First Kramnik vs DeepFritz, In Progress

An anonymous reader writes "Reigning world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik played the first match in a series of eight against the world's strongest chess computer. 'After the game Vladimir Kramnik said that he was never worried about losing the typical Berlin endgame that arose in his first game against Deep Fritz. The World Champion is the master of this line and Fritz was unable to take advantage of the white pieces.' There is live coverage of the event at the main website." We've mentioned this match a few times before.

Comments

Re:Kramnick will win it

[Mr. PJR]

Don't expect a computer to ever win a blitz match, because computer's just don't have the insight to play well in those circumstances, which is where human innovation shows through.

I have to utterly disagree with this statement. Blitz games are quick games, such as a time limit of 5 minutes per side per game Blitz games are where computers are strongest, where their tactical ability, coolness under pressure, and lack of obvious mistakes shine through.

In quicker games, even weaker chess programs can anihilate strong human grandmasters. It's the longer games where humans are able to hold their own.

Re:Kasparov lost...

[damiam]

Deep Blue was fed all of Kasparov's previous games, so it knew exactly what to expect and how to optimize its strategy. Kasparov had never seen a game played by Deep Blue. It's common among grandmasters to review that past games of your opponent to look for their weeknesses. Kasparov didn't have this chance, which put him at a disadvantage.

Re:I dont' have time now,

[legLess]

Blockquothe the poster:

Is it still true that in Go, computers play with a 14-move advantage and still lose to people who aren't even world-champion?

Oh, yes. Computers go programs are not serious opposition for anyone other than a weak to mid-level amateur. Here's a quick run-down of the go handicap system, for those not in the know: for each point of rank, or strength, difference in the players one stone of the weaker player's is placed on the board in a a predetermined position. Rank goes from 50 kyu (can't spell "go") through 1 kyu to 1 dan, then to 9 dan, then 1 dan to 9 dan professional. Thus a 5 kyu would give a 15 kyu a 10-stone handicap, and in theory, a 9 dan professional could give 68 (20% of the board) stones to someone who'd never played the game - and still win.

So when the poster says "14-move advantage" he means "14-stone handicap," which is huge. It's worse than that, though. A couple years ago, a dan-level player (a woman, not that it matters) beat the current computer go champion after giving it 27 stones. I can't find a bloody link right now, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Go is a game in which, because at each point in the game, it is unclear what groups of stones are alive and what are dead, pattern-based thinking is much more important.

Go is all about pattern recognition. The game is huge - easily the most complex game that people have created (where "life" is not defined as a game :). The board is 19x19 - 361 places to play - and all the stones have equal value. It's not possible for a computer to look 1% as far ahead in go as in chess.

Would Karpov (and perhaps Kramnik) have made a better Go player than chess player?

Who can say? They're very, very different games. I've played go for years, and every now and then I play chess with my brother. It feels very cramped, legalized, and formal. Go flows like a river.