Slashdot Mirror
Chess - 2070 CPUs vs 1 GM
jvarsoke writes "ChessBrain.net broke the world's record for 'largest number of distributed computers used to play a single game' by holding a chess match between Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen and the equivalent of SETI@home (which similarly, has some people looking for a Mate). 2070 CPU's from 56 countries aided Black by running the chess program Beowulf, including a couple of University clusters. Their supernode ran Linux, and MySQL. The game was relayed by FICS. Results can be viewed here(1) and here(2)."
I'd love to see a Beowolf cluster of those... Oh damn... it is =:-)
Sure Chess it great, but can it find me a date?
Nielsen,P - ChessBrain [E94]
Guinness record attempt, 30.01.2004
1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.e4 d6 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 a5 8.Re1 exd4 9.Nxd4 Bd7 10.Bg5 Nc6 11.Nxc6 Bxc6 12.f3 Qd7 13.Qd2 Rfe8 14.Rac1 h5 15.Kh1 Nh7 16.Bh6 Bxh6 17.Qxh6 Re5 18.Nd5 Rae8 19.Qd2 b6 20.Bd3 Qd8 21.Rf1 Nf6 22.b3 Bb7 23.Qc2 Nd7 24.f4 R5e6 25.e5 c6
The problem with this is that it seems to assume that chess is a difficult problem. It isn't. Modern chess algorithms are really simple search-and- prune systems, relying on the computer's immense number-crunching ability to overcome the more heuristic human mind. Unfortunately, this isn't very interesting. What's the point? We know that computers can search faster than a human. See: Google. All these projects (DeepBlue, Fritz, this) accomplish is trivializing the game of chess, which is rather sad. Now, I'll be really annoyed when Go programs start improving to a 'decent amateur' level...
It is very rare that a common opener played at the GM level results in a discrepancy greater than about a quarter of a pawn. And it takes a great strategic thinker to understand the advantages and disadvantages of all the available branches in the opening against different types of players.
Of course, it should be obvious that your line of reasoning is totally bogus. The totality of possible moves in chess is simply incomputable and somehow magically trimming this tree to "good" moves still leaves a fundamentally unmemorizable realm of possibilities even at only ten moves depth.
lysergically yours
The theorists would disagree with you; computers are extremely good at assessing a *large* number of potential outcomes. Humans, however, are much better at pattern recognition and whilst they can only consciously assess a dozen or two moves, they have most of the work done for them by the functionality in the human brain which causes them to recognise patterns and possibilities far more efficiently than any computer we have now (or will in the forseeable future) will.
Computers can certainly give GM chess players a run for their money - no-one's disputing this; but ultimately, barring a total change of direction in programming/processor/logic/chess theory, they're still just applying what basically boils down to a probability-based brute force method to chess-playing - the human method is far more elegant.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you
May I suggest, that neither the SETI@Home, nor Chessbrain.net, is the best place where one can find a Mate.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
To give credit to Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen, I would have to say if there were only 2069 CPUs then he might of just won... :P (J/KING)
More interestingly, would the ChessBrain.net team would of won with more CPUs?
We're getting closer and closer to the days when humans won't be able to compete with computer's at chess. Even so I don't think this is such a big deal. We haven't be able to compete with computers at arithmetic for half a century and this doesn't bother anyone.
Losing to computers in chess will be like losing to calculators in a addition match. People and computers aren't really in competition. They do very different things.
So what does this tell us? Nothing really, however it would be interesting how the computer will perform in a 5 match series.
Although I still think the GM would win handily.
Anyway apparently it worked! (ie not a cluster in that sense either)
If it WAS implemented on the clustering technology we-all-know-and-love as Beowulf, would that make it a Beowulf-Squared?
And, of course, we have to ask the (obvious) question(s)
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
It was a draw by repetition. The human grandmaster had a position advantage and was able to force a draw that way despite being down a significant amount of material.
With two people, there are some elements that can not be programmed into a chess game. I remember in high school playing chess, there was a differance between playing a math academy team and a school best known for its basketball program. Expectations were different, the pressure was different. I remember the pressure of the state finals. There is the look the other person has, almost like poker. Can I bluff this person? Can I trick this person? What about the clock, can I manipulate that to cause an emotion in the other person.
Maybe Spock can play a PC and have no differance in quality of play. But I prefer humans.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I want to see this cluster take on IBM's system!
Has anyone ever written a system by which a large number of average chess players could collaborate to play a single game? The individuals could vote for the best move, and the majority would rule. Would a group like this be able to beat a high ranking player?
> It's too bad that chess has become a matter of memorizing a series of opening moves rather than a game of strategy.
I do not play much chess but this statement interests me.
Someone replied to you saying that the amount of possible moves is incomputable.
I am just thinking if I was a Master Chess Player. Would I be studying the source code for the chess program before the match? It seems only fair because the creators studied many previous matches and played countless simulations. Will it be the exception that makes the rule on how future masters play? Think of a video game you have played where some rare ocurrence opened up a new way to play that allowed one to defeat the AI in trivial fashion.
Sure the computer can look out 10+ possible moves on any piece on the board, but if the player can manipulate the program from the beginning in some exceptional way, the AI could stumble easily.
After all, it is just an algorithm. I am sure several "bugs" will be found and abused in different variations in the future.
GMs don't even play to mate anymore
Only rank beginners (say less than a couple months into chess) ever play to mate. Its obvious who's going to win long before mate happens. To continue playing is a waste of both players' time, not to mention an insult to the opponent's intelligence.
they just play out an opening move .
I don't even know what this is supposed to mean. Grandmasters do an enormous amount of research into finding new moves in openings. They don't "memorize" them. There are five volumes of the ECO chess encyclopedia, and that just covers the basics!
and whoever has the upper hand at the end takes the game
No of course they don't. This is simply false, period. Why do you think there are things called "middlegame" and "endgame"??
Its sad that because most moderators aren't chess players, anyone can write ridiculous BS and get modded up "+5, interesting".
It's really "10 trillion neurons" vs. "2070 CPUs", but the neurons are about 40Hz, while the CPUs are in the GHz class. My bets are on the homegrown favorite, the MPP integrated analog processor with the "intuitive" OS. Although v2 of the digital SW will benefit from the digirally-distributed analog MPP network of metaprogramming, and might come out on top in round 2.
"Chess is for computers" - Usenet 1997
--
make install -not war
It's gotten to the point that even Kasparov is only playing the best chess computers to draws. Of course, he did lose to Deep Blue, but despite all his insistance that IBM cheated, he got beat mentally, not necessarily because the computer was better.
Incidentally, there is a new documentary, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine about the Deep Blue rematch, which I had the opportunity to see at the US premier a few weekends back. I'd link to the review I wrote on my blog, but I don't think the sysadmin would be very happy with me if I did.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
Vodka-cooled Russians have traditionally dominated the field.
--
make install -not war
Losing to computers in chess will be like losing to calculators in a addition match. People and computers aren't really in competition. They do very different things.
Damn straight. A computer may be able to beat me at chess, but at least I can visually identify a chess set in a crowded room.
As perceptive as that statement might be on the surface (and it is *VERY* perceptive), it draws a false analogy between chess and arithmetic. First off, arithmetic is a human activity that is engaged in by most people only as a matter of necessity and the removal of the need for deep ability in it brought about by the development of the electronic calculator is a universal boon (people no longer need a facility for calculation, a *talent,* to apply formulae).
Chess on the other hand, is an activity engaged in on a purely elective basis and it is a contest between two people. It touches upon and broadens our instinctive need for comparison and competition. Unlike the algorithmic provisions of arithmetic, chess has a soul and that soul is the simple wager between two people who bring their respective talents and knowledge (tactics, strategy, knowledge of opening and endgame theory) to the board and each of the players wagers that he/she knows enough and is talented enough to reach an-as-yet-unknown set of winning criteria against any opposition the other player can create with no more information to work with than the initial position.
Your reasoning ignores the need for competition and the glories that come from it. It is true the combination of better and better hardware and software will certainly make a computer the strongest chess-player in the world, sooner rather than later, but that day will mark a small diminishing of human worth in the world. Of course, this is a matter of opinion, an esthetic judgement and not logically demonstrable but the strength of it can be shown by three simple questions:
1. Would a football game where all the players were robots be interesting?
2. Would a world-class violin performance have meaning if the player was a pair of mechanical arms?
3. Would anything be permanantly lost to the world if any of the above players was smashed to pieces?
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
1 CPU to beat the GM.
+2069 CPU's so it could get on Slashdot.
There are very few humans on the planet that can beat even one computer. That's been true for how many years now? Neither beating a GM or 2070 CPU's is impressive anymore.
Someone go built a robot that can shovel snow, now THAT would be useful.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
....humans won't be able to compete with computer's at chess. Even so I don't think this is such a big deal.
I think it is a big deal. 50 years ago, if you'd told someone "I have a machine which can consistently draw with a grandmaster. Is it intelligent?" they would have said "Yes."
50 years later, we say "Yes, but only in a very limited way", or "No, it's doing a very different thing", depending on our point of view. In either case, we're taking a position on what we mean by "intelligent", and our understanding of that word's meaning is deeper than it would have been 50 years ago.
My view is that if the computer and the human acheive the same result, then they are doing the same thing. It doesn't matter that the computer is doing it in a "stupid" but well-understood way, and the human in an "intelligent" but poorly-understood way.
You do know FUD means "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt", right? I think the acronym you are looking for is "BS."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You can also identify the computer that beat you and take a bat to it.
The day a computer can pick out a person in a group and take a bat to them, that is the day we must fear.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
> and the equivalent of SETI@home (which similarly, has some people looking for a Mate).
I had always wondered why people ran SETI@home; now I know: they have given up on mating fellow humans (Is their self esteem that low? Has obesity gotten that bad in America?) and are looking to find love with aliens, once we decrypt the personal ads they have been sending us via interstellar radio.
(I think ambiguous appositives like these are a good reason to switch to Lojban)
There are approximately 35 moves per position in Chess (average value). Thus, the branching factor of the search tree is ~35 with a simple min-max search. Assuming that the program is always picking the best move to search first -- which is obviously not systematically the case -- alpha-beta pruning allows us to get a branching factor equal to approximately the square root of 35, that is: close to 6.
Assuming that 2070 CPU are able to do the calculations 2070 times faster than 1 CPU -- which, again, is not the case -- it appears that the resulting supernode is able to 'see' up to 4 or 5 half-moves deeper than a single CPU in the same amount of time:
6^4 < 2070 < 6^5
It doesn't seem to be *that* useful. For most strategical positions, thinking 5 half-moves deeper just doesn't make any difference. Game 3 of 'Kasparov vs X3D Fritz' is a good example: I'd be willing to bet that 2070 X3D Fritz playing together would have lost the game the same way, since the serious troubles caused by the pawns diagonal are still far beyond the resulting analysis depth. (Well... At least, I think so. I'm not a Chess expert!)
Anyway, this is quite an interesting project. I hope to see it grow up in the future.
-- Arnauld
The problem with Slashdot memes is that YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!
...Waffle Iron still hasn't taken the time to learn chess strategy; gets soundly beaten once again by a cluster of one Z80 running the chess cartridge on a 1992 vintage Gameboy.