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Subject: Re: Poll Question for "If Computers are finally as Strong as GM's"

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 15:22:28 06/23/99

Go up one level in this thread


On June 23, 1999 at 00:37:10, Sarah Bird wrote:

>On June 22, 1999 at 20:12:22, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On June 22, 1999 at 15:41:58, Howard Exner wrote:
>>
>>>I think different versions of Junior have logged in
>>>40/2 tournament games against strong humans. Anyone have stats on these
>>>results? I vaguely recall it doing quite well even on slower hardware.
>>>
>>>What is the time control for the upcoming Karpov - Shredder game?
>>>
>>>Slowly a collection of tournament condition
>>>40/2 encounters will put to rest the speculation.
>>
>>
>>Just so we follow formal 'sampling theory' here.  IE we do _not_ want to pick
>>a good result by Junior without picking all the bad results.  Easier is to take
>>these Rebel games and other acceptable games as they are played, rather than
>>going back.  Because to sample backward you have to include _all_ the data
>>points, else 'cherry-picking' will greatly bias the result...
>
>Following excerpt is from IM Larry Kaufman's review of Hiarcs 7
>"HIARCS, by Applied Computer Concepts Ltd. with chess engine by British
>programmer Mark Uniacke, has been one of the very strongest programs for the
>last several years. The current version, 7.0, is apparently no exception. The
>latest Swedish rating list (the most widely accepted standard for comparing
>computer programs) ranks it third, just an insignificant 9 rating points behind
>the co-leaders (CM 6000 and Fritz 5.32) and substantially ahead of the latest
>rated versions of such strong programs as Junior, Rebel, MChess Pro, and Genius.
>Moreover it is up an impressive 43 points from its predecessor, Hiarcs 6. To
>fully appreciate just how strong Hiarcs 7 is, consider that its Swedish rating
>of 2567 was earned on hardware (200 MHz MMX) markedly inferior to the latest
>models (450-500 MHz). Moreover, the Swedish ratings are particularly severe,
>almost certainly more conservative than FIDE ratings and far below USCF ratings.
>These ratings are based on 40/2 games with other computers, with the overall
>level of the list based on games with human competition some years ago. Although
>I suspect that the level of the top computers may be a bit overstated now due to
>failure to recalibrate the list based on today's GM level computers, this should
>be offset by the severity of Swedish ratings in the past, so my guess is that
>the 2567 rating at 200 MHz would hold up in FIDE competition today, which would
>imply a FIDE rating over 2600 on today's fast machines. In other words, HIARCS 7
>plays tournament chess on a par with the top five players in the U.S. This in
>turn implies that at action chess (game/30') HIARCS 7 probably plays around 2700
>FIDE level, on a par with the number ten player in the world, and should play
>blitz better than Kasparov, Kramnik, and Anand."


Larry is entitled to his opinion.  However, he was writing about 2400 programs
in the days of the 486/33 too.  And while he can write about them, it doesn't
mean that they are there yet.  Lets just wait for a while and see whether the
gap widens (5 to 3 so far) or gets closer, or if the programs can actually pass
the humans...



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