Gary Kasparov vs. The World

Shaheen writes "Gary Kasparov (world's greatest chess player) is once again doing something to mix technology with Chess. This time it's him against anyone and everyone. Basically, Kasparov makes a move, then the world - along with "expert" advice - votes which move to make. You can sign up here. " Interesting, but could chess be where some of Brooks's theories apply? Could throwing more people at the problem hurt instead of being beneficial?

Comments

Won't work.

[Daniel]

I play chess. This will not work.

The reason is that decisions in a chess game depend very much on one's own personal inclinations. Some people like elegant, slow games in which the object is to win by playing more thematic moves than the other player. Other people like to play lines which lead to muddled, knife-edge tactical positions in which it's unclear who will win. And of course the very best players will do both at once :-) But seriously, they'll have problems with conflicting styles of play; I doubt they'll even make it out of the opening [the beginning of the game for non-chess-players] without getting into trouble -- in fact the opening is the worst time since some people can be almost as religious about their decision of 'opening lines' (canned moves to start a game with) as computer users are about operating systems. [dunno if the best players are..] Imagine a FreeBSD user, a Linux user, and a Mac user working together to build a system from scratch, hardware and software, and you might begin to get the idea here :-)

A second problem is that good chess play requires a decision about goals and a commitment to them. This could be good of course -- if everyone decides on a goal together they can all agree on how to pursue it. However (see point 1) this is unlikely to happen -- if half the people decide they want to launch an all-out attack while the other half want to play a more strategic game, you could end up with a situation where the World is lurching back and forth between plans. And just two opinions about what should be done is unlikely -- you're probably always going to have at least 3 and at points where there are important decisions to be made you could have as many as 10 or 20 plausible moves. (and be assured that Kasparov will force his opponents to make as many decisions as possible -- even in normal chess this is good play..more decisions means more ways to screw up..but when your opponent is already not single-minded it is an even stronger idea)

In sum then: too many cooks will spoil the soup.

Daniel

kasparov vs. everyone

[conform]

this seems a bit predictable to me. the result will undoubtedly be that kasparov will win in a firly high but not huge number of moves. there is virtually no danger of either the "world" team winning, or having a particularly interesting game, as the vast majority of people following this game will be patzers who will pick a random move recommended by one of the analysts. the moves will all be safe, and predictable.

i don't believe that a group of people will ever be likely to beat the world champion. even a small group of grandmasters has a worse chance than any single one. it's a hallmark of top-level chess to make and execute a plan, and as soon as there is any on-board indecision about the plan, there is a weakness to exploit. multiple grandmasters are far more likely to have indecision about their plans than just one.

when i first heard the offer, i thought that it was going tobe kasparov playing an unlimited-game simul. which would be a Good Thing. especially since one of my coworkers pointed out that he could save a lot of time, especially in the beginning, because there would undoubtedly be a lot of people making the same first move, and then a lot of those people would make the same second move, etc.

--seamus