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Kasparov Wins Game 3 Against X3D Fritz
Vulcao writes "Garry Kasparov just brilliantly won game 3 in the Kasparov vs. X3D Fritz chess match, which pits man against machine. Kasparov created a positional advantage on the queen side with a very strong pawn structure to which Fritz didn't have an answer. The result is now 1.5 - 1.5, and the last game will be this Tuesday, Nov. 18."
For those interested in AI game programming without the insane complexities of chess, Nine Men's Morris is fun. Also a frequently researched topic in AI.
Play here.
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I play a little chess. When I was younger I had a 1600 rating. I wanted to play because I was humilated at getting beat by the chessmaster on Nintendo. So I practiced and finally became good enough to beat the computer (albiet only a Nintendo) What I learned then (and seems to be common knowledge among chess players) is that when playing a computer, you stand a much better chance if you keep all your pawns on the board and manouver your pieces behind them. Computers think about the game in a very different manner, and I think eight pawn chess highlights where their weakness lies. They do not have a plan. They do not start the game with a long term plan to the ending. I believe that in the past, Garry was a true sportsman and did not play eight pawn chess against the strongest computers. He played real chess. He played what he would play against another Grandmaster. I really think he could probably beat the computer almost all of the time by playing eight pawn chess.
because they bring out so many people who bitterly complain and make excuses and want to challenge Fritz to a game of poker or something because it would give the human the advantage.
This is far from the end of our species, chill out. Even if we are worse at chess than the computers, it doesn't make the experience of being human meaningless. It doesn't mean we will be welcoming our new robot overlords any time soon.
Anyway, would it really be so bad, if AIs started getting better than humans at a lot of things? I think that in the end, we could take our greatest joy as a species in knowing that we created something better than ourselves.
Of course, that is an issue so seperated from computer chess, that many of you are probably complaining to yourselves.
That's how I feel when I read the excuse making and naysaying.
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Crudely Drawn Games
Does Fritz learn from today's defeat... or could Kasparov repeat today's win simply by repeating today's move sequence on Tuesday?
Sure, but:
The X3D technology fools the brain into seeing 3D. I wonder how much this 50% lack of visual stimuli changes the way the chessmaster's brain works here.
No effect whatsoever, because there is no "50% lack of visual stimuli". Anything that flickers fast enough is perceived by the retina itself as a solid unchanging image.
The "critical flicker fusion rate" that determines "what is fast enough" varies from about 40 frames per second to about 80 frames per second, depending on image brightness, ambient illumination, the particular individual viewing it, etc.
TV in the US, for instance, flickers at about 60 hertz, but in non-flourescent ambient illumination, most people don't notice. In Europe the rate is 50 hertz, and people frequently do notice. And some people get headaches from computer monitors that flicker even at 72 hertz, especially under flourescent lights.
I used to regularly get annoyed at PC monitors in conference rooms flickering at 60 hertz, when others didn't notice -- so I'd bring up display preferences and set it at the highest refresh rate. Until it occured to me that I was sabotaging people who needed to interface it to the overhead projector at 60 hertz. Oops! :-) But I digress.
Movies are displayed at 48 hertz (although only 24 unique frames per second; they are "double-shuttered" to double the frame rate). Cartoons sometimes have as few as 6 unique frames per second (although they are displayed at movie or tv flicker rates) because that's about the threshold for perceiving continuous motion. Lots of issues, lots of thresholds.
But even if the 3D viewing shows perceptible flicker, there isn't any issue of "50% lack of visual stimuli". Both eyes are constantly receiving information.
I could imagine that any number of things about this 3D gadget could distract a chess player -- but so does cigar smoke (a trick used to advantage in chess matches early in the 20th century).
Years ago I used to use similar 3D goggles to play first person shooters like Quake, and it was great. It helped my game. Quake isn't chess, but 3D goggles aren't rocket science.
You can assume that, if he agreed to use this 3D setup, he was confident it wouldn't throw off his game. He does care, after all.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary