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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.
...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.
It's not supposed to fly. It's supposed to play chess. RTA.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
sqrt(64000) = 252.982 meters
Can they move the buildings?
Not to mention having to bulldoze a good ten buildings just because that row is full.
Cloud and Tree - not just an immature webcomic, but a VISION.
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
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?
imagine a beowulf cluster of hydra clusters.
Amen.
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...
Wow I totally agree, this is stupid. We all know 2.6 Billion dollars can end world hunger, the conflict in the middle east AND global warming. Unfortunately before no one has EVER had this kind of money to spend, so now that we have a chance we should put this money into solving those problems right away!
Do you realize how many billions of dollars are spent daily on stuff much MUCH less profitable and important than an international chess city? Do you realize 2.6 billion dollars isn't all that much money?
For the record, the United Arab Emirates, the country that Abu Dhabi is the capital of, does not do beheadings. They have capital punishment, just like America, & they use a firing squad. So far this year they have not had a single execution, unlike the US. (Source: http://www.amnesty.org/resources/report04/stats-en g/text/06b.html )
Sorry to feed a troll, but I had to do this.
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