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."

Comments

Looking forward to it

[r.jimenezz]

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.

Re:IBM computer?

[damiam]

IBM dismantled it afterwards, possibly to avoid challenges from other GMs. Deep Blue was built specifically to play Kasparov; it would have performed much worse against Kramnik, Anand, or any other top-level player.

Easy

[eln]

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.

Re:Wow.

[Fjornir]

...the numbers don't mean they are unique. redundancy rules... like when McDonalds says "billions served".

McDonald's is counting _burgers_ not people. They had better be unique.

The Futue

[Hockney Twang]

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.

Re:The Futue

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>We'll just pit computers against one another, and people won't even play anymore.

Why?

Humans still compete with each other at lifting weights, moving fast, and throwing things. Machines have long since outclassed us at those activities but we still relish the challenge.

Re:The Futue

[jnana]

Silicon-based computers excel at logic. Carbon-based computors excel at pattern-recognition and that whole sphere of massively parallel modes of thinking that one might call intuition.

The best carbon chess players are still about equal with the best silicon chess players, and they sure as hell are not doing that with silicon-type logic (evaluating billions of nodes in a search tree). That implies to me that there's a hell of a lot of intuition, for want of a better word, in chess.

Re:The CHESS Buildings

[kunudo]

Tudor of course.

GNU/Chess

[vuvewux]

Anyone know how GNU/Chess stacks up in comparison to these?

Chess icon?

[dexter riley]

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.

Cowabunga, dudes!

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Too much money

[Moderation abuser]

2.6 billion making a chess board? Hmm, I wonder who's paying for that then.

I know, it's all you SUV drivers.

Your information is incorrect

[jbellis]

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.

Submission Checks

[hoofie]

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 !]

Tourism

[Chazmati]

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.

Re:Chess, Islam, and Arab governments

[Mubarmij]

I am Muslim, Arab.. and from Dubai, too (:

Islam does not forbid Chess. If Sistani does not like it, that is his problem. The confusion here stems from the medival era when many people in the Islamic/Arab world were so smitten by Chess that some scholars felt that it was a huge waste of time and said it was "Makrooh" (undesirable). I am not aware of any respected scholar who said it is Haraam (forbidden).

Re:Abu Dhabi Slogan

[tarball_tinkerbell]

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.