Kasparov Draws Game 4 and Match Against X3D Fritz

jaydee77ca writes "Garry Kasparov survived opening danger and played very precise, technical chess to draw Game 4 with black against X3D Fritz. The final match result is a 2.0 - 2.0 draw, proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived."

Comments

one move

[civilengineer]

The series ended in a draw essentialy because of one move. The move 5. ...a6 in game 3 by the computer is very interesting/controversial. A computer needs to be programmed to play to its strength, i.e open positions. This move reveals a fundamental flaw in the program. The computer chose this even though 6. c5 is among possible replies which forcibly closes the position. So, the programmers did not incorporate best algorithms to avoid closed positions. Instead of 5....a6 why did not the computer choose 5....Be7 which is more in line with convention and less likely to lead to a closed position? But, whatever might be the case, it was a good show by Kasparov. He showed that computer software has a long way to go more than computer hardware to beat humans.

Re:one move

[PK_ERTW]

I disagree. The series may have ended in a draw because of one move, but it certainly wasn't that one. The most significant move in the game 32...Rg7 in game 2 by Kasparov.

Kasparov was trying to hold on for a draw in this game, while playing the disadvantaged black. He screwed one move and the computer pounced on him. Had he managed a draw in that game, he would have had an overall winning record for the series.

pk

Re:one move

[TrippTDF]

He showed that computer software has a long way to go more than computer hardware to beat humans.

No, computers have a long way to go to beat the masters.

I was an avid chess player in high school. I played on a national level a couple of times even.

I've since stopped playing as much, but I do play from time to time. i keep a chess program on my palm pilot. Some dumb free thing I downloaded from the internet. Even when I'm concentrating on the game, I still get my ass kicked on the higher levels.

Now, i am no champion by any account. I don't think my USCF rating when above 900 ever. However, I can still beat your average Joe that I sit down to play with. I doubt any average person would do so well against the palm pilot, either.

So when people say that this is finally where computers take the advantage over humans, i have to disagree. Computers took the advantage over humans a long time ago. Now it's just icing on the cake.

Re:one move

[Theobon]

I get my ass kicked by most chess players I go up against but I have still beaten every comp player I have gone up against. Sure these aren't great programs but GNUchess is pretty powerful and has beat many 1000 rack players that I have asked to play it. The key is that you can trick a comp very easly. YOu hid your self behind many move victories so that the tree doesn't see it before it is too late. Comps are good at repetitive testing of piles of options but it has no innovation and the inablity to see what is happening in the game. If you look at game 3 from this match Fritz didn't have a clue it was loosing until the end. All it knew was it evaluated the game to -1.5 which is meaningless when you can see it's impending doom easily.

how will chess handle cyborgs?

[nizo]

I was just wondering, how will the chess world handle cyborgs? Will people who have electronic "enhancements" be considered to be cheating? Heck, will they even have time to play chess, or will they be too busy taking over the world? What does everyone else think?

Re:Deus Ex Machina?

[Chess_the_cat]

No joke, people were tampering with the machine during that match. IBM even altered its opening book after the game had already started. Some even accuse IBM of allowing on of the programming team--a GM--to enter moves during one game. Why would IBM cheat? Gee I dunno, but its stock price soared the day they announced that Deeper Blue won.

Kasparov runs on limited hardware, too

[Pac]

I am not trying to dismiss the feat, no. Chess as a human standing place against the machines are over since Deep Blue. But give credit where credit is due, the feat here is Kasparov's, one of the few humans alive today still capable of beating the machines anytime, anywhere.

It is an interesting coincidence that during the same few years computer chess entered adulthood the best chess player ever born was alive to hold the fort for a while longer. Probably not a coincidence, either.

Re:day of the machines

[GuyMannDude]

I dunno, seems to me that if a machine can beat 99.9999(ad nauseum) percent of humanity, that day might be here already.

It's also interesting to note that a computer who has defeated almost every human it encounters could, in a matter of seconds, communicate precisely how to do so to other computers. When a person beats a computer at something, they can tell their friends "kinda" what their logic was. But the speed of knowledge transmission and the accuracy of it would be far inferior to what a computer can do.

All the machines would have to do is give each one a specific problem to solve. As soon as one computer solves its problem, it immediately communicates its results to all the other machines, provided there is connectivity between them. Now all those other machines know exactly how to solve the problem too.

GMD

Guess what....

[Eevee]

but is a car listed in Guinness under the fastest mile?

Yes.

The one-mile (1.609-km) land speed record is 1,227.985 km/h (763.055 mph), set by Andy Green in Thrust SSC in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA, on October 15, 1997. Thrust SSC (Super Sonic Car) completed its record-breaking run in a matter of seconds, but was the culmination of six years of work and a six-week on-site campaign. Two and a half years of research went into the shape of the Thrust SSC, and building the most powerful car ever took a further two years and 100,000 man-hours.

Guinness World Records

Re:Deus Ex Machina?

[agurkan]

That accusation is an outrageous lie! Ken Thompson was personally responsible for such a thing not happening and said that the moves had come from the machine not from human intervention. Also IBM did not alter opening book of DB after a game started. Which game is that?

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Migrant Programmer]

The world chess champion will ALWAYS be a human, not a machine.

The world checkers champion is a machine Why not chess? Why not a forklift? There can be separate champions for "human" and "world".

Re:Someone explain this

[SomeGuyFromCA]

> and probably 20-50 or more moves deep in a fairly short amount of time could possibly not win?

Not 20-50 moves deep, closer to 19 half moves. And even that doesn't guarantee victory.

For a textbook case of how to beat a computer, look at game 3. Kasparov went to a closed position, kept material on the board, and slowly forced it back. Meanwhile, the computer could never see what hundreds or thousands saw - that its only chance was to push pawns on the king side. Unfortunately, even seeing 19 half-moves ahead, the computer couldn't bring this to a clear advantage and was stymied by the general principle of "don't move the pawns that are in front of your King."

So the computer wasted time while Kasparov romped.