Author: Bob Durrett
Date: 12:08:00 11/25/03
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On November 25, 2003 at 08:01:48, Earl Fuller wrote: >It would appear that Brutus has a slight hardware advantage. So, in order to >determine which program is really the strongest there would have to be a match >with compatible hardware. Don't you think ? We all know that Shredder, Fritz, >just to name two programs have always been at the top. With Shredders ssdf >rating of 2812 (and Firitz) it's hard to believe that they would be crushed in a >match set of games against any human or program. Losing one or a couple of games >doesn't mean much. In a match of say, 20 games, that may show which program is >really the strongest, if they have compatible hardware! Remember, when your >that strong, their would be alot of draws, so the match would have to be a long >one! >Earl Truly, this is a tournament to see who has put together the best chess-playing machine. It is not a software competition, nor a hardware competition, nor a chess engine competition. It is a competition to see who has come up with the best non-human "thing" which plays chess. Too bad there are not enough rounds to reach a definitive conclusion. Practical limitations apply, unfortunately. There is an interesting academic issue brought to light by this tournament: How much is any designer of a "non-human thing which plays chess" handicapped by requiring that the hardware used be "general-purpose"? How much better, theoretically, could such a "thing" be at chess if not handicapped in this way? Perhaps Vincent faces an even tougher handicap. He is trying to use a BIG computer which may have been designed as a special-purpose machine but where the special purpose is other than chess. Brutus does not have that problem, since it seems to have been designed specifically for chess. I wonder how many of the 400 biggest supercomputers are special-purpose and how many are designed to be usable for a wide range of different purposes. One thing I do not wonder about, however, is: "How many of the top 400 supercomputers are designed solely to play chess?" It is clear that none are optimized for chess. But what if one was? Sort of a "Chess HAL"? Bob D.
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