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Linux Chess Supercomputer Overpowers Grandmaster

Posted by timothy on from the would-you-like-to-play-a-game dept.

Capt Bubudiu writes "Deep Blue vs. Kasparov is something most readers will remember but when Deep Blue was retired by IBM, a Dubai company took over with Hydra. In a $150,000 6-game challenge in Wembley UK, the games got off to a humiliation for mankind as Michael Adams, the UK Grandmaster, was mauled in games one and three, drawing game two. Adams is ranked seventh in the world and what ordinary mortals call a 'Super Grandmaster'."

2 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. "we" won? by moz25 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The interesting thing is that in a man vs. machine fight, the tech folks can say "we won" as they assembled the machine. Is it a humiliation or triumph for mankind that it can build a machine that can defeat itself? I think it would rather be a failure for humans if mortals can defeat highly optimized machines.

    --
    see a Text Widget
  2. Hydra is not the ultimate chess entity by Redshift · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Hydra performed very badly in the recent Freestyle Chess competition run by ChessBase - competitors were a variety of grandmasters and amateurs assisted by databases and computers. I other words, any form of cheating was acceptable, all that mattered were the moves on the board.

    The two Hydra machines did not even make it into the final sixteen. Moreover, the eventual winners were a couple of amateurs using pretty ordinary PCs running over-the-counter chess programs. On the way to the title they beat a selection of computer- and supergrandmaster-assisted grandmasters.

    On this evidence the "strongest chess entity on the planet" is a team consisting of a New Hampshire database administrator + a soccer coach + 3 ordinary PCs.

    Links:

    Hydra knocked out

    Final result

    Winners debriefing