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World Computer Chess Championships Underway
azaris writes "While the FIDE World Championships for human players in Tripoli, Libya are down to the last two contestants, the computers are playing their own 12th World Computer Chess Championship in Ramat-Gan, Israel. How will the open source chess engine Crafty do against the proprietary closed engines? Will the computers play more interesting chess than their human counterparts?"
As long as you don't give them exclusive control to the pod bay door, I think computers should be allowed to play chess as they please.
you think kasparov is interested in any move that won't (at least indirectly) help him win?
True, except human players can make simple mistakes. A computer never makes a mistake, it just only looks so far. Deep Fritz 8 has beatten Kasporov. I mean, if you can evaluate 2.4 million positions a second (i can on my dually) there does come a point where a human player cant keep up, what if that were 24 million, 240 million? Computers dont have finite limits like a person. It used to take a super computer to even compete with a GM (grandmaster) now the average home computer can give him a run for his money.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
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Power to the Peaceful
Except a human has this neat thing called intuition.
Your intuition can tell you things that will take you hours and hours to prove on paper. Or even in your head, following logic.
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It always ends up AWP'ing my queen! I suspect an aimbot.
"No native players"? You were hoping for Native American players?
In case you haven't heard, the USA is (almost entirely) a nation of IMMIGRANTS.
Glad the Russian-American & Japanese-American players have found a better life here.
Can Robot Jox be far off?
The Russians pretty much dominate human chess. Now that things have shifted to machine chess, robots with chainsaws in the crotch are an obvious next move.
" Just out of curiosity, what would you consider to be a genuine USAian last name? Washington, Jefferson, or Franklin?"
Dances With Wolves?
#!/usr/bin/english
Crafty managed to draw Shredder, one of the big-name computer programs, in the first round. That makes it tied with a bunch of other programs in the middle of the pack.
Personally, I'm always excited to hear about the progress that has been made by chess engines. Nowadays, the top programs can compete with all of the top humans, without requiring a supercomputer.
--If the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.
yes he is . . . but not from the economic only standpoint that the computer algorithms demand. Looking at even recent Kasparov games shows that he does not play the economy equation the way computers do. This is why he (and the other human) chess players are infinitely interesting to watch, while the computer, while nearly unbeatable, is also very boring.
I used to play high school chess (hey, I was the cool one on the team...really!). There was this kid we called "The Zapper." He had cerbreal palsy and most people, the first time they saw him, respected him for working against his physical limitations and competing like anyone else. And he wasn't that bad for his age. But...he was a terrible loser! He would literally throw hissy fits and knock the pieces all over the table, the floor, where ever, when he lost, and yell out obscure threats. He was one of these people who used his condition as an excuse to be a big baby whiner, and I found it quite shocking. It helped me see past handicaps to the people beyond, good and bad. Good people come in all shapes and sizes, and so do bad people.
As a teenage chess player, I had long hair and listened to loud, hard rock and metal on my walkman, but I would play really boring, solid moves. I got a draw off Boris Spassky in an exhibition once playing the Caro-Kann. My friend played a double King Pawn and lost in 5 hours in a wild King's Gambit game, the last game going. I kind of wish I'd played more aggresively now, although I cherished the draw for many years and had a calculus test to study for.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)