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First Kramnik vs DeepFritz, In Progress

Posted by timothy on from the cook-up-some-hotdogs-and-popcorn dept.

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.

63 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. No longer in progress: Draw by Phouk · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Kramnik was never worried about losing..." out of context is a bit misleading: Kramnik didn't win either, it was just a draw.

    (For those who don't read the articles... ;) )

    --
    Stupidity is mis-underestimated.
    1. Re:No longer in progress: Draw by Mr.+PJR · · Score: 5, Interesting
      There's a saying among chess grandmasters--"Draw with black, win with white."

      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)

      --

      --
      It is the last resort of the fading intellectual: to accuse your public of stupidity.--Sullivan
    2. Re:No longer in progress: Draw by Mr.+PJR · · Score: 5, Informative
      Would someone please elaborate on this? I have seen this in other comments and do not understand the reasoning

      When playing the black pieces you have a disadvantage because black always moves second. Basically, the player of the white pieces has a one-tempo advantage and can to some extent determine the shape of the game (by choosing which variation of the opening will be played). Strong chess players can take advantage of the first move advantage when playing white by forcing black to defend or play an opening which the black player isn't strong at.

      With these disadvantages, black's behavior is usually to hold on and try to draw. Then to try and win when he has the white pieces (because the players alternate colors).

      --

      --
      It is the last resort of the fading intellectual: to accuse your public of stupidity.--Sullivan
    3. Re:No longer in progress: Draw by xintegerx · · Score: 3, Informative

      Maybe because owning Deep Fritz is like having a Grandmaster caged up in your own home, one who tirelessly makes near-"perfect" moves?

      Wouldn't it also be a great tool for analysis and to check what the best move, in a game you have played previously, would have been?

      Wouldn't it improve your game?

      People would buy Deep Fritz would use it for training. I've heard this about playing chess:

      1/3 of your competition must be the same level as you are (makes for an even, fun game.)

      1/3 of the competition should be stronger than you (to challenge yourself to advance and learn--why not learn from DeepFritz?)

      1/3 of the practice competition should be weaker than you are (a match where you kick butt and raise your self-esteem after losing to higher competition [DeepFritz])

      And, it doesn't take a genius to figure any of the above out (from your sig ;)

      --

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    4. Re:No longer in progress: Draw by haystor · · Score: 2, Informative

      First, Deep Fritz is the name of the multi-processor version. For only $45 you can get the single processor version. No point in paying double the price to get your butt kicked.

      There are a ton of features that make playing against Fritz wonderful. You can set the rating strength that it should play at. Of course, if you aren't an above average player Fritz will still be too strong most likely.

      As others have mentioned, analysis with something like this is great. I feed my games to Fritz and look over them again. It really can point out when and how I went wrong.

      But, my absolute favorite feature that Fritz has is something caled sparring mode. In sparring mode, Fritz will intentionally make mistakes at times. The difference between this and the average program is that an average program will just make a random mistake sometime. In sparring mode you first have to put Fritz under pressure and into a tactically active situation and only then will it make a little blunder (which you still have to catch). By being rewarded this way, I was able to learn what positions were putting pressure on my opponent and how to take advantage of mistakes. This is a great feature because its training in the middle game, which is much more difficult to capture in notes and books.

      --
      t
    5. Re:No longer in progress: Draw by desideria · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here's four of the reasons I own it.

      1. To analyze your own games more quickly with the engine, which is great for having new insight to your own games and evolution as a player.

      2. Faster thinking times. A stronger engine is, well, faster... especially with SMP.

      3. To play chess - Deep Fritz plays at a variety of levels. most of which are far easier than what Kramnik is playing.

      4. Integration with a program called Chessbase, which is as you may have guessed, Database application for chess games.

      Hope this helps!
      - Cath

    6. Re:No longer in progress: Draw by invenustus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How is it fun to play against a machine that's so strong you can't possibly win?

      That raises another point, actually. It hasn't been proven that the "perfect chess game" doesn't exist. It's possible that someone could publish a book that consisted of an opening move for white, and the response to every situation that black could create from there, which would lead to mate for white every time.

      If that happens, the whole game of chess is going to become pointless, because anyone with that book - or enough of it memorized - is going to be unbeatable. Sure, you could throw the book away, but as you played, you'd know that what you were doing could be flat out wrong - no better than not blocking your tic-tac-toe opponent when he/she has 2 in a row.

      --
      grep -ri 'should work' /usr/src/linux | wc -l
    7. Re:No longer in progress: Draw by b0r0din · · Score: 2

      You couldn't write that book or memorize everything in it, because the possible moves that black can make are way above a million after say, four or five rounds. Good luck memorizing 10^28 possible responses (and no, I don't know how many combinations there are, suffice to say it's very high)

      Now a computer might be able to eventually play the perfect chess game, having pre-computed all possible responses for every move. But for now computers aren't smart enough. Which is why humans can still beat (or at least draw) even the best computers.

      If that does ever happen, if computers become too powerful, then champs of the world might just move on to a new game, like Go, which few AI play well.

    8. Re:No longer in progress: Draw by ponxx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > That raises another point, actually. It hasn't been proven that the "perfect chess game" doesn't exist.

      Indeed it can be proven that a "perfect chess game" does exist. In fact it is quite obvious that it does. Chess is a finite problem (due to rules about repeating a position 3 times being considered a draw). The question really is whether the "perfect game" results in a win for either color or in a draw.

  2. Not much of a contest... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Not much of a contest... by shimmin · · Score: 2
      The quip is that the perfect chessplayer opens like a book, plays like a genius, and closes like a machine.

      The question that I'd like answered (and the Fritz team probably won't tell because telling would compromise their machine's strategies) is how deep is Fritz's opening book, and to what extent is it weighted to play into enormously complicated positions where the human is more likely to screw up and the machine's inherent stupidity is less of a handicap (more of the lines are plausible, so the machine's difficulty in distinguishing between plausible and implausible lines is less important than its ability to quickly look through a broad game tree.

  3. That box is certainly smaller than... by weird+mehgny · · Score: 2

    ...Deep Blue

    1. Re:That box is certainly smaller than... by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 2

      Gee whiz, Deep Blue looks like it was created during the age of Deep Throat!

      In fact, the angle of the Deep Blue picture reminds me of the video cover!

      --
      "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  4. Kasparov lost... by Ulumuri · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because of unfair playing conditions, and also because he didn't have access to DB before the match. Therefore, matches between Kramnik and Fritz will take place every other day, be adjourned after 60 moves, and Fritz will not be reprogrammed between matches.

    Currently, opinion is siding with Kramnik. GMs Nigel Short and Raymond Keene predict a Kramnik win.

    The game went as follows:

    Deep Fritz(2807) - Kramnik,V [C67]
    Brains in Bahrain Man-Machine Match. Manama (1), 04.10.2002
    1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Nc3 h6 10.b3 Ke8 11.Bb2 Be7 12.Rad1 a5 13.a4 h5 14.Ne2 Be6 15.c4 Rd8 16.h3 b6 17.Nfd4 Nxd4 18.Nxd4 c5 19.Nxe6 fxe6 20.Rxd8+ Kxd8 21.Bc1 Kc8 22.Rd1 Rd8 23.Rxd8+ Kxd8 24.g4 g6 25.h4 hxg4 26.Bg5 Bxg5 27.hxg5 Ke8 28.Kg2 ½-½

    1. Re:Kasparov lost... by damiam · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    2. Re:Kasparov lost... by jasonditz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Kasparov beat himself.

      I'm sorry because he's a great player and all, but all this crap about how unfair it was is pathetic.

      Look over those matches. Deepblue didn't play spectacularly, Kasparov just played miserable. He used openings that he has never used in tournament play and just generally slopped his way through obscure theoretical lines.

      Hell, I could've beaten him if he'd played like that.

    3. Re:Kasparov lost... by Ninja+Programmer · · Score: 2, Informative

      Deep Blue was simple a souped up version of Deep Thought II. Kasparov could look through all those games if he liked (he even played a previous match with it, which he won.)

      None of the Deep Blue team is strong enough to program a specific strategy in particular to play against Kasparov, except US GM Joel Benjamin. And Joel knows nothing about computer chess programs. He came up with the opening book for Deep Blue and played a few training games to tune its positional coefficients, but there is little else he could do for that team. They could not feed it a specific anti-Kasparov strategy; they had to rely solely on technological advantages.

      Kasparov also played in a style that he's never played in the past. It was bizarre, closed, and very passive. Completely opposite to how Kasparov plays normally (he is typically a very dynamic, tactical, and aggressive player.) Even given this choice of strategy, there are many other players in the world who can do that better that he. In any event, Kasparov's choice of playing strategy nullified any specific anti-Kasparov strategy they might have created.

      Deep Blue was a very expensive technical experiment by IBM that played 6 games in its life, then was quickly dismantled and never heard from again, except in IBM's advertisements. Them trying to sell their computers based on its ability to beat Kasparov is no different from Intel trying to tell your that the Pentium 4 will improve internet speeds.

    4. Re:Kasparov lost... by Hater's+Leaving,+The · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wasn't he on non-prescription medication for ?migraines? at the time?

      Didn't actually _pick up the wrong piece_ (i.e. a mechanical error) during one game?

      So yes, he was below par.

      However, _not_ letting GK have access to DB's prior games was an asymmetric condition, which breaks the typical protocol for such competitions, and if you force me to use the word 'unfair' for that condition than yes, it was unfair.

      THL.

      --
      Keeping /. cynic density high since the fscking Kwhores/trolls arrived.
    5. Re:Kasparov lost... by Grab · · Score: 2

      So why do tennis players and football teams watch replays of how their opponents play? If you know your opponent has a weakness in a particular area, you aim in on that area and use it. If you know your opponent is particularly strong in one area, you stay the hell away from that area.

      The DB team had logs of all Kasparov's matches, and so could program DB to apply extra weighting to those lines which would succeed best against Kasparov. Kasparov went in totally blind.

      Grab.

  5. Kramnick will win it by dh003i · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Kramnick is a master of defense, an immovable object, so to speak; he proved that by beating Kasparov, an irresistable force.

    Kramnick will play the defense and wait for his opportunity -- for the critical mistake -- to take the win. And, unlike this score-calculating computer, once Kramnick has won one game, he won't bother taking any risks; he'll just play solid defense every match, aiming for the draw; whereas the computer would foolishly (if it wins) try to win each successive game.

    Also, if I recall correctly, this isn't a strictly timed match; its not a 5 minute game. 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.

    --
    social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
    1. Re:Kramnick will win it by Mr.+PJR · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      --

      --
      It is the last resort of the fading intellectual: to accuse your public of stupidity.--Sullivan
    2. Re:Kramnick will win it by dh003i · · Score: 2

      I completely disagree. Fast games require insight and innovation (and fastly-changing strategies), something which computers simply can't do. Computers play by trying to figure out all the possible moves for so many steps ahead.

      --
      social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
    3. Re:Kramnick will win it by haystor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Please check out www.chessclub.com
      You can log on as a guest for 7 days I believe and watch rated games between players (which will include GM vs computer games).

      Grandmasters regularly play computer programs in 5 minute games. The best computers online have ratings higher than any grandmaster.

      The simple fact is that computers are so fast that they can do enough calculations to look ahead up to 5 or more moves in a matter of seconds. This means they can play "perfect" chess where perfect is defined by the standing in the next 5 moves. Grandmasters may be able to do this but they can't do it in 3 seconds.

      --
      t
  6. Berlin endgame? by Johnso · · Score: 2, Funny
    He's good at the Berlin endgame, huh?

    Too bad the Russians couldn't say the same in World War 2...

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  7. What happened... by Espectr0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...with Deep Blue? I would like to see a match between 2 top-playing chess computers for a change

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    Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
    1. Re:What happened... by WiKKeSH · · Score: 3, Informative


      Though this doesnt mean that Deep Fritz has ever played Deep Blue, I got this info from Deep Fritz's player stats http://www.brainsinbahrain.com/about/more_stats.ht ml:

      1995: Won the world computer chess championship in Hong Kong, ahead of Deep Blue

      --
      Downmix - The Artscene News Source!
  8. First Post was... by certron · · Score: 4, Informative

    1.e4 followed by e5

    then
    2. Nf3 Nc6

    Some notes on chess notation:
    http://chess.about.com/library/ble21brd .htm
    (it is common to omit the pawn designation, it seems)

    Some opening moves (which was this one?):
    http://chess.about.com/library/ble50ndx.ht m?PM=ss1 3_chess

    The whole match:
    1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Nc3 h6 10.b3 Ke8 11.Bb2 Be7 12.Rad1 a5 13.a4 h5 14.Ne2 Be6 15.c4 Rd8 16.h3 b6 17.Nfd4 Nxd4 18.Nxd4 c5 19.Nxe6 fxe6 20.Rxd8+ Kxd8 21.Bc1 Kc8 22.Rd1 Rd8 23.Rxd8+ Kxd8 24.g4 g6 25.h4 hxg4 26.Bg5 Bxg5 27.hxg5 Ke8 28.Kg2 ½-½

    Hey, I learned something from the above links.

    btw, where does 'DeepFrtiz' the name come from? The team flag looks to be Germany, but where did the name come from? They are using an 8-CPU Compaq machine, also. (Good thing chess opening moves are public domain... otherwise the US Fritz would be making sure they didn't fall into the hands of free citizens! erm. or something like that...)

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  9. Gratuitous Star Trek ref by T-Kir · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...aiming for the draw; whereas the computer would foolishly (if it wins) try to win each successive...

    Kind of reminds me of an ep of TNG, where Data lost a game against a Grand Master (when his strategy was to win), but won when he went for a draw (and the Grand Master gave up out of frustration).

    --
    Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
  10. Size doesn't matter... by phorm · · Score: 2

    In the PC world, anyways.
    Many computers that took up whole offices/floors/buildings are beaten by a $90 graphing calculator nowadays.

    One of the local business has a really year old computer that manages some critical software. They can't take it offline because the processes it handle are extremely important, and there is no software to attend to them nowadays (though I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to attend). The thing takes up half a room, has virtually no circuit pathways (all wires inside), and all of it's displays are etched with a nasty case of several years' burn-in.

    10 years from now, Kramnik may be expending all of his brainpower beating Chess 2012 on a game-boy equivilent...

  11. Live coverage..... by jimson · · Score: 5, Funny

    An in related news, live play-by-play coverage of paint drying!

  12. John Henry was still a steel-driving man, though, by janeil · · Score: 2, Insightful
    And Kramnik is still the current champ, win or lose to Deep Fritz. I'm always surprised when people make a big deal out of a human chess player, even the champ, losing to a computer program. The program thinks for basically millions of man-years for each move, moves the pieces around on the board to see what happens, and feels no fatigue or pressure. Of course the programs will eventually beat any and all humans, big deal! My Dodge Caravan can run down the fastest sprinter, too, so what? Are the Olympics now somehow pointless?

    I give credit to Kramnik for taking Fritz on, I hope he gets big $$$ at least. It'll make big news if he loses, and not much if he wins, so it's hard for him to come out much ahead except for a payoff.

    As for human dignity (see the web site) I can't imagine how we lose or gain any, geez, the machines don't even gloat. And, we can still unplug the machines. Seems like the human programmer of Fritz keeps the human dignity balance covered.

  13. Re:Time trial? Time stats? by MalleusEBHC · · Score: 2

    Humans are affected by their environment as well, so things such as changes in temperature etc could affect the outcome

    Changes in temperature won't affect the outcome? Let's take away the heatsink/fan and see does. Man: 1, Egg cooker formerly known as a mutliprocessor chess computer: 0.

  14. Trivial by heikkile · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Chess is a trivial game - computers beat most of humans most of the time, and even on the top level it is a very close call. Given the speed computers advance, it is only a matter of time before no human can beat a computer in chess.

    Machines have beaten man in many trivial games (tic-tac-toe. 100m sprint, weather prediction, etc). They have also failed in several "obviously easy" challenges (speech interfaces, AI, ...)

    Before they play GO, I will not worry about my job.

    --

    In Murphy We Turst

    1. Re:Trivial by Chicane-UK · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hm.. well you have to bear in mind that on challenges such as basic games and 'the 100m sprint' there only needs to exist a certain number of rules for a machine to compete / win. But when you talk about things like AI and speech interfaces.. well thats a whole new ballgame. Speech took mankind thousands of years to develop - and even now I would say we dont use it as effectively as we could.

      And the less said about AI the better.. I dont think you can really apply rules and reasons to intelligence!

      --
      "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
    2. Re:Trivial by tempmpi · · Score: 2

      Successfully applying traditional methods to Go would require much more than only 10, 100 or 1000x the processing power currenly available. It is like saying: "Oh cracking 2048 bit rsa keys isn't a problem, just wait until computers get fast enough." Just throwing more cpu power at it isn't going to work. Better algorithms are needed.

      I started playing Go 2 month ago, and I can beat the computer in an even game most of the time. (igowin or gnugo 3.2) There are some computer go programms out there that are slightly better but not much better. Playing Go is very different from chess. Many moves are choosen by intuition and it thinking about the next move is often a shape recognition problem. Computers suck at shape recognition and humans are quite good at it. I don't think I will see a go playing software that can beat a human professional go player in my lifetime. Pro go players can beat go software with a 20 stones handicap.

      --
      Jan
    3. Re:Trivial by Moridineas · · Score: 2

      You kinda touch on it in your msg, but just to clarify, it's not that Go has some magical core that makes it harder a game than Chess. The problem is more or less what's called in the AI world the branching factor. In Chess I think the average branching factor is something like 30. That means that I have an average of 30 moves, then my opponent has an average of 30 moves he could possibly reply with, etc. Go has an IMMENSE branching factor.

      If you look at Chess as a game, a human must learn how to use certain pieces effectively, with limitations on possible moves, etc, within an 8x8 board. A computer doesn't need to concern itself with strategies of certain pieces--it can just compute 20 moves ahead of all the possible moves and pick the best line. With Go, even if you're playing on a newb board size of 9x9 or so, the branching factor can still be like 80. It IS purely a matter of computational powers. If computers could brute force Go as much as they've brute forced chess, then no human could beat the computer at Go. I give Go no more than 20 years before it's "cracked" too (on non-super computing equipment).

      You do make a point in that playing Chess and Go are for humans very different games--Go is largely about shapes and patterns. Chess is much more about strategic use of certain pieces.

    4. Re:Trivial by tunah · · Score: 2
      Before they play GO, I will not worry about my job.

      And before they read slashdot, I will not worry about mine.

      --
      Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
    5. Re:Trivial by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 2

      They do.

  15. I dont' have time now, by 3-State+Bit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:I dont' have time now, by Scarblac · · Score: 5, Informative
      i do need to go, but here are some things for children of this post to do:
      I'm not a child of your post, but I'm a drunk chess player.

      Look up some refernece that talked about how Kasparov's playing style is perhaps less suited to showcasing humanity's superioty to computers than Karpovs's was.
      Kasparov is lethal when he has the initiative. He wants complex, tactical, attacking positions, and he's better at them than any human. Unfortunately, these positions tend to depend on calculation, which is what computers shine at. Karpov, like Kramnik, is more about prophylaxis, which is preventing any active options the opponent may have.

      Although it must be said that at top level, all these players have a universal style. You can't become the world top player with a purely positional or a purely tactical style. Give Karpov a position that calls for a tactical solution, he's likely to play it. Put Kasparov in a quiet, strategical position, he'll usually know exactly what to do.

      The differences show, mostly, in the choice of openings. They like different setups. Karpov choses the Caro-Kann (1.e4 c6) vs 1.e4, which is a very positional, defensive opening. Kasparov goes for the throat with the sharpest lines of the Sicilian (1.e4 c5). [if you're not a serious chess player, please believe me, that one square further makes a huge difference].

      Kramnik plays the Berlin (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6). An opening that gives White a positional advantage - just not enough of an advantage to win. It typically leads to an endgame that's better for White, though, in the hands of grandmasters, not yet winning. And he knows it well. There's no way a computer will understand all the subtleties in these quiet positions, Fritz isn't going to beat him here.

      On the other hand, Kasparov actually lost to Judit Polgar, the world's highest rated woman, in the recent Russia vs Rest of the World match. Kasparov had a huge plus score vs Polgar beforehand, but he was tired, thought he could get an easy draw in that line just like Kramnik does. But he couldn't (a report of the match, including comments on the Polgar-Kasparov game, is at Chess Cafe). He just doesn't have the feeling for defending those worse, yet not yet losing, passive positions.

      So the difference in style in small, but it's certainly there. And Kramnik's is much better against computers.

      --
      I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
    2. Re:I dont' have time now, by legLess · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.
      --
      This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
  16. Info on Fritz by thelexx · · Score: 2

    Here's decent description.

    From looking at an ad for Deep Fritz 7, it runs under Windows and uses up to eight processors. No idea what language it is written in.

    --
    "Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
  17. Newsflash! Deep Fritz 'seriously damaged'. by wackybrit · · Score: 4, Funny

    I just mirrored a news story from the BBC that states Deep Fritz has been destroyed in a possible terrorist attack on the conference. For some reason the BBC removed the story minutes after it was published.

    --
    mogorific carpentry experiments
  18. Gah! by CyberDruid · · Score: 5, Informative
    I am totally serious when I say that slashdot needs a "-1 wrong" or "-1 factual error".
    • True - Kramnik is a staunch defender.
    • Computers are not big on taking risks to begin with (they hardly ever sacrifice material for instance) and they don't really "play for a win", but if the operators wanted it to play more drawish, that would not be a problem, provided that they are allowed to adjust some positional parameters.
    • A 5 min game would be extremely difficult for Kramnik. Quick games are basically just about calculating tactics, since the deeper aspects become hidden behind both sides poor play. A human excels in stuff like planning and sometimes logical reasoning, which both takes some time to do. It is a well known fact that computers don't improve their play much when given longer time (programmers will recognize this problem as "the exponential wall").
    On a side note: In this game Kramnik drew easily because he could do some logical reasoning that no computer has ever done. He understood that in the final position, the computer could manoeuver around as much as it damn well pleased, there were simply no legal moves that could ever threaten anything. A computer will have great difficulty understanding this, since the calculation of variations will not show this simple visual fact.

    In my opinion Deep Fritz will never beat Kramnik in a Berlin Defence. The team could try to deviate earlier, perhaps by closing the position with 4.d3, but this will also be easy play for Kramnik. They could also skip the Ruy Lopez altogether and play 3.Bc4 (Italian) or 2.f4 (King's gambit) instead, but these moves are not so common among the extreme elite. Kramnik would probably equalize comfortably against these moves. IMHO the team should try either switching to 1.d4 (at least for one game, to see where it leads) or just try to head for equal but tactically complicated positions after the King's gambit or the Italian, mentioned above. Playing 1.c4 or 1.Nf3 would probably be unwise. Kramnik knows these waters extremely well and could probably easily steer the game to a dull and totally safe position.

    My money is on Kramnik, he will probably not lose a single game.

    --

    Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati

    1. Re:Gah! by Ninja+Programmer · · Score: 2, Interesting
      1. Kramnik is more than just a "staunch defender". He is the strongest all around chess player with the possible exception of Garry Kasparov. His greatest strength is his incredible depth of understanding chess from a positional point of view. That's how he beat Kasparov.
      2. You are not up on the latest in computer chess results. The top programs have varying degrees of positional understanding which allows them to make some kinds of sacrifices. Deep Junior is especially renowned for its ability to make pure sacrifices on positional critieria.
      3. Indeed in speed chess, computers reign supreme. But why not cite the actual results? A few years ago, Kasparov, Anand, and others were invited to play a few exhibition blitz games against a previous version of Fritz. They played a few dozen games, with Fritz winning by an extreme margin (something like 10-2 or so.)

      (Deep) Fritz is a closed source program. It is impossible to say what its capable of in certain endgames. These programs have over a decade of programming in them, and they all have interesting strengths and weaknesses. While your analysis about its understanding of this endgame may be correct, I don't think your reasoning is necessarily well founded. Some ICCA (International Computer Chess Association) articles have shown methods for encoding algorithms for many endgames, such as pawn endgames in almost completely formulaic ways.


      Of course Kramnik has been playing training matches against this precise version of Fritz for quite some time now. I would suggest that we *know* Fritz won't beat Kramnik in the Berlin Defence simply by virtue of him using it. The rules for this match stipulate that the Fritz team may not deviate its programming or openings while the match is going on. Thus if Fritz wants to change strategy, then its up to the program, not the programmers. It better have some kind of random opening generator, or opening learning system, otherwise a most embarassing thing will happen -- Kramnik will draw all his games with black with precisely the same moves.


      Before I make a prediction, I want to see how Kramnik handles white. Of course, Kramnik is well known for his solid play, but if he can't make headway as white, he may feel he has to try harder, and screw up in the process. We shall see. But obviously drawing with black, and fairly easily shows that Kramnik is doing well so far, though perhaps not as well as we/he might have hoped.

  19. How many people can beat the computer? by Discoteck · · Score: 2, Informative
    Finially a /. post about chess@!! I was wondering when you geeks would get around to it. :)

    Can anyone recommend some good chess strategy books? I found this link but it does not give a very good indication of what book would be better than others. I guess it would have to depend on what I want to read about since it is a game of strategy.

    So I was interested in how many readers are able to beat the computer when playing say the ChessMaster 7000 - 9000 series? I was interested in buying a chess game that teaches you tactics and strategy. I had heard good things about the ChessMaster series. Are there better titles out there? I think for what they offer it is really good. You can look at most of the famous past chess games to see how the professionals think about the game, well I guess if you could understand them I guess you would be wasting time with the game.

    I used to play Kunfuchess online alot until I was forced to connect on a dialup modem. It is a pretty addictive version of chess; anyone who likes chess and hasn't tried it, should.

    While surfing for links for the loyal /. readers I came across a couple that might prove useful.

    http://www.wolffchess.com/php/home.php3
    Once you register, you can improve your chess with hundreds of Web-based exercises, specifically designed to complement my book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess.


    http://www.chessclub.com/
    Come join us! Register a name, install our easy-to-use software, and then use that to connect to our playing site. You can try it for free! With over 25,000 paying members from all over the world, Chessclub.com is the longest running and most vibrant chess community on the internet. You can play games and get a rating, watch grandmasters play while discussing the game, take lessons, play in tournaments, play in simultaneous exhibitions, try chess variants like bughouse, crazyhouse and atomic, play chess programs of all levels, and much more.


    Of course there are always the game sites that offer chess onlne. It is one of the more popluar classical games that are available by most any site. Here are some that I found.

    http://games.yahoo.com/

    http://www.pogo.com/

    http://www.station.sony.com/

    http://www.playsite.com/

    http://www.gamespyarcade.com/

    and the list keeps on going... I know that I forgot a couple but if you want to play online these links will be more than sufficent to get you going.

    --
    /.................../ \\ /...................../
    1. Re:How many people can beat the computer? by Scarblac · · Score: 3, Informative

      Can anyone suggest some good chess strategy books?

      "How to reassess your chess" by Jeremy Silman is probably the most-recommended chess strategy book, but it's not for beginners, more for somewhat advanced club players. A cheap, all-round good book to start with may be "The Mammoth Book of Chess", by Burgess and Nunn. Go to Amazon for reviews by people and sample pages, they're good for that sort of thing.

      Of course there are always the game sites the offer chess online.

      The best for Slashdot geeks should be FICS, at http://www.freechess.org, with its command line interface and geeky audience (usually 400+ players online). The best Linux client to play there is eboard.

      Incidentally, SCID is a *great* GPL'ed chess database, originally for Linux but also ported to Windows, that makes Chessbase obsolete as far as I'm concerned.

      Hope this helps.
      --
      I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
  20. computers better at blitz by hayne · · Score: 3, Informative
    dh003i wrote:
    its not a 5 minute game. 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.

    Actually, the exact opposite is true. Computers regularly beat even the best human players at fast time controls (blitz) since the humans are much more prone to making mistakes when they don't have time to think a lot. This is not merely my opinion - I think you will find few people who are familair with computer chess who would think otherwise. For example, here's what Robert Hyatt (author of Cray Blitz & Crafty) said in 1999( rec.games.chess.computer )

    So today, game/30 is no longer safe and the computers are probably better there. Game/60 is also becoming more difficult for the humans, although I think they can do pretty well at this time control. But at 40/2, where there are no "blitz" time controls at the end, the GM players begin to show exactly why micro chess programs are not yet GM-level players at this time control. They simply know "too much" it seems, and they are able to exploit weaknesses they see while the programs are usually quite oblivious to what is going on...
  21. Fair enough by Rui+del-Negro · · Score: 2

    matches between Kramnik and Fritz will take place every other day, be adjourned after 60 moves, and Fritz will not be reprogrammed between matches.

    Sounds fair. As long as Kramnik isn't reprogrammed either. ;-)

    RMN
    ~~~

  22. I wrote the world's greatest chess program by Rui+del-Negro · · Score: 3, Funny

    You may not be aware of this, because They tried to cover it up, but I once wrote the world's most powerful chess program.

    My approach was simple: to compute every possible move in every possible game, and come up with the perfect sequence. It took 14 years to do, on a 700-CPU supercluster, but finally we 'solved' chess. The database was huge. The program was unbeatable.

    Unfortunately it was also rather boring. The human would make the first move and, invariably, the computer would spend 4 hours sorting through the database and finally declared:

    Checkmate in 14705 moves. I win.

    RMN
    ~~~

  23. Now... by ymgve · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...imagine a Beowulf cluster of DeepFri...

    AUGH! Stop beating me!

    All your pawns are belong to...

    NO! Not the baseball bat!

    How long til somebody mods DeepFritz to run Lin...

    Ack! Ack! ugh...you win...

  24. to quote a great Canadian band by SomeGuyFromCA · · Score: 2, Funny

    Paraphrased, "Even a computer that plays chess doesn't have the brains to run from a fire."

    (see the lyrics to "Kasparov vs. Deep Blue" off Moxy Früvous' album Live Noise.)

    --
    if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
  25. Flash by Britz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Those suckers use Flash 6 to show the live match. Only Win32 and Mac Flash Clients are available at Macromedia. *nix only goes up to Version 5x

    Let's boycot them!

  26. Re:Kasparov lost... - I'm conflicting here by targo · · Score: 2

    Perhaps they should make it so it can self-compile changed code? Would be hard, but a definate advantage.
    Most chess programs are able to learn from their mistakes in a primitive way. They store earlier games and if they lost a game in a certain situation, they'll try a different variation next time.

    --
    When men used to be men
  27. Re:Wrong by Moridineas · · Score: 2

    Good point--but my feeling is that within the next 20 years SOMETHING big will change in terms of computing power. Maybe it will be massively parallel computers, maybe quantum as you mention, maybe something totally unforeseen. Also I'm predicting AI techniques FOR the game of Go will increase in their effectiveness. Just my guess though, it's really up in the air.

  28. Re:Time trial? Time stats? by egomaniac · · Score: 2

    Changes in temperature won't affect the outcome? Let's take away the heatsink/fan and see does. Man: 1, Egg cooker formerly known as a mutliprocessor chess computer: 0.

    The heatsink and fan are integral parts of the computer, necessary for its survival. How well would the human do without his lungs?

    An intact computer can generally withstand much higher temperatures than a human.

    --
    ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
  29. Go by heikkile · · Score: 2
    The problem is more or less what's called in the AI world the branching factor

    Yes, the branching factor makes a huge difference. Another, equally important difference is the cost of the evaluation function. In chess it only takes a few CPU cycles to see if the position is mate, or to count who has more material. There is no way to do this in go. Even the end of the game is non-trivial to recognize, and even then it is hard to say who won.

    I do not know of any go program that does much of global reading. I know GnuGo does none at all, it "only" evaluates the position once (which includes lots of local reading), and uses some heuristics to propose moves and to estimate their effect. Then it chooses the best. This it can do in a matter of a few seconds.

    I believe this sort of approach can be extended quite far, and take good advantage of increasingly powerful computers. But I doubt it will ever be sufficient to beat a professional player.

    --

    In Murphy We Turst

  30. Perfect chess game some ways off... by Goonie · · Score: 2
    Searching the state space of chess isn't likely to happen in the near future. I gather estimates are around 10^43, which if I've done the arithmetic correctly is around 2^140. You ain't going to be searching that for years yet.

    However, it's not necessary for computers to do that to beat world champions. They're getting better all the time with heuristic searches, thanks very much.

    --

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
    --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
    1. Re:Perfect chess game some ways off... by Goonie · · Score: 2
      I think that was for legal games (with a game a complete sequence of moves leading to mate or a drawn position, not board states.

      It might be possible to reduce that state space quite a bit with some intelligent pruning, but even so I doubt it could ever be explored with a deterministic machine.

      --

      Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
      --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
  31. Wrong by Rui+del-Negro · · Score: 2

    No it's not. There's no limit to the number of moves in a game of chess; you can spend all eternity moving pieces back and forth if you like.

    RMN
    ~~~

  32. 8 processors by vlad_petric · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The most interesting fact, IMHO, is that Deep Fritz runs on only 8 processors! A draw with the World Chess Champion is thus a major achievement, as, while it probably still uses a brute force approach (minimax is after all brute force), it's nowhere near Deep Blue in terms of computing power. It is definitely revolutionary in that respect.

    The Raven.

    --

    The Raven

  33. Second game. by BitterOak · · Score: 2
    Here is the second game, Fritz playing black this time, and losing. Some were puzzled as to why Fritz resigned at this point. I'm not expert enough to see why either.

    1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Bxc4 c5 6.0-0 a6 7.dxc5 Qxd1 8.Rxd1 Bxc5 9.Kf1 b5 10.Be2 Bb7 11.Nbd2 Nbd7 12.Nb3 Bf8 13.a4 b4 14.Nfd2 Bd5 15.f3 Bd6 16.g3 e5 17.e4 Be6 18.Nc4 Bc7 19.Be3 a5 20.Nc5 Nxc5 21.Bxc5 Nd7 22.Nd6+ Kf8 23.Bf2 Bxd6 24.Rxd6 Ke7 25.Rad1 Rhc8 26.Bb5 Nc5 27.Bc6 Bc4+ 28.Ke1 Nd3+ 29.R1xd3 Bxd3 30.Bc5 Bc4 31.Rd4+ Kf6 32.Rxc4 Rxc6 33.Be7+ Kxe7 34.Rxc6 Kd7 35.Rc5 f6 36.Kd2 Kd6 37.Rd5+ Kc6 38.Kd3 g6 39.Kc4 g5 40.h3 h6 41.h4 gxh4 42.gxh4 Ra7 43.h5 Ra8 44.Rc5+ Kb6 45.Rb5+ Kc6 46.Rd5 Kc7 47.Kb5 b3 48.Rd3 Ra7 49.Rxb3 Rb7+ 50.Kc4 Ra7 51.Rb5 Ra8 52.Kd5 Ra6 53.Rc5+ Kd7 54.b3 Rd6+ 55.Kc4 Rd4+ 56.Kc3 Rd1 57.Rd5+ 1-0

    --
    If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
  34. Obviously extremely difficult to articulate... by Kjella · · Score: 2

    Tic-tac-toe rules? No problem.
    Chess rules? No problem.
    Laws of physics (100m sprint)? No problem.
    Laws of statistics (weather forecast)? No problem.

    Speech rules?
    Intelligence rules (Short of simple logic analysis)?

    The problem isn't the computer, but rather our inability to formulate and program the rules or adaptive algorithms that our brain work by, but that we take for granted and have no concious access to.

    Your body knows how to break down an apple into essential chemical components and convert them to muscle movement (like your heart) and other things. But you can't sit down at a computer and tell it how.

    Kjella

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings