Author: Graham Laight
Date: 07:07:43 02/10/03
Go up one level in this thread
On February 10, 2003 at 09:43:50, Jeroen van Dorp wrote: >On February 10, 2003 at 09:27:33, Graham Laight wrote: > >>OK - thankyou for those platitudes. > >If you don't like my opinion, feel free to say so, but there's no need to be >condescending. Sorry. >> >>Now - if I may be permitted, I'd like to ask you two short questions: >> >>1. Are you in favour of changing the rules for making or accepting draws in Man >>v Machine games? >> >>2. Do you think that those of us who are will get our way without expressing our >>displeasure loudly? > > >How exactly? "If the drawing rules don't change I won't ever buy Deep Junior >again" ? If people complain loudly, there's a good chance that the decision makers will become aware of this. If any sponsors can be found after last Friday, then hopefully they'll be smart enough to stipulate new rules for making/accepting draws. I think that the human GM would accept those rules, if stipulated up front - and they computer team certainly would. >Has it occured to you that in a match a lost game can influence the rest of >one's play? Has the thought come up that losing a game against DJ has had a >profound influence on Kasparov? Could he be human after all, and have been >weakened by the blow? You all seem so *sure* of everything. > >*Everyone* here is so sure that Kasparov took the easy way out. I'm not so sure. >A computer has no emotions, a human has. Kasparov has other calculation skills, >and they're affected by emotions. If the rules for making or accepting a draw had been different, the issue would never have arisen - therefore there wouldn't have been a problem (assuming that Kasparov didn't die of a heart attack before the end of the game). >Deep Junior showed itself a formidable opponent, on par with the strongest chess >players in this world. On just a PC - no supercomputer like Deep Blue. >I think it's an impressive demonstration of what chess programmers can do on >current software, and certainly no reason to dismiss their achievements in this >way. I haven't dismissed their achievements! I'm blaming Kasparov and DJ for making/accepting a draw in an inappropriate position. >All I read here is people who hype out over a coming man vs. machine match and >end up with being disgruntled because it didn't go the way they hyped about it. >Is that a problem of the match, or of those people? Neither - it's a problem with the rules. And the fix is quick and easy. >Dee Junior's achievement is impressive, as are all performances or modern chess >software. >In 1985 Kasparov wrote in the foreword to the manual of my then brand new stand >alone chess computers that for short nobody thought that chess computers could >be a serious opponent against humans, but nowadays they have become "a serious >opponent *up to club player level*". >Seventeen years later no one doubts that they are able to play on par with >IGM's. > >Not always - as ofter IGM's don't play on par with their own strongest games. >Maybe Kasparov didn't take the risk of losing again, and became overcautious. With sensible rules, the question would never have arisen - and the game would have been properly played out. I know that in cup finals, football players suffer from strong emotions (often, they're physically sick in the changing room before a big game) - and if they were offered the choice of playing on to a result or sharing the cup for six months each, they'd choose to share (especially when it comes to a penalty shootout). Fortunately, the question never arises because the rules don't permit it - they know that they have no alternative but to go out and compete. To >say that this behaviour is a disgrace and obviously suggesting this is a bad >-commercial- setup or plain cheating is quite questionable. Cheating - no. Bad setup - yes. >Some of the old FIDE WC matches were a disgrace to courtesy and sportmanship, >but were exciting after all. Some weren't, and were just plain dull. A match is >something else than a single game. > >It could just be bad match strategy by Kasparov. It *has* been done before. >Better rules are always *better*. Problem is that we only know they're better >*afterwards. Then we fix them so that the problem doesn't arise again. Just like Formula 1 did after Michael Schumacher deliberately crashed into Jacques Villeneuve in the last race of the season to try to stop him winning the world championship a few years ago. Or again after Barrichello allowed him to win on the line last year. -g >J.
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