Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 00:42:59 11/15/99
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On November 15, 1999 at 01:15:12, Dave Gomboc wrote:
>On November 14, 1999 at 18:15:47, Bella Freud wrote:
>
>>>I have no special problems with Othello related posts here from time to time.
>>>But I think Othello and chess have big conceptual differences.
>>>
>>>Chess is closer to checkers than to Othello. I think that, somehow, chess is
>>>more suited to the human brain than Othello/Reversi is.
>>>
>>
>>Why?
>
>I think the incessant flipping of discs as one looks ahead is difficult to keep
>track of well. Of course, I wasn't born understanding knight forks either, but
>it seems to me that visualization of the board during look-ahead would be much
>tougher in Othello than in Chess.
>
>Dave
That's what I was thinking about.
Also, the fact that most of the time in chess there is a move that is better
than doing nothing (which gives ground to the null-move concept) makes it easier
for the human brain. No doubt computers benefit from this too. I see chess as a
"frank" game, because of this property (except in zugzwang positions). "Frank"
because at least you can rely on this strong property, and use it for various
purposes in several different ways.
Even the simplest quiescence search relies on it.
And also a concept I would call "geographic focus". In chess, things (almost all
the time) happen in the "from" square and in the "to" square, and only in these
squares. With the obvious exceptions of castling and EP capture of course. This
is also easier for the human brain, easier than mentally flipping disks in all
directions from a given square. It is closer to what the brain has to do when it
learns to understand the physical world. The games emulates some physical
properties of virtual moving objects.
Searchers have mentionned many times the "branching factor" to estimate the
complexity of a game, and taken this as an explanation for the superiority of
human players over computers in chess. This was supposed also to explain in part
the superiority of computers in low branching factor games as checkers or
othello.
But I think chess is also more fitted to the human brain, and it could be taken
into account too.
Chess is closer from the physical world than checkers or Othello/Reversi are.
Maybe it explains in part all the interest it generates.
Christophe
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