Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 06:57:39 11/15/98
Go up one level in this thread
On November 15, 1998 at 04:14:51, Ed Schröder wrote: >>You are on the wrong page here. You are not even answering the right questions. >>You may have been influenced by Bob, who's trying to portray this as a primitive >>accusation by people who can't understand simple facts or draw easy conclusions. > >>Briefly: > >>- You discuss the wrong move 37.Be4, while the problem is centered around >>36.axb5. In both these move Qb6 is the apparently right move, but in move 37 it >>doesn't win a pawn, so Be4 is a plausible choice. In move 36 Qb6 definitely wins >>at least a pawn (and axb5 doesn't), so the question is why would a computer not >>play it. You will find, I guess, that yours like any other program wants to play > >>36.Qb6 and can't be persuaded not to. If you find otherwise, tell us because >>that is news. > >Hi Amir, > >I remember in the past we did some analysis with both our programs. I >believe the outcome was: > >In one of the main lines Deep Blue sacrificed 2-3 pawns for a dead wrong >king attack. We came to the conclusion that Deep Blue must have a very >speculative king safety algorithm or the main line was a bug in the king >safety algorithm as in the main line there was no compensation at all to >justify the computer score. > >Maybe you can correct me if there are errors in the above as this is >what I remember from our discussion. > >About move 36. axb5 > >r1r1q1k1/6p1/p2b1p1p/1p1PpP2/PPp5/2P4P/R1B2QP1/R5K1 w - - id DEEP BLUE - >Kasparov,G; bm a4b5; > >I have run 36. Qb6 overnight. After 16 plies Rebel10 says: +1.29 >I will run 36. axb5 tonight. > >I understood this is the position you talked about? > > > >>- Making this as a "human" over-valuation of a positional advantage, which is >>straightened out by a program like Ferret running overnight doesn't do justice >>to chess intelligence of the people involved. The only possible reason NOT to >>play 36.Qb6 is that black can toss 3 pawns for a speculative king attack. > >>Kasparov was aware of this during the game, and was of the opinion that this is >>beyond the understanding of today's computer chess. So far he's been proven >>right on this for every program except DB. > >If so this is no base for Kasparov to claim human intervention. Maybe Deep >Blue simply has speculative king safety. Our analysis more or less showed >this. > >Having found the Oxford article in the meantime I must say that hiding >the machine from the public and Kasparov is really the worse thing IBM >could do. I only have to point to the discussion of autoplayers. All it does >is opening the door for suspicion and nobody profits from that. > >Now I am not sure if Kasparov was telling the "whole" truth or just a >part of it. Anybody here who was live in New York? > >Here is what Kasparov said: > >"In both matches the machine was completely invisible to me. > Neither I nor any member of my team was allowed anywhere near its > location, we were never allowed to be within view of the terminal. The > machine was completely sacrosanct and treated like a vital national > secret. No questions we asked about it were ever answered. Again > this was an atmospheric ploy. I couldn't have profited from any scraps > of information I received, but I felt that I had been stripped of some > basic right, to know and see my opponent. I went into this match > with the positive feelings, thinking I was participating in some > important scientific experiment; I came out feeling I had encountered > an invisible and deeply hostile force." > >And also: > >"By contrast my opponent was locked in a private room, with an > undisclosed number of grandmasters and assistants surrounding it. > The machine was hooked up to phone lines and had access to other > computers; it could consult opening and endgame databases with > literally trillions of moves and positions stored in them. If anything went > wrong people could type instructions into a keyboard and correct the > errors. The only assurance we could get - after a great deal of > bargaining - that nothing untoward was happening, was one neutral > computer expert watching a slave monitor and then telling us at the > end of the game that he had seen nothing unusual. The point here is: > the human being is subjected to the strictest of controls, the computer > and its operators must be trusted blindly, without any questions." > >Kasparov shooting into an indeed very weak point of the organization. > This is true... but lets go back to "pre-NY". Who won the first match? Kasparov. Did he *have* to play IBM a second match? Of course not. Why did he do it? for the $700,000 dollar winner's prize of course. But the point is this: Kasparov held *all* the cards. He could have required any arrangement he wanted. He wanted DB "on the stage"? He could have easily demanded that. IE IBM wanted to play *him*. And he failed to stipulate match conditions that he would like (he did haggle over the unimportant details like bringing an oddball electronic clock, etc). So again, I'd say this was a screw-up by Kasparov and not IBM. They almost had to accept any requirement he laid out... because they wanted to play *him*... > >>- I don't know where you got the impression that the suspicion was based on not >>being able to read the printouts. I'm only aware of the case that I made out of >>the printouts, so I guess you are talking about me. The printouts are a mess, >>but I can read them. The fact is that reading them doesn't remove the >>difficulties, but only raises others. The answer to these is definitely not >>within the printouts. > >>- Same about the extra time: neither I nor anyone else ever said that the fact >>that DB spent a lot of time on some moves indicates cheating. There is no extra >>time in move 37 that you discussed, so what you say about it is not relevant. >>There is panic time in move 36, but that's not what is suspicious, but the fact >>that there are anomalies in the timing behavior, which cannot be explained by >>the printout alone. > >>- The part about a "non technical" person: Since I'm behind most of the case, I >>think I am qualified, but I would argue that Kasparov alone is qualified enough, >>and you are really assuming more naivete in him than you actually can. In any >>case, the way he suggested of settling this, of trying this for days and weeks >>on every other program, is a perfectly valid suggestion that could have been >>made by an expert. I would guess you and Bob, being programmers, consider >>yourself more qualified than Kasparov to make such complaints, but since both of >>you have so far failed to get the chess-related problem involved or even to get >>the move right, that may not be so. > > >>This is brief. I have no intention of detailing all the case here. I've done >>this in the past, several times, and by now I've more or less posted all the >>information I have. Anyone who was sufficiently interested must have been paying >>attention, and anyone who was not paying attention, must not have been very >>interested. > >>So are we insane ? Kasaprov raised this, and he believed there was cheating, >>based on chess issues and personal impressions. I was asked to give opinion on a >>technical document (the printouts). I would have told him that the printouts >>don't support his theory if that would have been the case (say if the issue was >>really 37.Be4), but I couldn't. My interest here is to settle this issue either >>way, and I don't care which way. What I find surprising and inappropriate is >>that the story ended here. > >>Was there intervention ? This question is going nowhere because IBM is not >>cooperating. I think anyone who saw what I was asking would have agreed that if >>a good answer exists, it could have easily been provided by IBM, and the case >>would have been closed. This did not happen, and instead the question has >>become: why shouldn't this be diuscussed and settled on its factual merits ? > >I don't see how IBM can cooperate? > >Neither do I see the obligation for IBM to cooperate. Kasparov agreed to >the rules of the match and apparently that included to hide the machine >from the spectators and Kasparov. > >But then things changed as Mr. Tan made his promise to neutralize all >Kasparov accusations. > > >>I think IBM showed here zero accountability and responsibility. Whether or not >>intervention took place, I'm disturbed by this: In hindsight they certainly >>could cheat AND get away with it without sweat. > >True. Hidden is always wrong. > > >>A few days ago I went back and reread the text of the post-match press >>conference and commentary. A year and a half later, this makes interesting >>reading. I was surprised that the printouts were discussed so much, and I >>realized that in fact everyone expected publishing the printouts to resolve >>this. Garry says so. C.J.Tan implies that the printouts will show this. Then he >>backs off and says IBM has still to decide which printouts to publish (so as not >>to confuse the public :)) Garry protests immediately, and asks specifically for >>move 35 and 45 of game 2 (he never got them). In any case, C.J. says that anyway >>all posible information will soon be in journals and books (so why worry about >>some printouts now ?), and of course IBM is busy doing science and do not want >>to compromise itself for future matches. It should come across that IBM was >>trying hard not to disclose any information, and the second best thing they >>could hope for was that the information would prove to be unreadable. You have >>to take this into account when considering what Hsu and you said about not being >>able to read the printouts. > >>If you consider this in the timeframe in which it was said, you realize that all >>the parties involved including Kasparov did not know that this was absolutely >>the last time these issues could be raised. IBM were not around for further >>discussions after this, and they just closed the shop and went home. > >>By the way, in the commentary part I can see that the commentators understood >>the chess-related issue Garry was raising. Mike Valvo is perfectly right when he >>says king-safety evaluation may explain it, but he doesn't yet know yet how >>much. > >>Reading this, C.J.Tan strikes me as insincere, evasive and hypocritical. He was >>certainly running this show, not Hsu. Hsu, judging from the interview by Keith >>Ian Price, sounds a bit out of the loop, and hardly interested. If all this >>depended on character assessment of C.J.Tan and Garry Kasparov, I think I would >>choose Garry. > >At first I choose for IBM because they promised to neutralize the Kasparov >accusations. Until now they did not. They should simply do what has been >promised before more people choose Garry's side. > >But there could be a problem as pointed out above: > >How can IBM cooperate? They promised to neutralize the Kasparov >accusations but perhaps Mr. Tan promised something that technically >isn't possible. He only did not know that when he made his promise. > >With his promise he took the "burden of evidence" from Kasparov's >shoulders and transferred it to IBM. Now it's up to IBM to proof that >nobody has manipulated game-2. Not very clever. > >- Ed - > > >>Amir
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