Author: Albert Silver
Date: 05:56:10 11/19/99
Go up one level in this thread
On November 19, 1999 at 06:45:57, blass uri wrote:
>On November 19, 1999 at 01:56:01, Poschmann wrote:
>
>>On November 19, 1999 at 00:15:36, Baldomero Garcia, Jr. wrote:
>>
>>>I was wondering how strong computer chess programmers are.
>>>On average, are they masters, experts, class A players or lower?
>>>Baldo.
>>
>>One year ago I was very angry at my bad chess knowledge. At this time I got a
>>nice book in german "Schach am PC" (Chess on PC) from Frederic Friedel and some
>>other authors (for example Chrilly Donninger). My idea was to improve my own
>>chess playing strength by writing a chess program. Very soon I found out, that
>>this idea was completely false. Alpha beta and other well known algorithms have
>>nothing to do with the way of thinking by good players. Most of their knowledge
>>is "hard wired" in their head, created in their childhood. They cannot explain
>>how they find out good moves. In the book mentioned above I found the nice
>>sentence: "The only persons, who cannot write a chess program are grand
>>masters." Currently I think that is true. If you write a chess program, you have
>>not enough time to train yourself.
>
>I understand that you have less time to train yourself when you write a chess
>program but I do not understand the reason grandmaster cannot write a chess
>program.
>
>I think that they can stop playing chess if they want and start writing a chess
>program.
>
>Uri
Can. The CAN stop if they want. Becoming a grandmaster isn't exactly like
learning the box-step. We are talking years of dedication, competition, and hard
study, sacrificing a lot for it's sake. The point is, it isn't so easy to just
walk away from that. To my knowledge the two strongest player-programmers were
Kaplan in OTB chess and of course Berliner who was World Correspondence Chess
Champion.
Albert Silver
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.