Author: Jeremiah Penery
Date: 20:33:21 11/30/99
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On November 30, 1999 at 21:34:54, Charles Unruh wrote: > In the last 3 days i have seen at leaset 6 posts trying to make out that the >progs were barely USCF master strength! There is no mere master in the united >states that could dream of beating sherbakov with money on the line, or beat the >lithuanian national team, or beat Gelfand in a 40/2 it does not happen! Yeah >people are entitled to their opinions but i think there are limits come on. One game doesn't really prove anything. Take the following two scenarios: A USCF master vs. Gelfand in a 40/2 match of arbitrary length; Rebel (or another program) vs. Gelfand in the same type of match. This is what will likely happen. Match 1 -> Master vs. Gelfand. Gelfand will probably win most of the games. Of course there will be some draws, and the master will win a few, but this ratio will stay fairly constant through the match. Match 2 -> Program vs. Gelfand. Gelfand will initially probably lose some. At this time control, the GM has time to either calculate the necessary tactics, so that he doesn't get crushed that way, or he can simply keep tactics out of the game, for the most part. The program will still win some, however - maybe just as much as Gelfand wins. After a while, Gelfand will find flaws, holes, in the program. He will then exploit these. Gelfand will start winning more. Eventually, he is winning as much (or more) as he did against the master. Take, for example, the first DB-Kasparov match (1996 - NOT DT-Kasparov.). By the final game, Kasparov had already done this assessment of the computer's strengths/weaknesses. It could be clearly seen from the game that Kasparov had adapted to take advantage of this, as any GM will eventually do when playing a computer. Since, IMO, DB is a fair bit stronger than any micro program today, this will happen even more easily to the micros in a 40/2 match against a GM. Have you ever watched the computers play on FICS/ICC? Watch some games between lower-rated players and them. Would a GM, even an FM (FIDE Master), _ever_ even draw to a 1400 player? No. But the programs do all the time. Even I, a fairly bad chess player, can get the occasional win/draw against the computer. Against a Master human, I would _never_ have such chance. The conclusion is that after a sufficient amount of games, the GM can learn how to play against the computer. He can figure out the exact strengths/weaknesses, and then play them accurately to his advantage. He can't really do this against the human. So while we have relatively few games of programs vs. GMs at 40/2, the programs will appear very strong: they will win as much or more than they lose. If the GMs begin playing computers regularly at 40/2, in regular match conditions, I think the GMs will come out clearly on top.
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