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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.
For those that are interested, the verdict among the chess world is that the computer is going to be exposed as a joke in this match. There are certain positions in which computers are very strong (tactical positions -- where each player has many choices over the next few moves and there are dramatic consequences), but there are equally many where they are not (positions in which long term planning is necessary and individual moves seem purposeless). Kramnik is not just strong -- he knows how to steer the game. The first game he had black and was thus trying to draw. So of course he immediately turned the game into a slow, boring game in which the computer's power was useless. Kramnik has shown previously that his anti-computer play is top notch, and you can look for it to win the match for him without problem.
Anyway, I have a copy of Deep Fritz--the same program Kramnik is playing against. It's a comercially available chess program, designed to run on multiple processor computers. If you have a spare 90USD lying around, pick up a copy. It's a brutally strong program. You can buy it here: http://icdchess.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi (I have no affiliation with ICDchess, other than as a satisfied customer)
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It is the last resort of the fading intellectual: to accuse your public of stupidity.--Sullivan
...with Deep Blue? I would like to see a match between 2 top-playing chess computers for a change
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but one thing I rememer hearing much about karpov, back when kasparov was beaten, was that he, though not world champion, would have made a more interesting match against computerland, because of the fact that he focuses less on tactics (trying to out-think the computer by looking at combinations into more moves ahead) and more on abstract, pattern-based (such as in go) strategy, at which computers suck. Kasparov proved (insofar as you believe playing conditions were fair) that computers can out tacticate people, but perhaps a person whose style leans more toward abstract strategizing ("I want to keep this column open, because I feel it will be very important later" versus "I want to force the computer to lose that pawn, because I think I can pull off a combination in 43 moves")
i do need to go, but here are some things for children of this post to do:
o Look up some original reference (I saw many, many) that talked about how Kasparov's playing style is perhaps less suited to showcasing humanity's superiority to computers than Karpov's was)
o Look up whether Kramnik most resembles Karpov's or Kasparov's style.
One last thing.
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? 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. Would Karpov (and perhaps Kramnik) have made a better Go player than chess player?
When I come back, I'll add more to the thread, to anyone who wishes to discuss it.
The Raven.
The Raven