Author: Rolf Tueschen
Date: 04:10:20 04/29/05
Go up one level in this thread
Let's begin this from scratch! You, Bob, say, that there was no cheating, no unallowed action, no spectacularly new practice in the 1997 event. Because you already did it the same way against IM Levy years before. I say, and the majority of chessplayers, including Uri Blass, are saying the same: Hsu and team cheated on science and hence cheated on Kasparov. First of all in chess we differentiate wins on behalf of superior play and winning "ugly" or by chance or by disturbing the concentration of the oppenent. Taking into account that DBII was beaten in game one by the higher chess of Kasparov. No experienced GM would have exchanged his Q and also no GM would have played into that line without protection for its own K in view of two connected free P for W! Second! If, in a challenge of a machine, the best human player asks for details because he suspects that a machine could never play like that, the scientists could laugh all they wanted but in secrecy. By publicating that Kasparov must be out of his mind (what could well have been the case!!) they violated all science decency. This is the micro point you will never understand. Apparently. From what I see in all your past messages. The point is, that you are completely right with all what you write except this small micro point! But that point makes the whole difference for soberness and cheating in case of Hsu and the whole team I must insist. Whether that had been intentiously introduced by a Kasparov whose character disturbed himself or if Kasparov simply smelt the rat of the whole event, we won't find out the truth, but what we do know is certainly that if someone hosts an event and invites someone as the bona fide expert as sort of a lackmustest for their own creation in a field where this human being is the best worldwide, then I answer him with politeness even if he tells me that I'm an ***hole. He might have become completely mad, but I would never be able to insult him by publicly distributing the madness of my guest! Apparently this is an habit Americans can't understand. But they must learn that in chess Americans (after the public extinction of Bobby Fischer) are small players, while Kasparov is a giant global player! In fact, the whole Hsu team, including Benjamin are minor important chess entities. All what the American had was the Machine. A product of their giant Science. And all I'm saying is this. In times when such a Machine would be the very best chess player sooner or later, the creators of the Machine should care with utmost energy that if the Machine won that all appeared to be happening in the best thinkable fairness and decency. Without leaving a shadow of a doubt. In special without even giving the slightest idea of the possible distraction of the human chessplayer. Because ALL that would deminor the importance of the whole event. Note well that the shortness of the "match" alone gave a rather twisted impression of the real chess class of both sides. A gamble situation is almost forcedly there if you have just three games with each color. If you then begin to tweak, even if you would make the machine WEAKER (!), you introduce an unfairness to the event, that COULD spoil the result of the whole event. Because, justified or not, the human player evades in confusion, you lose the control of the variables of the event. Namely that the human should play decent chess. I know that you can't contradict or refutate that. Of course you can say that every side is responsible for its chess! Of course you can deny any responsibility of the Hsu team for the sanity of Kasparov. That is all true. But there is still that small, micro aspect, that the results you get would be spoiled if such disturbances would arise. All what counts is the question, was is do-able or was it impossible for Hsu to negotiate for a peaceful continuation of the match. Campbell thought no, that can't be done because Kasparov was nuts. Fine. But would you honestly be convinced that a win against a mad opponent would glorify you and your baby? I say, that no matter if Kasparov gave a known exhibition of his suspectibility to suspicions and nonsense or if he really discovered a false play, a fraud [I did never support that theory], the team of Hsu had only one chance to save the match - by negotiating with Kasparov, by simply talking to him! Hsu didn't talk. Thus he allowed the impression that the team dequalified their guest Kasparov as nuts. A good example for the otherwise good American hospitality! Since my own messages now become intolerable if I must tell you such truths in an American (!) forum and you have no understanding for what I'm saying, we should rest our case for now. There is literally a cultural gap between the World and the USA. The USA is believing in its strength and superiority and the Rest of the World is watching how the details are in these demonstrations of strength. For me as a German, the whole affair around Deep Blue II and Hsu is the same we could watch in the affair about the War against Iraq (where all public declarations were lies, proven lies to be exact, lies the Americans themselves have admitted; and I'm NOT saying that there might not have been reasons for the conflict the Americans have never made public...!). From you as a scientist I would expect that even if we can't agree about the event that you still admitted that we didn't have the opportunity to discuss the whole factors relevant for that event in 1997. Neither side has PROVEN its correctness. And that is where we should agree. We should agree that we can't agree about the real background of the chess event in 1997. We should also agree that the future after 2997 has proven that Kasparov is by far NOT the madman the Hsu team had defined him for. And we should agree that although the microcomputers are approaching the strength of a DEEP BLUE, human chessplayers can still get draws in their million dollar show events. Not a single chess machine could beat a human super GM since then. And that is ALSO thanks to a little change in the design of the shows. The machine couldn't be changed without limits during the period of the show. This alone is proving that the 1997 event was mainly biased by this possibility that confused Kasparov so deeply. Ok, this isn't an absolute proof, but we have strong indications for it, so to speak. The fact that in your time computers didn't have the necessary strength to outplay a good chess master - EVEN if you tweaked your machine at will, doesn't prove that at your time the procedere was absolutely kosher and should be used for all time in future. As far as I know you did never pretend that you and your collegues had created and found the all-time state of the art rules for machine vs human chess. At least in our exchanges you pointed at the more or less triviality of the moments in the history of computerchess when you once were forced to occupy yourself with such questions. It was a time when the ego of the best human players wasn't at stake at all. Computerchess is NOT the historical core of chess. Human chess is the main and dominating part of chess. So, if you want to become part of chess, you should care that you behave with respect to the admittedly very high ego of the chessplayers. For you as a scientist that shouldn't be too difficult, because your own ethical ground in science even has much deeper roots than the ones in chess. However we must prevent that gambling and impostering enter the spheres of chess and above all in science itself. And that is why our discussion has its great meaning. Let's end our _actual_ debate in all friendship in mutual respect. While I don't forget that you made me a big present by talking to me as a several time World Champion in Computerchess and a veritable Professor in the Computer Sciences. I know for sure that you did never expect that your titles alone would make it all right what you thought and wrote in this debate. What I appreciated most was that you always addressed my doubts and critical ideas in all frankness and that you didn't stigmatize me too much due to my lay status in computerchess tech! Thanks so much, Bob. May Crafty soon reach its version 20 point X!
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