe6! with a common threat, than for computers. Of course today they'll be quicker finding it, than 1996. Note, that engines will evaluate the position much to Black's favour for a relatively long time, until they spot Qe6: [D]1r5k/p4Qpp/2p5/3pNp2/5P1P/2qb2P1/P5B1/6K1 w - - 0 36 36.Qe6! best move, although I'm still not 100% sure if White is winning (see variation above; Black's alternatives at move 37 would require further analysis). Regards, M.Scheidl
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.