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Subject: Re: A Blast from the past - What is a Gentleman in Chess?

Author: Rolf Tueschen

Date: 17:40:23 05/04/05

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On April 30, 2005 at 01:11:59, Walter Faxon wrote:

>*** Or human.  What this illustrates is that resignation should be eliminated
>from chess and all decisive games played out to checkmate.  After all, even
>grandmasters can screw up completely won positions, and they sometimes do.
>
>No dignity in graceful acknowledgment of your opponent's better play, no; you
>must fight to the bitter end!
>
>Is your team allowed to "resign" when down 0-6 with one minute to play in
>soccer?  No!
>
>Of course, this extra wasted effort would increase the odds in favor of the
>tireless machines.
>
>-- Walter :)

What you are saying reveils very good the lack of class in computerchess. It's
as if chess would be raped. Chess is a gentleman's sport. You don't understand
why chessplayers give up in lost positions. They do so, because they both agree
in a gentleman's logic. If- they say - we BOTH continue to play like good
chessplayers, and we say that we are both good ones, THEN the result of the game
is clear after all what we know of this game - and we agree that we know enough
that the position itself doesn't hold any surprises. We do completely neglect
that one of us or even both would make silly mistakes which would in fact change
the expected result. We are both gentlemen and nobody wants to win games through
silliness if the position is clear. That is at least what gentlemen are saying.

But computerchess people seem to miss that important point. Their logic always
goes like that: if by chance our opponent - who has a won position and the
machine can see it - becomes silly we have avoided a shameful loss. These people
don't even know that it's more shameful how they are behaving...

NB that I'm not talking about ALL computerchess people. Bob for instance is a
symbol for that gentleman's attitude when he's well aware of politeness in
matches between his machine and human chessplayers. Bob is NOT a maniac who's
collecting points that he hasn't earned to win. That is why it's a real mystery
why Bob is defending hsu and team...

My idea is that Bob stands a friend above a gentleman. But this not my ethical
base. A friend who made some mistake is STILL a friend, but then you are allowed
to criticise him, just because he's your friend and you are his friend. Perhaps
this is too European for Americans.



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