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Hydra vs. Shredder
azaris writes "The powerful computer chess engine Hydra, running on a sixteen-way Linux cluster, is taking on the many times world champion engine Shredder in a match between the two chess super computers in Abu Dhabi, according to ChessBase.com. So far, Hydra is leading by two clear victories." S!: ChessBase also points to the announcement of a "64,000 square meter International Chess City" in Dubai, planned to cost US $2.6 billion, which "will feature 32 buildings designed to mirror the image of a traditional black and white game board."
I wonder which will be the most costly squares... the "King" squares or the "Queen" squares :-D. The whole rows of "Pawn" squares will be selling cheap.
It's a US $2.6 billion project that is expected to play host to (hold on to your hats) 60 million amateur and professional chess followers annually.
:)
That's a lot of chess players, considering some of the best known tourist attractions don't even get those kind of numbers annually. Do we even have that many chess players worldwide?
This is going to be interesting. While Shredder is a software engine running on standard hardware, I recall reading in Chessbase sometime that Hydra is an FPG-based engine. So in a sense it is a return to the days of Deep Blue and it should be interesting to see how well it fares against the current crop of "standard" engines.
The revolution will not be televised.
Codename: Deep Thought.
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
...where they converted part of the island into a GTA level, but 9/11 came along and John Carpenter threatened to sue. I guess there's always Broadway.
Whatever happened to that IBM computer which competed against and defeated Gary Kasparov? And the other computers that IBM built specifically for playing chess?
Abu Dabi gets a multi billion dollar tacky las vegas style exhibit while millions in Sudan and Africa starve, imagine how many water pipes and medical supplies you could buy for 2.3 billion large
oh well i guess we can dream and play chess while others worry about being pawns in someone elses game
Any idea which style of architecture is the castle going to be built in?
Wanted : A Signature.
Abu Dhabi isnt listed anywhere in that song from the musical chess. :)
If the Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles can kick Shredder's ass between pizza binges, surely a Hydra should have no problem with it at all.
You may come for our chess cities, but our beheadings will make you stay.
The cluster resides in the server room of Pal Group of companies in Abu Dhabi. Author Chrilly Donninger will access it from the tournament hall using an Internet connection.
I know what the script kiddies will be doing this week...
-Adam
So this is the future of chess, and maybe even eventually all games requiring logic. We'll just pit computers against one another, and people won't even play anymore.
So the square will be 8 kilometers on one side? 4.8 miles? I hope a lot of it is courtyard between the buildings.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Anyone know how GNU/Chess stacks up in comparison to these?
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
I think /. needs a chess icon; I can't be the only one who saw the headline and thought two machines were playing each other in a Tetris tournament.
It is commonly believed that when "the evil Shredder attacks, these turtle boys won't cut him no slack!"
Teenage Mutant Ninja Hydra
Teenage Mutant Ninja Hydra
Heroes in a cluster
Linux Power!
I'm not terribly familiar with the geography of the region, so I guess I could be reading the map wrong, but the article shows that the "Chess City" is being built in Dubai, not Abu Dhabi. The map in the article shows both places, and they appear to be nowhere near one another.
...if my experience in Tetris City is any guide. Getting a permit to build was a real bitch with the zoning changing so quickly. And they won't even consider a subdivision. Against the rules to change the shapes to fit.
There is now a Checker City being built in Berwin Illinois that will be 12 million cubic miles and cost 17 trillion billion gazillion dollars!
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
I thought it was Nermal.
Of course. When a TMNT villain and terrorist group of old nazis from the Marvel universe meet, they'll sit down and have a game of chess. Perfectly logical.
Come on now. We know this is going to turn into a guns vs. ninjitsu fight. So who do you think will win ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
2.6 billion making a chess board? Hmm, I wonder who's paying for that then.
I know, it's all you SUV drivers.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The "many times world champion engine" Shredder, is not the current world champion engine. That would be Junior, which is programmed by Israeli Jews. You wouldn't want them in Abu Dhabi, would you?
Deep blue was tuned to beat Kasparov, just like any human player adjusts his game depending on who he plays. But Deep Blue was built to win against anyone, and competed in many computer chess events during its development.
Can they move the buildings?
Do the submitters ever check what they type ?
Its NOT Abu Dhabi, its Dubai - very close to each other, but seperate soverign states (although they are often described as Gulf Emirates).
Dubai is in the midst of a massive tourism push, spending billions of pounds/dollars/whatever on tourism projects. They have some of the best hotels in the world there.
I've been to Dubai and its a cracking place - all the mystic and personality of the Gulf Arab world, without too much(yet) of the raving fundamentalism. [For some who lived for 3 years in Saudi Arabia, Dubai was the promised land - the enjoyment of living in the gulf with legal booze !]
If the playground will be like real chess board, with buildings like figures, can the buildings move like playing real chess?
Let those aliens know we can play chess; with buildings.
Things in a rear mirror might be behind you
Has the Beowulf cluster been replaced with the Hydra cluster? That's not nearly as catchy.
Physics makes the world go 'round.
People are starving, a major conflict is going on in the middle east, global warming might very well be leading to the end of the American way of life (mass consumption without pragmatic bounds), and 2.6 billion dollars is being sunk into an, "International Chess City?" I guess you have to do something with all that oil money. Doesn't the UAE have the highest per-capita GDP in the world?
And how the heck did Burnadette do that thing with her arms?
Best Buy can have you arrested
FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has just unveiled a plan to build a new "chess city" in the Emirate of Dubai. It's a US $2.6 billion project that is expected to play host to (hold on to your hats) 60 million amateur and professional chess followers annually.
This would be a monumental example of the one of the reasons (brutal repression being another) why the present leadership in Arab countries is so detested by their own Muslim populations and others of that faith around the world. Chess is considered undesirable in Islam, and many consider it Haraam (forbidden under Islamic law). The latter is the view held by the most respected Islamic scholars such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
While I don't condone this aspect of Islam, in the same way I don't condone the Pope's view on condoms, one can't fail to recognise what a massive insult this is to their religion. If you don't, imagine if the American government allowed a $2.6 billion mosque complex to be constructed in the "bible belt", to be visited by 60 million Muslims each year. If that analogy does not suffice, imagine instead the reaction to a 64,000 square meter family-planning/abortion centre to cater for 60 million women from around the world, right in the middle of the Protestant heartland.
On the one hand, it's a city devoted to chess. On the other hand, it's in the UAE, which make it easy to build when you're playing with the oil money that should go back to the people. See here for the severe lack of democracy source.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
If you had spent *more* than just two seconds reading the article yourself, you would notice that both cities are named. The match between Hydra and Shredder is being held in Abu Dhabi. The propsed chess city in to be built in Dubai. The slashdot summary is consistant with this.
"What do you care what other people think?" -Richard Feynman
a "64,000 square meter International Chess City" in Dubai, planned to cost US $2.6 billion, which "will feature 32 buildings designed to mirror the image of a traditional black and white game board."
Wow. Dubai is really ramping up the tourism hooks. I just saw an article in some boating magazine about the man-made islands they're building to increase their shoreline. I found a Google hit here.
And you thought Euro Disney was a flop...
Duh. No buildings are necessary for the 32 empty squares.
Do the comment submitters ever check what they type ?
The tournament is in Abu Dhabi, as the summary says:
"The powerful computer chess engine Hydra...is taking on the many times world champion engine Shredder in a match between the two chess super computers in Abu Dhabi"
-/. Summary
"The venue is Abu Dhabi or Abu Zaby"
-First article
What is occuring in Dubai is the construction of the Chess Palace.
"ChessBase also points to the announcement of a "64,000 square meter International Chess City" in Dubai"
-/. Summary
"FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has just unveiled a plan to build a new "chess city" in the Emirate of Dubai"
-Second article
I have mod points but there was no "+1 you-made-me-sad-but-I-can't-possibly-be-mad-at-you -for-bringing-this-up" moderation option.
Starting positions only. After all, you want some spaces left to move around in.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I'm placing my bet now that Hydra will win, become world champion, then disappear for 10 years, before being deported from Japan.
A number of tournaments featuring the best chess programs had them running on laptops.
Perhaps that's really a statement of the power of knowledge over the depth of search.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Ergo Hydra = Bobby Fischer
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
chess is about intelligence. It's worth investing in. Plus, good PR will bring investment dollars into surrounding countries
These people are using tactics not just looking for the most obvious opening
Chess would be about fun too but $2.6 * 10^9 will buy the solution. Chess will be as solved as the Rubik's cube and tic-tac-toe
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
I didn't name this shit.
I'm surprised the thread made it this far without this reference.
And as long as I'm here...
Yo! Joe!
Anyone who complains about high price of gasoline is invited to visit US $2.6 billion International Chess City. Just kidding. :)
They've played two games now and I cannot find the moves ANYWHERE - anyone have any idea where they are?
Mumia Abu-Jamal is *laughably guilty*. Check the evidence.
Godzilla has been named an alternate, should one of the computers malfunction.
SAILING MISHAP
This awesome that slashdot is talking about chess news! And I was very surprised and happy what I saw! Keep up the great work slashdot!
Although Nash was prominent, the seminal work I believe was von Neumann and Morganstern's "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior". Nash's autobiography http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/1994/nash- autobio.html
mentions that his interest in the field was stimulated by their work when he was a graduate student, although his Dissertation took a very different approach to the subject from what he calls the "party line" of the earlier studies.
The question of "fatherhood", though, is fairly open to interpretation, and I would certainly have no arguement with anyone claiming that title for Nash, whose work is certainly very important.
Am I the only one that thinks $2.6 billion could have been spent on something more important then chess? How about the cure for aids or helping starving people? $2.6 billion...I mean wow, those chess board buildings better be made of solid 24 carot gold...
"Software is like sex... it's better when it's free"
for those actually interested in the games themselves, here are games 1 and 2 in PGN. You can view them with winboard/xboard . Just paste them into a .pgn file.
[Event "Match rapid 90 min"]
[Site "Abu Dhabi"]
[Date "2004.08.14"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Hydra"]
[Black "Shredder"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B80"]
[PlyCount "75"]
[EventDate "2004.??.??"]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e6 7. f3 b5 8. g4 h6
9. Qd2 Nbd7 10. O-O-O Bb7 11. h4 d5 12. exd5 Nxd5 13. Nxd5 Bxd5 14. Bg2 Ne5 15.
Qe2 Qa5 16. f4 Qxa2 17. Bxd5 Qa1+ 18. Kd2 Bb4+ 19. c3 Qxb2+ 20. Ke1 Bxc3+ 21.
Kf1 exd5 22. fxe5 Qb4 23. Bf2 O-O 24. g5 Bxd4 25. Bxd4 h5 26. Kg2 Rac8 27. Rhf1
Qe7 28. Qxh5 Rc2+ 29. Kg3 Rc6 30. Rd3 a5 31. Rdf3 Re6 32. Rf6 Rxe5 33. Bxe5
Qxe5+ 34. R6f4 a4 35. Kg2 d4 36. Rxf7 Qd5+ 37. R7f3 Rc8 38. Re1 1-0
[Event "Match rapid 90 min"]
[Site "Abu Dhabi"]
[Date "2004.08.15"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Shredder"]
[Black "Hydra"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B97"]
[PlyCount "102"]
[EventDate "2004.??.??"]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6 8. Nb3
Be7 9. Qf3 Nbd7 10. O-O-O Qc7 11. Kb1 b5 12. Bd3 b4 13. Ne2 Bb7 14. Qh3 Nxe4
15. Bxe7 Kxe7 16. Qh4+ Ndf6 17. Rhe1 h6 18. f5 e5 19. Nf4 Ng5 20. Nh5 Nxh5 21.
Qxh5 Bxg2 22. Nd2 a5 23. h4 Nh7 24. Qe2 Bc6 25. Rg1 Rhg8 26. Ne4 Bxe4 27. Bxe4
Rac8 28. Bd3 Qb6 29. Bb5 Nf6 30. Ba4 e4 31. Rde1 Qc5 32. Qa6 d5 33. Rd1 d4 34.
Bb3 Rc6 35. Qe2 Kf8 36. Ba4 Rd6 37. Qf1 Rd8 38. Qa6 Qc7 39. Qb5 Rh8 40. Qf1 Rh7
41. Bb3 h5 42. Ba4 e3 43. Qb5 Rh6 44. Rg2 Rd5 45. Qf1 Ng4 46. Bb3 Rd8 47. Ba4
Rf6 48. Re1 g6 49. Rc1 Rxf5 50. Qe2 Qe7 51. Bb5 Qxh4 0-1
Maybe they'll get crazy and make it Turkmenistan style. Then again, maybe not.
-9e99, Offtopic
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
They've already named a chess-playing computer after the computer from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I love Adams references as much as the next geek, but I think that once is enough.
The 16 way Linux Cluster uses the 3.06 Xeon processor for each node. Now, why didn't they use the Opteron? Has it got something to do with sponsorship? We know that the Opteron is faster than the Xeon and in chess, ANY additional processing power in an engine vs engine game is welcome.
Also, if I have my basic concepts right, a cluster is a bunch of networked machines whose processing power is combined through software. So we need to add networking speeds into the mix here. I remember reading somewhere that the latest NVIDIA NForce3 motherboards achieve a consistently higher data throughput than say a PCI Gigabit network card. Wouldn't this have helped too?
It would seem to me that they've just thrown away a lot of potential computing power that Hydra could have used.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I can't wait to see how they pull off a knight building over a line of pawns. Also, wouldn't it just be easier to get everyone online accounts and play over the internet? We could save them some money right there.
A Chess City ? Why and what for? What a colossal waist of money. If the state I lived in proposed a tax payer funded chess city, at a cost of $2.6 billion, I would be hopping up and down mad. Clearly this would fall under the category of monumental fraud WAIST and abuse.
Just my 2 worth
Hurricane Island Outward Bound
OB
Isn't someone going to complain that FIDE should Open Source the rules to chess?
What's that, 2 barrels of oil at the current prices?
I never actually said the money would disappear. I said it's a hell of a way to sink a huge chunk of money that could be put to use that might actually benefit everyone, not just the local Dubaians...i'll give a simple economics-based answer to this..
Hypothetically, Say a oil baron in Dubai since 2.6 billion dollars into a huge simulated chess board, made to attract chess officianados from around the world into Dubai. Each tourist will need the following:
1) Transportation
2) Shelter
3) Food/Beverages
4) Entertainment
5) Souveniers
Behind each of these services, people get paid, and those people buy what they need (transportation, shelter, food, clothing, entertainment, etc). After the innitial money gets invested into the attraction and the local area by the tourists, the majority of the money stays in Dubai, circulating through the local economy with the exception of people leaving dubai and spreading their money elsewhere.
You have a moderate marginal monetary benefit for each of the workers, who are able to live another week until they get paid once more.
On the other hand, break that 2.6 billion dollars into 2,600 separate 1 million dollar grants to various academic (to incerase the chance of published results, and not R&D for some random corporation) scientists for various projects. Assume 5% discover something ground breaking, say a definitive answer on the global warming question, a more efficient means for hydrogen power, or the jackpot - efficient cold-ish fusion power. Instead of the marginal benefit staying in a localized area, the entire scientific community benefits, engineering firms begin to churn out new products based on the discoveries, profits roll in from around the world - hell, maybe the cure for cancer is discovered. What I'm saying is basically that science is a much more effective way to stimulate the global economy and raise everyone's standard of living than a multi-billion dollar tourist trap. Instead of a moderate localize marginal benefit, you'll have a moderate global marginal benefit.