Slashdot Mirror
Chess Dispute: Kasparov vs. the World vs. MSN
The following is by Richard Bean, Queensland, Australia.
Starting June 19, 1999, an experiment in playing chess over the Internet was held at the Microsoft Network's Gaming Zone. The world's highest rated player, de jure world champion Gary Kasparov, was to play a game versus "The World" at a rate of one move every 24 hours. After Kasparov decided on his move, he would send it to four expert teenage analysts who would suggest moves for "The World" with analysis. Internet users were to vote for whichever move they preferred, with the move receiving the highest number of votes being played. Voting was by use of Microsoft Zone software or, later, simply authenticated by entering a valid email address.
In the course of the game, it became obvious that the effort being put in by one analyst, US Women's Champion Irina Krush, far exceeded that being put in by the other 3 analysts (French Grandmaster Etienne Bacrot, US International Master Florin Felecan, and the German Elisabeth Paehtz). The quality of her work and the number of lines analyzed by her dwarfed anything the other analysts provided. She was aided by several grandmasters, the St Petersburg Grandmaster Chess School, and most of all by the World Team Strategy Bulletin Board. She became the unofficial team leader, and of the first 57 moves, her recommendation was played 53 times by "The World" (the exceptions were moves 3, 6, 51 and 52).
At move 51, the play had been virtually forced since move 40, and the World Team Strategy BBS had determined that the best move was 51... Kb1-a1; this move was recommended by Irina and endorsed by the GM Chess School. However, 51... b7-b5, the recommendation of Elisabeth Paehtz, was played. A BBS member, Jose Unodos, claimed to have "stuffed the vote" simply by entering multiple different email addresses and voting repeatedly for the same move. To test whether this worked, another BBS member, Martin Sims, stuffed the vote about 250 times on move 53 for a move that no-one else would play - 53... Qd1-e2, giving the Black Queen away for nothing with check, which would never be played by a sane player. This move made it into the top five votes (search for d1-e2), proving that vote-stuffing was possible by another method - creating multiple Zone IDs while still using the same IP address. Previous Microsoft denials that vote-stuffing was possible became a change in policy - non-Windows users could not vote, as at the beginning of the game.
On move 58, due to a problem with delayed e-mail, Irina Krush did not receive Kasparov's move until after 1am EST, when she had gone to bed. Due to school tests the next day she could not post her analysis until later. Microsoft was warned that her move recommendation would be delayed. It had been determined beyond doubt on the Strategy BBS that 58...Qf3-e4 lost and 58...Qf3-f5 was forced to retain drawing chances. (The endgame was too complicated to say for certain what the correct result should be - 6-piece endgame tablebases would determine it for certain but would require vast amounts of computer time & memory to generate.) Paehtz & Bacrot, who did not follow the BBS, recommended Qf3-e4, Felecan recommended Qf3-f5, and Krush's move recommendation was never posted. (Krush's recommendations were almost unanimously followed up to this point, even in the case of the other 3 analysts recommending one move and Krush recommending another. Hence, had her analysis been posted, Qf3-f5 would have been played, as it would have been a 2-2 split with Irina explicitly stating that Qf3-e4 was a losing move.)
E-mail posted by Smartchess, Irina's corporate sponsor, demonstrated that her recommendation had been sent at 12:20pm PST. The submission was repeated at 5:10pm PST. The voting page at the Zone claimed throughout the voting period that "Irina's move recommendation will appear here shortly." Irina continued to post to the Microsoft BBS, demonstrating that any network problem was not at Smartchess's end. After voting began, Microsoft corrected a mis-spelling of Kasparov's name on the Zone webpage without updating Irina's analysis.
On previous moves, a similar message had appeared for other analysts' delayed recommendations, with the analysis being posted later. On move 58, with Irina's analysis not posted, the moderator, Grandmaster Daniel King, calling 58...Qf3-e4 a "sensible option", and the analysts 2-1 in favour of the losing move Qf3-e4, it won the vote and was played.
Outrage ensued on the BBS, and in the live chat with Danny King, Microsoft representatives attempted to smooth over the furore. Acknowledging that Krush's move recommendation was sent at 12:20pm PST, Microsoft spokesman Eddie Ranchigoda, Marketing Manager for the MSN Gaming Zone, stated that it was "not received by MS e-mail till after 4:00 PT [after which] we generally do not have resources to update the site unless an emergency occurs." (Apparently, even though voting was a 24-hour international affair, no-one at Microsoft realised the importance of Irina's contribution or worked after 4pm.) Another spokesman, "Ben", implicity acknowledged that vote-stuffing was possible, stating that Microsoft "generally [relied] on the honor of the World Team members to keep the game on track" (without explaining how Kasparov could have been prevented from stuffing the vote with a second-best move himself).
As a protest against what was seen as Microsoft incompetence and/or malevolence, and in an attempt to leave a lasting memorial of move 58 events, BBS members rallied together to vote for 59... Qe1, another move which gave the queen away for free with check. This won the vote with 66.27% of the votes. Despite this being a legal move with many members having voted for it exactly once, Microsoft "disqualified" the move by deleting all votes for it, due to alleged vote-stuffing, without explaining how it had been detected at that point and not before. The final tally of the modified vote-count added to 100.07%.
The event showed that World Team discussion on the BBS, led by Irina Krush, and assisted by computers could provide a series of moves equal in quality to Kasparov's. However, due to the fact that an e-mail was delayed on Microsoft servers, and despite an advance warning that an analyst's move recommendation would be delayed, a losing move was played at move 58 due to Microsoft's failure to post Krush's analysis. On the next move, BBS users were deprived of their opportunity to protest the handling of move 58 due to the disqualification of votes for a perfectly legal move. International Master Ken Regan, an associate professor of Computer Science at Buffalo, among others, called for a Microsoft explanation of this failure in electronic democracy, which had not been delivered as of this writing.
A newbot shows no major newspapers have yet covered the story; however, other accounts can be found at a Norwegian net newspaper and a German chess newsletter.
(Note: The MSNBC BBS articles have a 48-hour expiry time and hence copies have been provided rather than the original links. The expiry time, as well as the 55-character column width making URLs difficult to include in text, was introduced as the game dragged on longer than expected.)
There was definitely cheating going on. I saw the world kicking Kasparov under the table.
Only Windows users can vote for moves? Isn't this giving an unfair advantage to Kasparov? ;-)
insignificant sig
Hmmm,
I'd be very careful of accusing anyone of cheating. I think that this is a simple cock-up, probably bought about by a simple "Not My Problem" attitude somewhere along the chain...
Would this have been posted had been any other company than Microsoft running the show? I wonder...
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
This is definitely unfair on the part of Microsoft. At one point World held a won position (around move 50, I guess) but after that the moves were so lousy that anybody could have beaten them.
M$ turns every chance into an opportunity to sell windows. Lousy idea leaving a very sour taste in the mouth.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
This from the company that makes NT?
It looks like they didn't even require a unique IP address! Cheatproof, eh?
Yet another attempt to enhance the Microsoft reputation gone horribly, horribly awry when the true quaility of their products and thought processes comes through.
I wonder if there's a grandmaster out there who would agree to a chess tourney set up by a open-source community? I'm no chess freak, but something similar in concept to the Microsoft idea, but with a superior backend (think IP uniquing, online expert recommendations, online what-if scenarios).
Does anyone have the bandwidth and the know-how to succeed where Microsoft has failed?
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
It's a shame that in order to get MSN to admit to problems, an interesting experiment had to be ruined by forcing selection of second-best and irrational moves
Neither Kasparov nor the World can claim true victory. And MSN isn't a winner either. Rematch? I'm sure the world wants it.
Forrest J. Cavalier III, Mib Software Voice 570-992-8824
The Reuse RocKeT: Efficient awareness for software reuse
Free WWW site lists over 6000 of the most popular open source libraries, functions, and applications.
...and here's MS's first PR disaster of the week.
Boilerplate denials and coverage in the technical press will follow later in the day. The mainstream press will pick it up later in the week.
Business as usual.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
it's not just my copy of the Exchange IMS MTA that quietly hides email for a few hours.
I do not want to sound conspiratorial (if thats possible), or off-topic, but didn't Bill Gates claim in his BBC interview that MS, and more specifically himself could not change or alter content. He claimed that MS just provides the tools, it does not tell people how/when to use them. But it seems to me MS dictated exactly as they saw fit, and even excluded certain types of users (non-Windows) from participating in this World chess match, either through neglect or by choice. In a world that becomes more and more dominated by a single company (MSN, Windows, Web-TV, hotmail, etc.) I have become concerned how the content and delivery of information are controlled in the future.
I'd like to see slashdot set up a gaming interface, perhaps Kasparov Vs. Slashdot (and we won't stuff votes!). Now, if we can't get Kasparov, let's start a Slashdot Vs. Slashdot game. One white team, one black team. Each turn wll be majority vote. Since slashdot accounts are limited to email addresses, vote stuffing would significantly be reduced.
Well, yes! It is just a chess game, and as you said, a not very interesting one at that.
But the chess game isn't the issue. The issue is that if you cheat and lie at something relatively unimportant then you will cheat and lie at something important.
Most gamers are still on Windows. I haven't seen a copy of Chessmaster running on a *nix box, yet.
As for vote stuffing, reminds me of the time that Steps didn't win at some Brit music award thingy, of course they were miffed, the night before they had been ahead in the poll. But suddenly, a large number of votes came in for the hitherto-unrenowned Belle and Sebastian (Edinburgh popgroup). Apparently 12% of the votes had been from Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities in the last day. This is an example where all the e-mails were genuine, all the people voting were different, yet the poll was rigged. (Spam works).
In another example, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (a while back) noticed a huge number of votes coming in for a very unlikely candidate, Justin Fashanu, and disqualified him from the competition. But this was only because he stuck out like a sore thumb. If it had been a more likely candidate, chances are they might have got through this net.
Got to come up with some other way of validating e-mail polls. Phone polls used to work quite well because people only have a few phone numbers and each call would run up a nice little bill, enough discouragement, and a lot of effort just for little impact. But here, with dynamic IP addresses, millions of potential e-mail addresses per person, and at little cost to the end user, how do you guard against it?!
maybe i missed something.. but how would requiring a windows computer make ballot-stuffing any more difficult than not requiring one?
were you required to be using some propeitary MSN voting program? even then, couldn't you just uninstall and reinstall the voting program? or have a script do it for you?
or did they just assume those wild, open-source fanatic linux users and the tree-hugging hippie mac users would be the only ones unethical enough to ballot-stuff?
would it really have been that difficult for microsoft to take the segfault.org strategy and just log IPs? sure, you could still ballot-stuff if you had a lot of shells or were in a computer lab or had a dynamic IP, but at least you'd be limited by the number of shells or computers or IPs available. as opposed to any other method, whereby ballot-stuffing would be nearly impossible to hinder..
please explain.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Kasparov "Gazza" alias "Animal" has long been identified as the top GM in the post 80's era. HE has in the past also been involved in several controversial wins/draws... the most famous when he cheated against women Super GM Judit Polgar a couple of years ago and forced a draw. His skills in chess politicking as is his natural brilliance in the game have allowed him to remain at the helm for so long.This is clearly evident by his avoiding of world championship matches against the 2nd & 3rd best players in the world for the past couple of years.Even this year he postponed his match against the Speed king Vishy Anand. I would not see this opportunity of squirming a win with the help of MS support beneath him.
In any given group of humans, there will be a few smart people, a lot of average people and some incredibly stupid people.
... we're still not taking into account that only WINDOWS users could vote. The average Windows user is dumber tha, say, average UNIX use. So we're talking about MOSTLY incredibly stupid people!
.. obviously.
Now, smartness is of course relative. And here we are talking about chess. SO, there would actually be VERY FEW smart people, a LOT of low-end-average people and a LOT of incredibly stupid chess players.
BUT
When you get all these people together and ask them to vote on a chess move, what do you get? An incredibly stupid move, or an average move
Cheating? How dare you. NO, NO, NO! Obviously the moves played were those approved by Mr. Gates himself. You kow, with his chess-cruching Windows 2000 supercluster he keeps in his living room. Remember, the technology that won't be shipped with Win2k. Its so obvious... Bill approved the moves, so they must win, right? I mean, he's never lost anything else right?
In the name of fairness, Kasparov should offer a draw. Obviously, what is transpiring is an insult to the noble game to which he has devoted his life.
This would be a great opportunity for a Linux-related company (VALinux, RedHat, etc.) to approach Kasparov and try to persuade him to give this a second chance, with a more thought-out voting system, and an open adjudication process. It would be a heck of a PR coup for Linux, and a case study in debunking Microsoft's "Linux Myths".
If this was really just MS being stupid, then I wonder if any Linux, Mac, or SUN supporting company would be willing to step forward and create a "rematch done right".
I wonder if Kasparov had some of non-compete clause in his contract with MS; that would be amusing.
Microsoft really sucks at _anything_. Hopefully this will help the world see the light.
People seem to want it both ways. First, this is a great test of "collective thinking" against the world champion, and then second, they get upset because the Krush/Kasparov duel got interrupted for technical reasons and they were forced to think for themselves.
And the suggestion that Kasparov might cheat is ludicrous.
As a separate aside, on the topic of whether this game "proves" that Krush and several grandmasters and lots of computer time can produce moves at Kasparov's level, I'll quote analyst commentary from move 3 about Kasparov's choice of move:
So, yes, Krush and "The World" can rival Kasparov... as long as he isn't trying his hardest.
-XDG
"In the name of fairness, Kasparov should offer a draw." Huh? Kasparov should give up winning because his opponents are a sniviling back-stabbing rule-twisting committee? He should go ahead, win, and flaunt the moral and technical superiority of the lone player over the mobocracy.
How exactly does one become a grand master in chess? Do you have to win a certain # of matches against highly ranked opponents? Is there a chess board somewhere that deems one a 'grand master'?
Many folks have been sceptical on this "Kasparov vs. The World" claim for the past few months.
Ask yourself one simple question, why haven't the votes for "The World" been released?
In this particular case, it appears that a number of mistakes have been made on the part of the moderators. If nothing else, it is not sufficient to withhold information when claiming that an investigation has been made. You simply cannot claim something in this day and age without providing enough information to back it up beyond a reasonable doubt.
There is indeed a reason for conspiracy theory. It is the side effect of misinformation and lack of sincerity. It is an indicator that the public at large has doubts and that someday, there will be no excuses or toleration. Take heed! Revolutions occur daily.
I hope that everyone can keep in mind that with increased scrutiny, it becomes more likely that mistakes will be found. Hence the reliability of open source software. There are certain psychophysical limits to how stringently you can apply open source ideals upon the behavior of the humans. People are not exactly robots. There is just too much fuzzy logic. Don't forgo compassion for logic.
I agree, I don't see how you can call this a game against the "World" when most of the world team is just following the advice of an expert. Its just a slow moving chess game between Kasparov and Krush where the "World Team" is just a pawn (excuse the pun) that moves the pieces for Krush.
It would be interesting to see a game against the world where each of the World Team members had to make thier decision on thier own....
Guess this is a bid by Microsoft to alleviate it winDOWs !! ------------------------------------------------- Life is noThing ....... ving@hotpop.com
So have a vote behind the firewall, and send out a move for 'the company' - morale-building, teamwork, all that rot. Or encourage them to enter the game from home.
C'mon, you guys are analysts - ya should be able to figure out some kind of non-whiny solution here.
I have been following the game the whole time. I really for sorry for Irina Krush because she put forth so much effort and is now going to lose. If you go to the zone now you will see that she has posted no analysis. I'm sure this is because she feels she has been cheated. It could also be because no matter what move she recommends "the World" is going to lose.
DeCSS is akin to a tool that breaks the lock on your house
Taken from http://www.mpaa.org/Press/default.HTM
I personally don't like Irina Krush and I don't like the way she plugs her web site in her analysis on MSN. Her comments are usually longer than the others, but they are also harder to read.
I think Etienne Barcrot is a much better end game player and I choose to vote for his moves over Irina Krush.
This tournament isn't Irina Krush vrs Kasparov, its the World vrs Kasparov. So if Irina misses sending in her analysis, so be it. Its not cheating on Microsoft's part. Etienne missed several analysis while playing in the French Championship and I'm not complaining.
Doesn't that sound a lot like the name of a Bond Girl(TM)? (No offense to the lady in question)
Also, a quick perusal of the portaits of the analysts will show that Irina definately has the most professional-looking (and attractive) photo. Might I suggest that this may have played a role in her moves being selected almost every time? The picture of Mr. Felecan is just awful. Mr. Bacrot and Ms. Pätz look a bit better in their photo's, but I think that most would agree that Ms. Krush looks a lot more professional and attractive. In a game where experts of approximately equal skill disagree, it seems unlikely that 'The World' would have a clue who's move is really 'better'. I think it is more likely that the analysts charisma played more of a role in deciding who's move was selected than anything else.
Also, if you take a peek at msn's main page, you will notice that while there was almost always a link to the match previously, there is none now. I found a link to it after a few minutes of clicking, but the match is definately no longer being played up as much as it was. Sounds like microsoft is trying to sweep it under the table and let this whole thing die a quiet death.
If I were sexist, or elitist, I'd also eliminate the top woman chess player.
Of course, MSNBC couldn't possibly be doing any of these things. They're -far- too mature and sensible. Honest!
IMHO, this shows how emotional corruption is just as insidious and destructive as any other kind. Banning views contrary to their own is no way to run an open tournament. If that's how they want to play, why aren't they just entering their own moves? It would be more honest of them to do so!
As far as ballot-stuffing is concerned, they are =QUITE= capable of preventing that. They have NO excuse, whatsoever. Even using cookies would limit it, though if they wanted to be a bit more thorough, they could be issuing browser-side certificates. A simple check for IP address, cookie and/or certificate, and rate of vote entry would effectively block most trivial forms of ballot stuffing.
But, no! MSNBC insists that people play fair, unless they don't like the move, in which case it's cheating, and they'll insert their own preference instead.
Sorry, but cheating by admins is just as unacceptable, in MY book, as cheating by anyone else. There can be NO exceptions.
As for "but... but... our mail server didn't get the message!" - Quit the whining! First off, I don't believe that, in the least. MSNBC's mail system is perfectly adequate for the job, and mail queues are typically set to 30 minutes, not 3 hours. Secondly, if MSNBC's mail servers AREN'T capable of handling the load, it's their responsibility to upgrade them, and ensure that their systems can support their users, NOT the job of the users to compensate for the failings of MSNBC.
P.S. To whom it may concern - a typo is an emergency, but an entry by the most successful panelist is a mere triviality? You wouldn't be planning on running for Congress, would you?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I was following the game on a day by day basis. Things I learned:
1) Given a good leader, the world put up a damn good fight. I'm not sure how many positions were analized but it was really a good group effort. Even deep blue would have been in trouble.
2) Style is everything. There where several points in the game where the world could play offensively or defensely. For the most part, the world played offensively almost with reckless abandon.
3) MS sucks. They really tryed their hardest to put the world at an disadvantage. Only one of the anylists was allowed to follow the discussion board, and they where not allowed to talk to each other.
4) Trolls suck. The discussion board was full of garbage posts and flamebait - it was a wonder that anything got done. On top of that, any Joe that came along could vote what he liked without even discussing the alternatives.
5) I want a replay. PR stunt or not, most of us in the know learned a ton of stuff from GK. My rateing probally has tripled since the start of the game. The slow pace was nice, kind of like a school class. I'd like to see more games played (or at least followed) this way.
Not to change the subject too much, but my mind was wandering.
Anybody have any ideas on how well chess games would work in a distributed environment? Some problems are more suited for distributed processing than others, and if chess is... then some interesting options come up.
Kasparov vs. the computers of the world, or computers A of the world vs. computers B of the world. The last one (A vs. B) seem most interesting to me: let two groups come up with their own method of distributing parts of the cpu cycles out, let them fight it out and see who's got the best code.
Whatever happened on move 58, votes for 59...Qe1 were legitimate and the move deserved to win. Democracy is more important than chess, than Kasparov, than Microsoft. Any organization that perpertrates vote fraud on an allegedly democratic vote deserves the appellation "stalinist" or "fascist" - take your pick!
It woulnd't be interesting at all. We would lose within the first 20 moves.
This sentence is false.
I am no MS fan, but this just sounds like a general mess, and a lame and stupid quick-fix. Perhaps they should have implemented better security systems, but its not as if Distributed.net doesn't get hacked. One of the problems with these things is its obviously very different to prevent cheating.. I think a better system might have been a tournament ladder and let the winners play him or something.
A cute little program, in the guise of a harmless chess voting mechanism, would scoop out the unique ID from Intel processors and send that (along with pertinent information about the programs you run, the sites you've most recently visited, and your views on the Intergalactic Treason Situation) to M$ Headquarters in Redmond.
A crack team of dolphins pour over the data (leftovers from the specially bred torpedo carriers of WW2) and make recommendations as to your suitability for future acquisition... Commencing after MS's current plans of controlling software entirely, is the inevitable next step of Embracing and Extending individual people, much as M$'s CEO has already undergone.
Your identity would then be subsumed into the growing colective of Micro$oft Lobbyists, used to provide the public appearance of legality and disinformation about the truth that M$ controls the entire US puppet-state government. (You'll notice that no media outlet actually specified which 'Bill' left a deposit on Ms. Lewinsky's dress...)
Don't make it easy for them! Play hopscotch, jai-alai or mazola twister instead! Throw a wrench into thier plans for domination, before they stick a wrench into you!
</ConspiracyTheory>
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
People seem to be saying that this either (1) is gratuitous MS-bashing on /.'s part, or (2) doesn't merit attention because it was just some silly PR move.
- MS-bashing, well, yes. Gratuitous, no. The events of this match gave the lie to many things MS said about it, and many things they say about themselves. Notably, this whole "we just want to enable people to be their best" hogwash. They seek control, as the final death throes of this game demonstrate.
- PR move, yes. So if MS demonstrates the weaknesses of its own model in the course of this PR move, should critics of MS let them spin it all away? I don't think so.
If, say, FIDE had set this up and done these things, it wouldn't have gotten onMS's mishandling indicts their role as a company producing technology to enable this kind of gee-whiz collaboration, and as responsible stewards of this technology. The way in which they screwed up leaves concerns about MS's qualifications in that area. It would have been the same if Sun or IBM or Red Hat had done this. And just as deserving of an article here, IMO.
phil
Hasnt the great Kasparov been given enough abuse from deep blue? This additional microsoft fiasco with poor site management adds insult to injury. MSFT dropped the ball.
"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
Just wondered, if her E-Mail may have been sent from a non-MS platform... Probably not, but you never know.
Where'd all the comments go?
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
What I don't understand about what microsoft did, is why'd they only allow windows users? I twas supposed to be kasparov vs WORLD not kasparov vs windows. If I could've voted at the beginning of the game I would've, but since only windows users could (and I didn't feel like firing up vmware), no voting for me.
ah well, shouldn't have expected anything else from them..
I don't belive chess is really meant to be played by democracy. You really need a cohesive plan to defeat anyone who's even pretty good at it. I presume Microsoft knew that Kasparov would win handily against the 'World' with no help, so it brought in several chess experts. Then it became Kasparov vs. several chess experts with the public being a rather chaotic force in the whole deal.
This was not a very good idea.
That's just sick. Of course, beyond that, it's really just another `Microsoft Sucks... Bill Sucks... Plungers Suck' Type of an article. With the exception that now Microsoft has insulted the best chess player in the world of course. To me, that's a little like giving the pope a melvin.
Target Practice
There's a 68.71% chance you're right.
It would seem clear by this point, to all involved, that it is no easier or harder to make a web-based collaborative effort than any other colaborative effort. Certainly, we see this was a complex and large scale system that wasn't adequately supported by Microsoft, but was the failing in underestimating the amount of work needed to make everyone happy?
It's not easy to get thousands of people to cooperate on a large project, and especially hard for one person to hold it up alone as Mrs. Kush tried to do. I for one think the failure is with microsoft- not for failing, but for promising too much and not delivering.
We've seen a lot of that, come to think of it.
-Ben
The world chess federation adopted a rating system devised by Professor Arpad Elo. Players start off with a base value and have points added or subtracted to their rating on the basis of how they fare against their opponents in a tournament. So if your rating is 2400 and the average rating of your opponents in a tournament is 2300, you are expected to have a positive score against them(ie. win more than lose). Your rating goes up if you score more than the expected amount, down if you score less.
Grandmaster and International Master titles are awarded when players maintain a certain level of play(determined by calculating number of points that should be scored depending on opponents' ratings) over a certain number of games. There are other requirements, such as a minimum of three grandmasters playing in a tournament for it to qualify as one where grandmaster ``norms'' may be awarded. A collection of at least two grandmaster ``norms'' spanning a certain number of games(I think 24) qualifies one for the grandmaster title. There are exceptions and other means of being awarded a title. The winner of the world junior championship is awarded a grandmaster norm. If a non-grandmaster qualifies for the Candidates' cycle(to determine a challenger for the world champion), the grandmaster title is automatically awarded. With the political turmoil that exisits in the chess world, this Candidates' tournament no longer exists.
The GM and IM titles are awarded for life. Ratings change depending on one's performance. A minimum number of rated games must be played per year for a player's rating to be listed. You can search rating lists here.
Q5-e3, but R5-k6 so 0-0! These people must be idiots! Everyone knows that Q5-34 is suicide, so why then Q3-a4 42.35 Rs01??? K4-e7 check so d4-d5 e46 y r u 1d10ts 1 3M W3R3Z D00DZ%@%@$$#!!!!
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
You know, when it comes to Microsoft screwing up, I have not attributed it to stupidity or malfeascence... but BOTH.
Since the Kasparov v. World game has several fundamental flaws (Windows only voting, insecure balloting, champion directed moves, arbitrary ballot disqualification, etc), this game should be considered moot.
I doubt Kasparov will be lured into another one of these games. Instead, it would be a much more interesting proposition to have a World v. World match to investigate the Many_Minds_Cooperating = Greater_Intelligence proposition.
Suggestions for a World v. World match:
- Give each participant a unique registered voter ID
- Set up a move market exchange instead of pure voting for moves, ala the Foresight Idea Exchange
- Do not allow mixing between sides. Market exchange is split into two seperate exchanges.
- Restrict players to only one side. No spying. (Q: how to implement to eliminate spying and sandbagging? This is a problem analogous to secure credit-card transactions, only worse.)
- Have GrandMasters do a postmortem analysis of the game, but no live analysis of moves.
IV
"These laws they're passing won't even compile anymore, let alone execute." - anon
It's interesting to see that Microsoft seems to think it can dominate whatever field they want to and refuses to admit any wrongdoing when things fall down around them. This seems very similar to when Microsoft made vendors pay for Windows whenever they sold a computer (Microsoft thinking they could dominate a field) and then refusing to admit wrongdoing when the DOJ called them on the fact that what they were doing was an illegal business practice. Is Microsoft doomed to repeat history over and over again and how can their general cluelessness help the Open Source community?
What is with the OBSESSION that slashdot has with Microsoft?
Well that whole article was written in somewhat of a confusing way but what it seems to be saying is that the game has lost any legitacy. I think that whenever voting is involved in anything then some cheating will happen. Historians joke that the old elections used go by the slogan "Vote early and often," but being truthful nothing has really changed. In politics it seems that a obscure graveyard and slew of absent tee ballots go a long way. In this chess contests the same thing is happening. Of course some people claim to just be testing the system but enough is enough. It is unfortanate that MSN was chosen to host this event because less discrimination would occur. The article said that Krush had a sponsor, why not get someone besides MSN to host it? I think it is unfair that I can no longer take part in this noble experiment just because I perfer the comfort of my personally configured Linux box.
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M$ is so fond of saying that life is so much easier when you switch to all M$ and it being a fairly free country can make that statement but is it fair for them to present non-M$ users with problems?
What about minesweeper?
when a democratic society has certain necessary features.
The fundamental reason democracy works better than tyranny is that the best solution for any given problem is more likely to come from the minds of 250 million individuals than from one. No matter how smart the tyrant is, the odds are seriously balanced such that someone else in the masses has had an experience or an insight that makes his opinion on the issue at least equally relevant.
However, there are also 249,999,999 people in that mass who don't know the best solution. Therefore the one person who knows must be free to speak his mind, and the others must have the minimum level of intelligence necessary to recognize his contribution. This is critical because the main thing masses are good at is shouting loudly; quality of thought, not quantity, is the key to successful democracy.
Microsoft's online democracy tried to emulate this successful paradigm, and came very close; apparently IK was a pretty good match for GK when assisted by the other panelists, powerful computers, and the lack of time constraints. Unfortunately, the system was flawed in such a way that the voice of reason was not heard from at a critical time... and the match was lost. Democracy qua Microsoft fails miserably.
A better test of democracy qua Democracy as an allegory for our civilization would have been Gary Kasperov vs. the World in a multi-competition consisting of Chess, Backgammon, Parcheesi, and Quake. Possibly with some other skills such as metalworking, water skiing, lion taming or French cooking thrown in. While GK may be the greatest chessmaster in the world, I have a feeling Thresh is a better cook.
Scudder
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
I'm just wondering if Mr. Kasparov would agree to a rematch held outside of the bounds of the Microsoft Network, i.e., fully held on the World Team Strategy BBS. From the transcript, it seems like the consensus (such as it was w/o Microsoft forcing the vote) was giving him a pretty good game.
I also feel sorry for Kasparov. It seems like he's being forced to do "stunts" just so he can get a decent game. Playing the world, playing Deep Blue, etc. If there aren't any grandmasters on the verge of genius, I might humbly suggest Ms. Krush be the next opponent for Mr. Kasparov.
It almost makes me want to get my board out again...
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The antidote to bad speech is not censorship, but more speech.
How, exactly, is this flambait?
if somebody in the open source would have done this, it would have been much better
actually, up until recently, according to this article, microsoft hadn't screwed it up too horribly
i think there should be a rematch with another gaming service (maybe one that mostly specializes in chess)
Need a Catering Connection
The reality is that nobody really cares in what happens in the game. This is nothing more than a big publicity stunt for M$ and Kasparov (both of whom just want more money). If you talk on the chess servers, you'll see this is the case. For me and many others, I've never cared one bit about the match.
Kasparov is likely the top chess player right now, however he isn't world champion because he refuses to play under FIDE rules. He just needs the publicity to remind people who he is.
Sorry if this sounds like a troll. But this is really how it is.
Just goes to show you that anything that big is gonna be buggy the first time around. The fact that it is microsoft is just something else to notice. :)
I wonder if someone else (AOL, Mindspring) had handeled it, if it would have come out differently?
People need to realize that although it is a huge thing, and totally incredible that Kasparov would do it, it IS the first time something like that had been tried.
The soiled few will always try to ruin it for the rest of us..
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
When I compiled GnomeChess for my system, the documents mentioned that it could use two local engines: GNUChess and Crafty. The documentation made it sounds like Crafty was much better than GNUChess. Is it?
Seems like I have heard many complaints about Windows/MS office embedding a machine ID in documents, e-mail, etc. So the easy way to control ballot stuffing may have been to limit voting to MS users so this ID could be checked. Unless the stuffers hacked the ID's... Anyway, it was MS's playing field, if they wanted to alienate all non-Windows users it's their right. Maybe some day their exercise of rights like this will get them driven out of the main market. Or at least my employer's servers. (Sigh) MS also got a perfect chance to demonstrate the unrealiability of their e-mail server. I'm pretty well used to those random 24 hour delays by now, I just wish their criticality detector wasn't so good at making it happen to the most urgent e-mail!
I'll one-up you on this. How about make it Slashdot versus the world? Everyone who has a registered Slashdot account when the game starts is eligible to vote for /.'s move, and the rest of the world casts their vote through Anonymous Coward. Or, perhaps a special account could be set up to prevent stuffing.
/. v /.
Either way, I'd find that more exciting that
- Qd1-e2
- Ke1-f1
- Orange
- Merangue
- Hemos Sucks/Rob Sucks/Kasperov Sucks
I think even m$ fuckup did a lot for this. It has certainly brought the experiment a lot of new eyeballs and commentary.
-- Reverend Vryl
Would this have happened at all if another company were running things?
I doubt ZDnet would've made such pathetic attempts at PR damage control, and they certainly wouldn't've had a Windows only requirement for their vote script to work. Any webmaster who puts up a poll (even an idiotic "boxers or briefs" type poll) without IP verification should be shot.
Using Microsoft software is like having unprotected sex.
Bite the hand.
I can't think of anything more brilliant to say than ...this is a damned good idea (a well-thought-out Linux challenge).
/.er posted, lather, rinse, repeat. So I don't expect that such a coup would really change things, but it'd be nice to have yet another high profile incidence to sic our friends and relatives unto.
.02
Microsoft clearly relies on it's FUD not simply to garner support from businesses but the average Joe as well. Unfortunately, Average Joe reads CNN.com and is happy with that. CNN.com takes the carrot like a rented mule. And like another
I can't decide if I agree with you on the draw aspect tho. Clearly it would be the "sportsman-like" thing for him to do, but I'm not really sure that's his responsibility in this case.
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
The best player in the world is the best player in the world, sanctioning organizations notwithstanding.
The claim that the world champion can be hosted only by FIDE reminds me of the legendary French royal minister who claimed 'the revolution cannot rule, for I have in my possession the Royal Seal!'.
Then he was beaten by a machine and went down in history for it.
...that the World loses to GK. Were the World to win, the follow-on match against Europa would have been a real logistical nightmare considering the communications delay and the translation services sponsored by Altavista's Babelfish.
I agree that verification is important, in practice however it is not that easy.
IP verification would not work, the average dial-up user has access to a few hundred IP's at least. All he has to do is to disconnect and redial the POP. A sysadmin anywhere might have access to a few hundred or even a few million IP's.
So what are the alternatives. A valid email address, verified by sending a password to the account is a reasonable start, but most people who own a domain have the option of a few dozen email addresses or even "star addressing" (i.e. *@somedomain.com will go to the main account), so this turns out to be even easier to spoof. A PGP message signed by the individual sounds like it should be fullproof, but of course anyone can have any number of PGP keys.
As far as I can tell (and correct me if I'm wrong), but the best an identification method using only the internet can hope to do is to assure me that the person attesting to be John Doe is the same person that attested to be John Doe yesterday (or an authorized agent). It is much harder to say that John Doe is the same person that said they were Jane Doe yesterday.
There are a couple of ways around this problem, you can link the ID method to a unique ID controlled by the government such as a SSN or Driver's License number. This does not prevent identity theft but it is more expensive for the possible cheater (as well as being more expensive for the service provider). You could demand a high level Verisign certificate (which require a face to face meeting for issuance and are expensive). The easiest way to give yourself a reasonable assurance of unique identifiers is to charge a fee for your service and demand unique credit cards. Few people will cheat if it means spending more money (and if they do you probably don't care).
If unique internet identity becomes important in our brave new world there will have to be some serious consideration and possibly government involvement in the issue. I'm not completely convinced that uniqueness is necessary for most things. It is important that the credits I use are authentic but that doesn't necessarily require that I am in fact me. A smart card with onboard processing could handle the authentication in hardware. It will be important in issues such as on line voting and other legal interactions. For that, the only nearly foolproof method I can think of is some kind of implanted smartcard. Any physiological method such as retinal scan or fingerprint could be spoofed by hacking the input device or the information transmission.
In the end, perhaps it is not essential to make cheating foolproof. Our current system certainly isn't, as evidenced by identity theft and voter fraud, but it works pretty well in most cases.
There are two classes of chess titles: those awarded by simple rating, and those awarded by an international executive body.
Rating titles (at least in the US) are as follows:
1200 and below: class E
1200+: class D
1400+: class C
1600+: class B
1800+: class A
2000+: Expert
2200+: Master
2400+: Senior Master (if rating is sustained)
For an international title, such as IM or GM, a you must achieve a "norm" in a tournament. The norm is the number of points you must win based on the relative strength of the other players (IM norms being lower than GM norms). You must achieve three of these norms in a fixed period (two years?) to get your title, which is awarded by an international organization at some future date.
If you post it, they will read.
How about World of Linux vs. World of Windows grudge match? The Mac guys could moderate :)
I've been following the match via the email newsletter they've been sending out and I find it very interesting that not even Danny King has mentioned any of this furor in the email. You have to have been keeping up with the online chats and bulletin board to know that the game is pretty much wrecked.
I don't expect much from Microsoft but I would think that an event like this that is being touted as a way to bring children and a wider overall audience to chess would deserve much better treatment. I've never been a fan of MS software but I've never expected much from them in that area, in this case though, it's not just software and shame on them for it.
That whole thing about "once you've let it go, the move is made" is a silly rule anyway. Suppose you're moving a piece across the board and you twitch involuntarily and lose contact with it. Does it make any sense to force you to leave the piece out in the middle of the board?
Yes, technically, the move was made. That doesn't mean he intentionally cheated, and it doesn't mean he deserved to lose. He only lost touch with it for a split second, and who can say that it was intentional?
I think the move should be official when you hit the clock. Then it would be completely unambiguous.
It's pretty petty to complain over a technicality (after all, in a friendly game you'd let it pass unless you're a complete prick), but what do you expect from people whose lives center around a board game?
I wrote the parent message but I apparentl wasn't logged in.
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"L'IT c'est moi!"
But that obviously does not imply that for any unix user you have a 99.99% chance of winning; that's what std deviation (and mean) and other statistical functions are for.
;-)
Besides, even though there may be a larger percentage of so called "stupid" windows users, I could easily conceive that in a windows verses slashdot game, generally windows would win over slashdot. Why?
1. The emmense number of windows users. (a large percentage would be interested)
2. The existance of a wide range of intellects in the set of windows uers (and that I have myself seen quite a number of very smart windows users, which would make me think that the std deviation is HUGE)
And one final point... Is Gary Kasparov a windows only user? If he or any of the other grandmasters are that way then (assuming he would play etc) windows beats slashdot hands down (assuming of course that we have no grandmasters on our side)
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Disclaimer, I do not claim to be a statistician and its been a while since I took statistics, and I didnt pay enough attention to the class anyway.
It's spellerd "du jour"
Slashdot vs. ZDNet! With ZD's readership, though, it'd be no contest, I'm sure...
What I think would be interesting would be to match all of mankind against all of computerdom: have a distributed computing effort compete against a collaborative world effort.
While I agree on your point statistics... You must also take into account that the reasoning was based on personal opinion, which have been the "general" sentiment of Windowz users...i.e. "Unix is Hard". The guy was only using statistical analysis( without releasing data...;-) ) for his own personal opinion. But on your "opinion" of winning versus Slashdot users? Are you telling me that more votes = better brains? DUDE WAKE UP! USE STATISTICS UP YOUR BUTT? Have you ever heard the words... "law of averages"? And with your second, "opinion".. ditto! I use Microsoft products, Linux, and Some other flavors of unix... Not as an end user( but as a developer ). As for Gary Kasparov, I don't give a rats as what he uses... All I know is that he's a grandmaster... He can play.. And oh yeah... He can cheat...;-) Disclaimer, NONE.. Flame me for all I care...;-P
Well I've read all the friggin' comments...
All I can say is, if you see this as a problem... i.e. "World vs. Kasparov"... Why don't we try "World vs. Big Blue" Now that IBM has some tie ups with a few Linux Communities... And a major player in the Linux Internationalization Effort...;-)
Why not? There's a guy that has a P3 Computer and is said to have it's ethernet connected to the net to the Bone... Why not play through that...;-) Against DEEP BLUE!!!...;-)
Humans vs. Z computer...;-)
BUT THAT's just a thought...;-)
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John Clark
coolj101@email.com
Up until now, the computers playing chess have been single systems in one box. Why can't someone write a chess program using a distributed architecture? RC5 and SETI appear to be big successes (at least RC5 is... I don't *think* we've found aliens yet). Could the game of chess be processed in a similar manner? I'd certainly be willing to donate some CPU cycles to beat Kasparov.
** Not hundreds... not thousands... but millions of cpu hours per move **
-Mantro
Flamebait???
Moderators, please get in touch with reality!
Like fencing, Go, and even battle.net, chess ratings use the ELO system. Every time you play a match, your probability of winning is calculated based upon the difference in your rating and your opponent's rating. When you win, you gain a number of points equal to your chance of losing times a development coefficient. When you lose, you lose a number of points equal to your probability of losing winning times your development coefficient. Thus winning against a much better opponent gains you more points than winning against a weaker one. Conversely, losing against a weaker opponent costs your rating much more than losing against a superior opponent.
I don't remember exactly how large the development coefficient is. It's based on how many games you have played. It's much easier to change your rating if you are a beginner than it is after you've played a while.
Here are some "ranks" of chess players
Rating > 1800 = Expert
Rating > 2200 = Master
Rating > 2600 = Grand Master
I'm a gnu world man.
Or so M$ figures.
Anyone who uses windoze is obviously a mindless zombie
Mindless zombies can be given simple commands and can be expected to obey them (i.e. Do not stuff votes. While you are at it, sell your soul to M$ for more crack)
Therefore anyone who could vote (windows users) obviously lack the intelligence to cheat... M$ just didn't want to admit it!
Yes, this is spam.
MSN seems to be like all of Microsoft's products. And it's always the same problem, everyone wants to sell products for money - not for customers! It should be not too hard to support events, which were started for the purpose of better public relations.
Someone said that the only way they could think of to discourage ballot stuffing was to make each vote expensive. Well, that assumes that nobody with lots of money wants to stuff ballots.
Better than making it expensive monetarily might be to make it expensive time-wise. Voting would require going to a page that gives an X-minute delay after submission. At the end of the delay, a random (out of big pool) multiple-choice question would appear, and only Y seconds would be given in which to answer it successfully. The questions would be easy enough that anyone with half a brain could answer them, but the pool would be big enough that you couldn't write a program to answer them without having access to the Q/A database. Don't answer the question correctly in time => your vote isn't counted.
Sounds like a big pain to set up and use, though.
Instead, there are better unique identifiers than email addresses. I'm guessing almost everybody with web access has a credit card. Each credit card number could be given just one vote, and you could take other steps to ensure that the same person didn't vote multiple times using multiple credit cards. You wouldn't even have to charge money to the credit cards, unless it were impossible to use the credit card verification services without charging something. If this were the case, you could just credit back whatever amount you charged. Not sure if fees taken by the credit card verification firms would make this unworkable...
Otherwise, this would work out pretty well -- about the only thing you could do to stuff the ballot boxes would be to get a bunch of friends to vote the same way as you, but this is a danger in any voting situation.
This makes the case for ballot-stuffing on moves 51 and 52 quite strong. See Martin Sims' thoughts on moves 51 & 52.
Ross Amann notes that
- "Democracy is not served by vote fraud in any election... Clearly, if MSN were running the world's elections, things would be a lot neater!" referring to Microsoft's deletion of votes for 59...Qe1.
My notes:The difference between the top two votes on moves 51 and 52 was less than 5%; there are two examples of individuals stuffing over 4% of the vote, making it quite likely that the game was influenced by an individual in the critical moves 51 & 52.
(Microsoft claims the contrary in a carefully worded statement - "never any significant ballot-stuffing until move 59". So 5% is not significant when the vote differences are less than that?).
I got last post!!