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So he and you just take the sexism on faith?

The typical "proof" of sexism is the statistics. If we take it as an axiom, that women are equally capable, interested, and driven, on average, as men, then their under-representation in any field can only be explained by sexism. On the other hand, if we take it as an axiom, that what sexism there is, it is not sufficient to cause free market participants to sabotage themselves, then the under-representation becomes evidence of inherent (biological) differences between sexes. The two axioms contradict each other, but the theories based on each are not self-contradicting... Which do you pick? It seems to me, the theory based on the latter axiom better explains all of the known facts of life. Such as, for example, women's under-performance in most sports — including chess (this study suggests, the problem is in the women's own instincts/minds, not sexism).

Fortunately, to this conversation it is largely irrelevant. Because, even if sexism does exist, the methods to "correct" for it are equal in their evil — if not worse.

This isn't about "raping the rapist".

Bullshit. Every time you hold a "girls in STEM" event, you are depriving some boy or two of it. Every time you pick a woman for hiring/promotion because it would make you look better to the Vice President of Diversity, you are "raping" a likely innocent man, punishing him for the unproven sins of others.

The diversity has value that exceeds the value of optimizing the analytical engineering.

Where this is true — and it might be sometimes — there is no need for quotas and "diversity trainings". Managers seeking to improve their teams are doing it already. No. The whole argument here is about the diversity for the sake of diversity itself. Which is, as I already offered, like painting grass green, because green grass looks better.

hiring the best person for each individual job does not make the best overall team.

That may be true. It may also be true, that some teams — such as, perhaps, an infantry company — should have no women at all. But you would not accept that argument, would you?

Well, I would really like to play on any Open tournament if some of this women would be playing in such conditions :)

http://egotvonline.com/2010/10/20/the-seven-sexiest-female-chess-players/

http://ajedrez.chess.com/forum/view/general/smart-and-sexy---top-10-prettiest-female-chess-players

http://chesscraft.blogspot.com.es/2011/09/14-most-beautiful-and-hottest-chess.html

But if you think there they have just choosen the better looking female players, let's look at the top 16 in the last Women World Chess Championship held just one week ago:

"The Women's World Championship begins" http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-women-s-world-championship-begins
"Closing ceremony: Mariya Muzychuk is crowned" http://en.chessbase.com/post/closing-ceremony-mariya-muzychuk-is-crowned

I am not going to comment about handsome men chessplayers, it's not my play field :)

Well, I would really like to play on any Open tournament if some of this women would be playing in such conditions :)

http://egotvonline.com/2010/10/20/the-seven-sexiest-female-chess-players/

http://ajedrez.chess.com/forum/view/general/smart-and-sexy---top-10-prettiest-female-chess-players

http://chesscraft.blogspot.com.es/2011/09/14-most-beautiful-and-hottest-chess.html

But if you think there they have just choosen the better looking female players, let's look at the top 16 in the last Women World Chess Championship held just one week ago:

"The Women's World Championship begins" http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-women-s-world-championship-begins
"Closing ceremony: Mariya Muzychuk is crowned" http://en.chessbase.com/post/closing-ceremony-mariya-muzychuk-is-crowned

I am not going to comment about handsome men chessplayers, it's not my play field :)

No, you don't need any particual hardware to beat GMs.
A few hundred MHz CPU is all you need. The advances in computer chess is NOT because of hardware improvements, but because of algorithm improvements.

Six years ago they let a cell phone play in a cat 7 GrandMaster tournament. It crushed them all (pretty much.).
A 624MHz ARMv4 CPU got a 2938 performance rating (which is higher than strongest human ever). And there have been leaps in chess engine algorithms since then (and iPhones today have like an ARM53 with Several 1.6GHz 64-bit cores?)

Deep Fritz 10 - Kramnik,V (2750). Man vs Machine Bonn, Germany, 27.11.2006. Kramnik played 34...Qe3?? The blunder of the century.

Kramnik played the move 34...Qe3 calmly, stood up, picked up his cup and was about to leave the stage to go to his rest room. At least one audio commentator also noticed nothing, while Fritz operator Mathias Feist kept glancing from the board to the screen and back, hardly able to believe that he had input the correct move. Fritz was displaying mate in one, and when Mathias executed it on the board Kramnik briefly grasped his forehead, took a seat to sign the score sheet and left for the press conference, which he dutifully attended.

In the post match press conference Vladimir Kramnik confirmed that he had not blundered out of exhaustion, and had been calculating very well right to the end. He had no real explanation for the oversight that happened right at the end.

Kramnik in the press conference: "It was actually not only about the last move. I was calculating this line very long in advance, and then recalculating. It was very strange, some kind of blackout. I was feeling well, I was playing well, I think I was pretty much better. I calculated the line many, many times, rechecking myself. I already calculated this line when I played 29...Qa7, and after each move I was recalculating, again, and again, and finally I blundered mate in one. Actually it was the first time that it happened to me, and I cannot really find any explanation. I was not feeling tired, I think I was calculating well during the whole game... It's just very strange, I cannot explain it."

Thus the question that everyone was asking remained unanswered: how can a player of Kramnik's caliber, a world champion who hovers around the Elo 2800 mark, overlook a mate in one move? Naturally there is no logical explanation â" we have to delve into the realm of pattern recognition and the psychology of human perception if we want to understand anything.

The rest of the article turns the board around, looks at it from Kramnik's position, and tries to get into his head to see what he was thinking. Personally, I think it's what I call "sniffing your own butt" when you get so inside yourself, you stop thinking about the rest of the world. You then perform bizarre actions which seem quite reasonable to you. This happens in groups as well. It helps to explain things like how pro-worker governments of the 20th century murdered millions of workers. There's just nobody there to second-guess your thinking, and even if there was, they would be heavily punished for speaking out and contradicting you. This is where crowdsourcing shines.

Unfortunately, Kramnik had somehow not registered the threat generated by the Fritz move 34.Nxf8. The white queen threatens mate in one on h7 (where it is protected by the knight). Black does nothing to neutralise this threat with his move 34...Qe3. And so, after he played it, Kramnik was immediately mated by the computer.

But how could he not have seen the threat after 34.Nxf8. An explanation was proffered by a very experienced chess player and trainer, Alexander Roshal, who is also the editor of the Russian chess magazine "64".

Alexander told us that the mating pattern that occurred during the game, with the white queen protected by a knight on f8 (as in the screen shot above), is extremely rare in chess. It is not one of the patterns that chess grandmasters automatically have in their repertoire. This was confirmed by a GM commentator in Bonn, who after Kramnik's move did not notice that it was a blunder and started discussing White's options â" but not the mate in one.

Chess blindness strikes again!

Kramnik played the move 34...Qe3 calmly, stood up, picked up his cup and was about to leave the stage to go to his rest room. At least one audio commentator also noticed nothing, while Fritz operator Mathias Feist kept glancing from the board to the screen and back, hardly able to believe that he had input the correct move. Fritz was displaying mate in one, and when Mathias executed it on the board Kramnik briefly grasped his forehead, took a seat to sign the score sheet and left for the press conference, which he dutifully attended.

In the post match press conference Vladimir Kramnik confirmed that he had not blundered out of exhaustion, and had been calculating very well right to the end. He had no real explanation for the oversight that happened right at the end.

Kramnik in the press conference: "It was actually not only about the last move. I was calculating this line very long in advance, and then recalculating. It was very strange, some kind of blackout. I was feeling well, I was playing well, I think I was pretty much better. I calculated the line many, many times, rechecking myself. I already calculated this line when I played 29...Qa7, and after each move I was recalculating, again, and again, and finally I blundered mate in one. Actually it was the first time that it happened to me, and I cannot really find any explanation. I was not feeling tired, I think I was calculating well during the whole game... It's just very strange, I cannot explain it."

Thus the question that everyone was asking remained unanswered: how can a player of Kramnik's caliber, a world champion who hovers around the Elo 2800 mark, overlook a mate in one move? Naturally there is no logical explanation â" we have to delve into the realm of pattern recognition and the psychology of human perception if we want to understand anything.

The rest of the article turns the board around, looks at it from Kramnik's position, and tries to get into his head to see what he was thinking. Personally, I think it's what I call "sniffing your own butt" when you get so inside yourself, you stop thinking about the rest of the world. You then perform bizarre actions which seem quite reasonable to you. This happens in groups as well. It helps to explain things like how pro-worker governments of the 20th century murdered millions of workers. There's just nobody there to second-guess your thinking, and even if there was, they would be heavily punished for speaking out and contradicting you. This is where crowdsourcing shines.

Unfortunately, Kramnik had somehow not registered the threat generated by the Fritz move 34.Nxf8. The white queen threatens mate in one on h7 (where it is protected by the knight). Black does nothing to neutralise this threat with his move 34...Qe3. And so, after he played it, Kramnik was immediately mated by the computer.

But how could he not have seen the threat after 34.Nxf8. An explanation was proffered by a very experienced chess player and trainer, Alexander Roshal, who is also the editor of the Russian chess magazine "64".

Alexander told us that the mating pattern that occurred during the game, with the white queen protected by a knight on f8 (as in the screen shot above), is extremely rare in chess. It is not one of the patterns that chess grandmasters automatically have in their repertoire. This was confirmed by a GM commentator in Bonn, who after Kramnik's move did not notice that it was a blunder and started discussing White's options â" but not the mate in one.

Perhaps the flaw is identifying the "deliberate practice" as the only dependent variable. For example, I play guitar. I'm probably better than other people who have put in the same amount of practice time than I have, since I've put in 10 years on clarinet. Those ten years of music experience, give me an ability to interpret rythym, understand some music theory, read notes quickly, hear pitch, etc. than someone who is "just picking it up".

Similarly, I know some quite good chess players who play Go as well -- one of whom is the champion of a small Nordic country. A player of Shogi recently switched to chess -- and he's quite good. Or perhaps, a good COBOL programmer could be a good Swift programmer with less effort?

There's very little in the article discussing the role of "related skills" -- and perhaps this can help explain the gap.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/c...

If nine moves is in the TL;DR range for you, it was a bishop sacrifice to open up the h-file for a queen and knight attack. Poor Bill missed a mate in one, but I suspect most would do the same under those conditions.

An annotated game record is available here:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/carlsen-mates-bill-gates-in-79-seconds

What about a nice game of chess?

With this, you won't be disappointed.

Explanation of game 9: http://en.chessbase.com/post/chennai-09-thrilling-fight-tarnished

Don't underestimate the *huge* gap Carlsen has on his rivals in the rankings: http://www.chessbase.com/post/november-2013-ratings--nakamura-in-place-four-011113 Only people like Kasparov and Fischer have managed to pull away like that in the past ...

This is way bigger than you think. Big, like in SPACE. To understand, you should first affiliate yourself with the origins of chess, particularly from the view of former President of the Republic of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

Well, soon you will begin to see what started this whole affair in the first place. The President of the Republic of Kalmykia has powerful friends, and Putin is not at the top amongst them. These friends have spaceships and don't piddle around, especially with chess. In other words, Gary fucked with the Aliens by criticizing their Kalmykian friend, and Putin, the incredibly patient fellow he is, is finally closing in -- in service of the KGB (King's Gambit Bezopasnosti).

Gentlemen, I assure you, chess is far stranger than Go.

Aaaaand... now I find out that not only was he vastly overstating the certainty, the whole thing was a late April Fool's joke, so the point is kinda moot. In their "fooled ya"/retraction, they admit that a solution is many many orders of magnitude off. Many of us knew that a full search was totally impossible, and the thing about stopping at an evaluation of -5.12 seems like it was just a way to fudge the claim enough to keep many of us from immediately realizing it was an April Fool's joke.

Here's the retraction.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8051

And here's the confirmation that it was a prank. From the article:

Vas Rajlich, sitting in a "funky Internet cafe in Budapest", explained in greater detail:

        It's reasonable to construct a search tree of around 10^18 positions using modern technology. The chess alpha-beta tree is thought to have at least 10^45 positions. The alpha-beta tree for the King's Gambit will be at most 10x to 100x smaller than that. So, we're still probably a good 25 or so orders of magnitude away from being able to solve something like the King's Gambit. If processing power doubles every 18 months for the next century, we'll have the resources to do this around the year 2120, plus or minus a few decades.

(Actually Vas is being overly optimistic, and we are probably overly pessimistic when we say: it will not be possible in the course of this universe. The Rybka author added the following caveat:)

        You must remember that the tree for any specific 32-man position can be much smaller than we expect – if one side is immediately lost or if there is an immediate forced draw. Could the King's Gambit have a massively reduced tree? If the King's Gambit is winning for black, then this is theoretically possible. It is possible that after 2.f4 White is simply crushed instantly, no matter what he does. I very much doubt that this is the case. Everything in my chess experience tells me that any Black win would be long and tortuous. If the King's Gambit is a draw, though, then there are really no prospects for a massively reduced tree. In other words, it is (slightly) more preposterous to claim that 3.Be2 has been worked out to a draw than to claim that 3.Nf3 has been worked out to a loss.

They also state that the reason for their post being labelled as the 2nd is because they deliberately posted on "April 1st at 23:55h, i.e. five minutes before midnight – in Pago Pago." to make it less obvious. More detail in the article.

And here's the confirmation that it was a prank. From the article:

Vas Rajlich, sitting in a "funky Internet cafe in Budapest", explained in greater detail:

        It's reasonable to construct a search tree of around 10^18 positions using modern technology. The chess alpha-beta tree is thought to have at least 10^45 positions. The alpha-beta tree for the King's Gambit will be at most 10x to 100x smaller than that. So, we're still probably a good 25 or so orders of magnitude away from being able to solve something like the King's Gambit. If processing power doubles every 18 months for the next century, we'll have the resources to do this around the year 2120, plus or minus a few decades.

(Actually Vas is being overly optimistic, and we are probably overly pessimistic when we say: it will not be possible in the course of this universe. The Rybka author added the following caveat:)

        You must remember that the tree for any specific 32-man position can be much smaller than we expect – if one side is immediately lost or if there is an immediate forced draw. Could the King's Gambit have a massively reduced tree? If the King's Gambit is winning for black, then this is theoretically possible. It is possible that after 2.f4 White is simply crushed instantly, no matter what he does. I very much doubt that this is the case. Everything in my chess experience tells me that any Black win would be long and tortuous. If the King's Gambit is a draw, though, then there are really no prospects for a massively reduced tree. In other words, it is (slightly) more preposterous to claim that 3.Be2 has been worked out to a draw than to claim that 3.Nf3 has been worked out to a loss.

They also state that the reason for their post being labelled as the 2nd is because they deliberately posted on "April 1st at 23:55h, i.e. five minutes before midnight – in Pago Pago." to make it less obvious. More detail in the article.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -- no examples were provided on the page itself -- yet many of the comments above uncritically accept that this is true, only disputing the semantics.

Agreed, this is not proven. Computer programs' evaluations of individual board positions can be truly horrendous, so it is likely that there are more than a few of those positions that aren't as bad for white as they concluded.

Another example of an April Fools post is here, which is more obvious due to its premise.

I think you misunderstood the rhetorical language. It is not a literal crystal ball showing you what people are thinking, but an opening database which also shows statistics on what previous users have looked at. Using this, one could make an educated guess as to which novelties are likely to be tried in the near future.

The King's Gambit post (a day late) is plausible; but that's all. You wouldn't be taken seriously if you mentioned it to a grandmaster.

Incorrect. The King's Gambit is already known to be somewhat dubious at the top level and accepting the gambit is generally believed to give black an edge with correct play. I occasionally play it myself, but I wouldn't recommend you to play it against a strong club player or better.

While chess will face difficulties as computers and chess software become more advanced,

Not really. I don't play because I'm the best player in the world. I play because it's fun, and so does everyone else I know. Computer programs haven't killed chess (they can absolutely beat any man alive, and have had this ability for a long time). They've merely brought in two new aspects: a strong, always willing opponent to practice tactics with and a good way to check tempting novelties for obvious errors. They did kill correspondence chess, but that has always been open for cheating.

we are along way from writing chess off as we did checkers, and probably won't do for a number of decades

Chess is sufficiently complex that we could continue to play even if the theoretically optimal line of play were known from start to finish. Just deviate from the optimum move. (I love playing against people who memorise openings, because they get thrashed by a less-good move they haven't memorised.)

I think we need to read the following paper which defends Rybka. I got the link from the Wikipedia entry on Rybka.

http://www.chessbase.com/news/2011/riis01.pdf(It's a PDF file, in case you hadn't noticed the extension.)

The paper proposes that, contrary to popular opinion, Rybka probably did not misappropriate parts of Fruit. It was enough for me to tend toward believing Rybka and not believing 34 panelists on ICGA, but I'll let you judge for yourself. If you know the background of the SCO vs Linux case, especially how the pundits made their pronouncements, you will appreciate this paper more. I can definitely say that I no longer unequivocally conclude that Rybka stole from Fruit.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -- no examples were provided on the page itself -- yet many of the comments above uncritically accept that this is true, only disputing the semantics.

On the page itself:
"On March 31 the author of the Rybka program, Vasik Rajlich, and his family moved from Warsaw, Poland to a new appartment in Budapest, Hungary. The next day, in spite of the bustle of moving boxes and setting up phone and Internet connections Vas, kindly agreed to the following interview, which had been planned some months ago."

Another example of an April Fools post is here, which is more obvious due to its premise. The King's Gambit post (a day late) is plausible; but that's all. You wouldn't be taken seriously if you mentioned it to a grandmaster.

While chess will face difficulties as computers and chess software become more advanced, we are along way from writing chess off as we did checkers, and probably won't do for a number of decades -- and even then, not solving every position.

Deep Blue and its descendants aren't exactly something a spectator could hide in their coat.

Pocket Fritz 4 achieved a higher Elo rating than any human, and that was on a PocketPC in 2009. And mobile hardware has evolved at an amazing pace since then.

He tried to find articles on the subject, but turned up nothing. “It is one of those situations that it is hard to believe that this hasn’t already been covered in the literature,” he said.

I'm not criticizing Kenneth W. Regan for the way in which his work was reported in the popular press, but Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko have had a couple of articles published in which they evaluate past world champion chess players with computer programs. Their ICGA Journal articles aren't free to read, but ChessBase.com has articles (which I haven't read) based on those journal articles here and here.

My work isn't closely enough related to that of Regan and Guid/Bratko that I know the politics involved: sworn enemies? friends? never heard of each other? But if it's "never heard of each other", they should talk.

He tried to find articles on the subject, but turned up nothing. “It is one of those situations that it is hard to believe that this hasn’t already been covered in the literature,” he said.

I'm not criticizing Kenneth W. Regan for the way in which his work was reported in the popular press, but Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko have had a couple of articles published in which they evaluate past world champion chess players with computer programs. Their ICGA Journal articles aren't free to read, but ChessBase.com has articles (which I haven't read) based on those journal articles here and here.

My work isn't closely enough related to that of Regan and Guid/Bratko that I know the politics involved: sworn enemies? friends? never heard of each other? But if it's "never heard of each other", they should talk.

My point exactly... *The* World Chess Championship - the classical time control match with Topalov.

Our every friendly Wiki Link -
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2010

"Arctic Securities Chess Stars" is, to quote Chessbase,
"This rapid chess tournament is taking place in Kristiansund from Saturday, August 28th to Monday, August 30th 2010. It is a double round robin with four players: Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Judit Polgar and Jon Ludvig Hammer. On Monday there follows the finals between the two leading players, together with the bronze final for third place. Time controls are 20 minutes + 10 seconds increment per move."
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6641

So respectfully your remark isn't formally logical. However, I'll give you total leeway for being confused because the chess world has been a mess of "championship tournaments" for about 10 years. But the Arctic Securities was a typical publicity event. World Championships do occasionally fail to take first in alternate time controls like Rapid.

The history of computer chess is the history of building brute force engines and then refining them by identifying where processing power is successful at winning.

The "brute force engines" are now rather modest. We're way past needing Deep Blue. 4-CPU X86 machines now play at grandmaster level. With 8 CPUs, the computer can spot a grandmaster a pawn and move and still win.

Chess is unforgiving of errors. We now know just how unforgiving. In human grandmaster play, about one move in ten is suboptimal, based on post-game analysis. This is enough to give computers a clear edge. Go isn't that unforgiving.

Checkers, of course, is solved. Perfect play leads to a draw.

> Players are given 1 - 5 minutes each to win a game, which generally does not result in a checkmate outcome
Do you actually play chess ? Blitz games often ends in checkmate, because the player with the biggest time pressure will blunder.

I have seen my son give otb (=over the board) checkmate in rapid chess to someone 300 ELO higher than him with 3 seconds vs 5 seconds left and 8 moves.

Of course, the player with worst position can choose not to move and lose on time, but it is the stupidest thing to do, because in chess, you can think on the opponent time

Just look at the tie-break in US women championship. 11 seconds vs 2 seconds. Wanna bet who won ?

Lurk around playchess.com. You'll see 1 minute bullets games (ie: 1 minute for each opponents). The average rate of play is higher than 1 move per second, and they generally finish in checkmate.

PS: slashdot formatting is borken for me. Can' do proper paragraphs. Such is life

Here you go

And here, at the bottom of the page, you can see an exhibition chessboxing by the FIDE (ie: Federarion Internationale Des Echecs aka: World Chess Federation) president

What Deep Blue proved at the time was that the state-of-the-art in massively parallel computation had advanced to the point where beating a Grand Master in chess became possible. Yet, not a flicker of intelligence was needed. Consider this: Deep Blue was able to evaluate 200 million positions per second, while Kasparov (by his own estimate) could only do about three. Yet, somehow, their playing performance was practically equal. That makes Kasparov about 66 million times smarter.

The amazing thing about human intelligence is that it is able to make sense of insanely complex situations with only a glance. The powers of abstraction, deductive and probabilistic reasoning, and what we simply call "intuition" (because we don't understand it) allow Kasparov to ignore 66 million possitions for every single one he looks at.

An even more important characteristic of human intelligence is that it's universal. A human may be beatable by computer at pretty much any given task in isolation, but even a child crushes a computer when it comes to overall performance. Deep Blue may play chess very well, but it doesn't recognize a smile, it cannot catch a ball, and it cannot tell if that cute little puppy is gonna bite its ass. That takes real intelligence.

Yes, we can build systems with almost unlimited raw power. But comparing the ability of a computer with human intelligence is like comparing a crane to the human hand.

For the same reasons, I suspect that everyone who wasn't at the level of Kasparov would have gotten their asses handed to them in a game of chess against older versions of computers which couldn't yet beat him.

Current reality is that any of the better chess programs for PCs can trounce you, unless you've been on the cover of Chess Life. Grandmasters are now playing Rybka with Rybka handicapped by one pawn, or with no opening book, and still losing fairly often. It's clear that computer chess performance has passed the human level.

And this is without supercomputers. Programs are playing at the grandmaster level on 2 and 4-CPU PCs. No need for custom "Deep Blue" hardware.

One of the workers on computer chess comments, after analyzing many grandmaster games, that about one grandmaster move in ten is suboptimal. This error rate is enough to give computers an edge humans can't match. A big problem in the chess world now is people cheating in the World Open using hidden links to computers.

Serious work on poker is only a few years old, and already the programs are doing well. Give it a few more years.

This is going to kill online poker played for real money.

Computers are so good at chess now that it's embarrassing. Unless you've been on the cover of Chess Life, any of the good PC chess programs can trounce you. Fritz at €119.90, runs on single or multiprocessor PCs, is rated at FIDE 2808 or so, and wins against Kasparov about half the time. If you're not a rated player, the chess programs for cell phones can beat you.

One of the experts in computer chess explained what's happened. Study of human grandmaster games indicates that about one move in ten is suboptimal, even at that level. That's enough to give computers that don't make mistakes a significant edge.

Computers are now so far ahead that there's a serious problem with cheating using a computer in chess competition, Several cheaters were caught at the 2006 World Open. "Two players are under suspicion of having received help from computers at the World Open in Philadelphia. One locked himself in a bathroom stall, the other, who was leading the event before the last round and stood to win $18,000, was caught wearing a "hearing aid" which turned out to be a wireless receiver used for surreptitious communications. The New York Times reports."

Chess players at major tournaments are now being searched.

Computers are so good at chess now that it's embarrassing. Unless you've been on the cover of Chess Life, any of the good PC chess programs can trounce you. Fritz at €119.90, runs on single or multiprocessor PCs, is rated at FIDE 2808 or so, and wins against Kasparov about half the time. If you're not a rated player, the chess programs for cell phones can beat you.

One of the experts in computer chess explained what's happened. Study of human grandmaster games indicates that about one move in ten is suboptimal, even at that level. That's enough to give computers that don't make mistakes a significant edge.

Computers are now so far ahead that there's a serious problem with cheating using a computer in chess competition, Several cheaters were caught at the 2006 World Open. "Two players are under suspicion of having received help from computers at the World Open in Philadelphia. One locked himself in a bathroom stall, the other, who was leading the event before the last round and stood to win $18,000, was caught wearing a "hearing aid" which turned out to be a wireless receiver used for surreptitious communications. The New York Times reports."

Chess players at major tournaments are now being searched.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=337 0

World Champion and Grandmaster Kramnik alegedly goes 50 times during 1 game...

Chess programs qualify as "highbrow games".

Order Fritz or Junior from ChessBase. Play chess against the machine. Unless you've been on the cover of Chess Life, you're going to lose. Chess programs are very strong now. "Deep Blue" is obsolete; now multiprocessor PCs are beating grandmasters. You can buy and run PC programs that have beaten Kasparov.

Now that chess programs do better than people, nobody really cares outside the chess world. One of the leading chess programmers made a comment that explains what's happened. Analyzing grandmaster games, he discovered that, about once in every ten moves on average, grandmasters choose a suboptimal move. Not a really bad move, but one where a better option existed. That's the base human error rate, and that's enough to give computers a fundamental edge at the higher levels.

There's a lot of bad advice on here. It's great that your daughter wants to learn chess. I have two daughters, 3 and 7, and I'm teaching them the game. My younger daughter asked to play with me this morning (she mostly just sets up the pieces).

First, I'm disappointed that so many posters assumed that there's some hidden meaning in your daughter's interest. I can say from experience that, when my daughters don't feel like playing chess, no promises of quality time will get them near the board. I think it's fair to assume that your daughter is genuinely interested, which is great. Also, if she's interested in chess, don't be afraid to teach her chess. Go is a great game, but there's no reason not to teach her chess.

Over the board play is best for learning chess, as people suggest, but I've found that it's not always the best way to interest my older daughter in the game. I bought Fritz and Chesster, and she enjoys working with it over working with me. It does a great job of breaking down the game into practical lessons that are fun to play. It may be a bit advanced for your daughter, but I think it's better than using Chessmaster on the easiest level. I have noticed that it's geared toward a male player and a lot of the humor is distinctly Teutonic, but I didn't find it particularly offensive. I think it's probably all you really need for software until she's a tournament player, and it's reasonably priced. I even caught my wife working with my daughter when she got stuck on the king and rook mate. My wife never gets involved in over-the-board games.

I'd also say that, contrary to what others are writing, chess is not easy for a parent to teach, nor is it an easy game in any sense. It's difficult to play on the same level as your kid if you're at all good, my older daughter doesn't want to play with a handicap, and she as soon as she makes a few opening moves, she gets bogged down and confused. I've had some success setting up chess mazes for her, where I sprinkle pawns on the board and she has to move pieces through the pawns. I've also had success getting her interested in puzzles. I can't blame you for looking for ways to supplement her learning.

Don't just buy any chess book. Most chess books, even beginner ones, are written for an adult audience, and you'll have to translate what you're reading into lessons that are appropriate for a kid. Plus, for the poster that recommended Lasker's Manual, it's in descriptive notation. No child or parent should have to deal with descriptive notation. Make sure any book you buy is in algebraic notation.

I can't recommend beginner books for children from my experience, but Chess for Juniors and How to Beat Your Dad at Chess are universally acclaimed. I got my daughter Simple Checkmates, and she's able to work through it on her own. Kudos to the person who mentioned Dan Heisman. His Novice Nook columns are a great resource for beginning tournament players, and he's the author of A Parent's Guide to Chess. He does online tutoring, and I have a friend who is an online student of his who recommends him highly. I haven't read it, but Susan's Polgar's instruction book might also be of interest. She's one

I haven't personally used F & C, but I have heard the offensive banter of Fritz 7 first-hand. It's really in poor taste. As far as why no-one cares, that's easy. The world of chess is dominated by men, almost to the point of exclusion. Girls are not encouraged to play serious chess. At my local chess club I've seen precisely one female player out of dozens of players I've seen there. The only female player to ever get any traction in the "men's" league is Judit Polgar. All of the rest play in the league that is specifically for women. Hell I've even seen insulting emails posted online by GMs lambasting a strong player for trying to attain a GM title part of which said that the WIM (Women's International Master) title was not even a possibility, let alone a "real" title. Chessbase's "news" articles are especially awful. More often than not, you'll see exactly 0 articles discussing women in chess on the front page. If there are any, it's more likely to be a tounament that includes both men's and women's divisions, or glamour shots of Alexandra Kosteniuk, than a serious piece.

Perhaps I was quick to judge F & C as having sexist content, but given Chessbase's modus operandi, I'm not going to find out by sitting my daughters in front of it.

Fritz and Chesster is what I've used with my daughter-- it's an excellent program.

http://www.chessbase.com/shop/product.asp?pid=165& user=&coin=

I haven't gotten around to picking up Volume 2, though...

http://www.chessbase.com/shop/product.asp?pid=230& user=&coin=

Fritz and Chesster is what I've used with my daughter-- it's an excellent program.

http://www.chessbase.com/shop/product.asp?pid=165& user=&coin=

I haven't gotten around to picking up Volume 2, though...

http://www.chessbase.com/shop/product.asp?pid=230& user=&coin=

The two Hydra machines did not even make it into the final sixteen. Moreover, the eventual winners were a couple of amateurs using pretty ordinary PCs running over-the-counter chess programs. On the way to the title they beat a selection of computer- and supergrandmaster-assisted grandmasters.

On this evidence the "strongest chess entity on the planet" is a team consisting of a New Hampshire database administrator + a soccer coach + 3 ordinary PCs.

Links:

Hydra knocked out

Final result

Winners debriefing

The two Hydra machines did not even make it into the final sixteen. Moreover, the eventual winners were a couple of amateurs using pretty ordinary PCs running over-the-counter chess programs. On the way to the title they beat a selection of computer- and supergrandmaster-assisted grandmasters.

On this evidence the "strongest chess entity on the planet" is a team consisting of a New Hampshire database administrator + a soccer coach + 3 ordinary PCs.

Links:

Hydra knocked out

Final result

Winners debriefing

The two Hydra machines did not even make it into the final sixteen. Moreover, the eventual winners were a couple of amateurs using pretty ordinary PCs running over-the-counter chess programs. On the way to the title they beat a selection of computer- and supergrandmaster-assisted grandmasters.

On this evidence the "strongest chess entity on the planet" is a team consisting of a New Hampshire database administrator + a soccer coach + 3 ordinary PCs.

Links:

Hydra knocked out

Final result

Winners debriefing

How did you get laid before you got interested in things outside of chess? =)

Ahum... I present to thee The 1st World Chess Beauty Contest. Unfortunately you need to register before you can vote on photos. Chessbase has some examples. The first picture isn't really the best, but well, at least it shows that several people in the chess world have their priorities straight, while still interested in "things" inside of chess :-)

(In general, over the last year it has become a huge trend in chess magazines etc to concentrate on pictures of chess playing girls... apparently it sells).

Clicky, clicky ... http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=225 8

Here is a link to a more lengthy article with more information, including a video clip. Seems Kasparov, despite still having the best rating in the world, is retiring out of frustration with the FIDE. He's going to write a few books, including How Life Imitates Chess, in addition to politics.

I would think so! All the "big" chess computers (Deep Blue, etc...) have just been massively parallel systems, and chess is one of those things that people have been coding and refining for years. I'm not much of a chess player myself-- computers have been kicking my ass since the 1MHz era, but it appears that multiprocessor chess software is already available for end-users:

Deep Junior 9 and Deep Shredder 9 support multiple processors, and should have no trouble on a multicore system.

Each core doubles how many moves it can evaluate in a given time-- and searching possible moves is primarily how chess algorithms work.

Plus... Shredder renders a fancy 3D glass chess set for you, making sure your GPU doesn't get lonely with nothing to do.

Actually, there was a cut down 6x6 variant of chess designed so that it would run on MANIAC.

There is a report on the tournament here.

Incidentally, I just learned that Hydra took a 2:0 lead over Shredder! http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=185 4

Incidentally, I just learned that Hydra took a 2:0 lead over Shredder! http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=185 4