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Kasparov Beats the World
Ender_Stonebender writes "I noticed on a link to a story about the World Chess Team resigning the game against Kasparov last night. "
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> 1. playing the world is like averaging so it more like the 1st ranked player plays the say the 1000th ranked player ... if it was taken from the pool of the 2nd - 10th players it would be more accurate.
If each person had voted alone without any communication, then maybe you could have said this.
But actually, because of the BBS and the discussions on the BBS, it was like combining all their strengths. Even Krush (one of the four coaches) admitted that she could not have played at this level without all the contributions from the BBS.
Ok. Maybe I was still asleep when I heard the report and they said that the World was -expected- to vote against resignation (but hadn't yet). Or maybe (it pains me to say this :) ) NPR was wrong.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
We usually are.
;-)
As everyone knows, the intelligence of a group is equal to the minimum intelligence of its members divided by the number of members. This point has been proven often enough in software engineering.
Of course, teams are a little different -- that's the only reason we lasted even this long, we had a good team helping us.
If we want to ever do any good, we need a surgical chess team (c.f. Mythical Man Month). And when I say team I don't mean a bunch of people who just met, or met over the web!
Or perhaps this is just the beginning of the defeat of chess -- perhaps it'll be replaced by the One True Strategy Game, Go. Now THAT is a good game.
-Billy
The favorite in any given horse race wins one third of the time, which might not sound too impressive. But less than half of all racegoers even buy a racing form, without which it's impossible to judge a horses chances. Yet, the betters' choice is often a very insightful pick, and is often completely at odds with picks from the newspaper and tip sheets. In many years of handicapping races, I've found that if the favorite seems illogical, it's best to take a second look, or prepare to lose money.
For several reasons.
First, most of "The World" is not sophisticated enough to be able to see enough moves ahead to be able to make the right choice, but rather, the most obvious one.
Second, Irina Krush, who was selected for most of the moves, is not a *great* player. If she was a man, she would probably only be a strong master, or maybe an international master. I believe Kasparov can beat five grandmasters simultaniously (walking from one board to the next each move).
My brother who is a master (Yaacov Norowitz, look him up at http://www.uschess.org if you're interested), can beat Irina about %50 of the time in speed chess. Of course speed chess is different from regular chess, but it gives you an idea.
Women are not worse in chess than men, it's just that there are much more serious chess players who are men than women.
I can see this being a great distributed computing computing problem. Take the full set of all possible moves/outcomes,
split it up into work units and send it out to N machines. Im sure we could put together significantly more computing power then deep blue, it would just be a matter of decding the work units and algorithms to use as I recall the search space come the midgame is too large to be searched even with all the computing power on earth.
It has been widely known that vote stuffig has started at least at
move #4, maybe earlier. Kasparov has acknoledged that the
correct move #51 proposed by the core of world team would be
a straightforward tie. Furthermore, it has been known for a while that
some crucial moves in the middle of the game have been stuffed,
that time in accordance with the core team recommendations. It is
therefore hard to say that this was a fair game although the world
loss is due to its decentralized and uncontrolled nature as much as
Microsoft glitches and outright failures. If anything this game has shown
that a different structure is needed for this to be successful. Anyone
who claims this game to be a success is lying - it was exactly as the
pessimists have foreseen. Anyone who wants to repeat this game needs
to think about democratic process through the internet. This game shows
that just trusting the user is unacceptable.
I just think this should help his crushed ego
... if it was taken from the pool of the 2nd - 10th players it would be more accurate.
... could we not come up with something even more powerful than deep blue?
... um most of us are doing other stuff ... (see point 1 again) ... um lets see Kasparov getting jiggy w/ gcc ... guess ms would prob. pref. v(c++|j++|b) ... urgh shudder to think
... um aren't there better things we human have to do than solve pspace complete problems? (yeah ... chess is not np)
... ms pr ideas are as bright as a 10 watt light bulb
but is it really the best the world has to offer consider the following:
1. playing the world is like averaging so it more like the 1st ranked player plays the say the 1000th ranked player
2. if all the talent of the world were mustered
3. how many people in this world actually make a living just playing chess?
and goodness
this is pathetic
>Thanks to Irina Krush. She will take away Garry's title someday.
Not likely. Krush is vastly stronger than any of us, but that doesn't mean she's stronger than Kasparov. Like him or hate him - and I'm not exactly a fan myself - the objective evidence indicates that Kasparov is the strongest player in the world today and probably the strongest ever. Even the loss to Deep(er) Blue doesn't change that, because DB was tuned specifically to play against Kasparov and would fare worse than Kasparov if both were to play in a round-robin with the other 14 top players. It's not uncommon for a less-skilled player to maintain a winning record against one of their betters because of style issues, but it doesn't change their relative strengths.
It's possible that IK could someday be better than Kasparov. In fact, that's highly likely since she's younger and chess ability under tournament/championship conditions does seem to fade a bit with advanced age. What's more interesting is the question of whether IK might someday be the best player in the world[1]. Yeah, it's possible. However, it's also possible that any of a thousand other players - from Anand to Morozevich to Khalifman to Xie Jun - could raise their own abilities and forever stay above her. Remember, they're also highly disciplined professionals capable of analysis just as deep as IK's. Statistically, the chances that IK will ever be the best player in the world are slim.
[1] One of the English chess columnists - Miles, I think - has written a far better piece than I ever could about the difference between being the best player and being world champion. It's somewhere on www.chesscafe.com IIRC.
>We need to commend her on her efforts she put a ton of work into the game! She contributed months and months of painstaking, in-depth analysis. Thanks, Irina!
Absolutely. The above comments about her ability aside, her devotion and passion and work ethic are highly commendable. She did a great job as "team captain" for the world.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991020/wr/chess_ microsoft_5.html
has an accusation that a critical move recommended for ``The World'' was not posted
by Microsoft, thereby effectively losing the contest, or at least eliminating the possibility
for a draw. GK denies this, claiming the different move wouldn't have mattered.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
That depends on what you consider more important. Such as, capitalisic economies is superior to other forms because of the free market, but then exploitation of the worker and monopolies are the result. So, do you want quicker progress and a larger economy (which means there's more free money, but that doesn't mean in the hands of the workers), or not to sell yourself as a commodety?
The best form of society is still undefined. I highly regard John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy.
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
Wasn't Deep Blue also re-tweaked for each game, so that Kasparov was basicly up against a new personality each time he played? Makes it harder to fight an opponent, when drawing from past games only hurts you. I remember he was pretty annoyed on the second game (the one he lost) because he hadn't expected that.
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
Then the average intelligence of the participating players is quite high, higher than I would have thought.
But is it really the average intelligence? People aren't submitting their own ideas for the moves, they simply voted for the move they thought would be the best. All the possible moves werent up for voting, just the 5 or so ones that the teenage grandmasters suggested. Therefore, I don't think it is even the average intelligence of the participating players.
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
Discuss
Longtime opponent Deep Blue, when asked about Gary replied in an email that, "He keeps ignoring my phone calls."
While the general opinion in the chess world has been in agreement with the fact that Kasparov vs the World wasn't a "real" chess match, it is a somewhat irrelevant point. "Real" chess is a game played by two humans, with no assistance. This was intended, rather, as a corporate sponsored exhibition. The idea is to draw more attention to the game. And I'm glad MS messed it up, that just brings MORE publicity. Which is all that the chess world has to gain from corporations anyhow.
But if you're looking for real chess without the corporate infuences, go to the Free Internet Chess Server
Seems to me, that where there REALLY shouldn't have been any involvement from ANY outside parties, Microsoft decided to stick its nose in at least once, and quite possibly twice, depending on how trustworthy one considers them to be.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not alleging that Microsoft somehow cheated, or allowed Kasparov to cheat. What I am saying however, that in a scenario in which NO participation was needed, ANY involvement from a third party is going to be misinterpreted. For better or worse, it's going to hinder or help at least one side. In a battle of wills between two people (counting "the world" as one entity), any involvement from any third party is damaging to at least one other party.
My question, is why did Microsoft bother to stick their nose in? I mean, I can almost understand Microsoft not allowing them to stuff the vote, but still, it was 66% FOR stuffing. Now, in my opinion, not allowing resignation is interference.
Also, I haven't followed the article (don't play chess, don't like chess. sorry), but does anyone know how many members/teamleaders there were? I'd be interested in the ratio.
Another poster suggested that it wasn't Kasparov against the most intelligent competition, but rather, K against the AVERAGE intelligence of the competition, which I don't agree with, but would skew heavily depending on how many members/team leaders, the ratio between them, and how much conferencing was done OFFline to discuss strategy. Otherwise, Kasparov is able to see everyone else's decision making process, which, tends to skew data as well...
"I've said it before, and I'll say it again - democracy just doesn't work."
-Kent Brockman
You know what to do with the HELLO. ...
Help create an open-source world
I totally agree. The amount of information she provided gave me a great insight on how a grandmaster thinks. Irina Krush has shown (to me at least) that she understands how to take her ability to another level (by translating it to someone who ISN'T a chess professional).
Garry Kasparov better be wary, she is only getting stronger..
-Dextius Alphaeus
-- Java is not a Jedi trait... "do, or do not, there is no try" --
I think it's interesting that both sides were able to use computers. It could be interesting to set up (perhaps on /., as you suggest) a Team A vs. Team B game, where each side decides over some long amount of time their moves, is able to consult grand masters, etc. I'm assuming we couldn't get Kasparov to play us - but, even if we could, this might be neater. I could see how, in some ways, it might lead to a different view of chess - one in which teams and computers spend long periods of time trying to outguess the competetition. Of course, you'd have the problem that your opponents would be able to view your decision making process...:)
It was originally called Deep Thought where it was originally created (CMU). After it moved to IBM they renamed it Deep Blue.
NPR reported this morning that while the advising team had voted to resign, the rest of the players voted to continue to the bitter end.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Let's see... I'm thinking back to the media coverage of the Deep Blue fiasco. By the kind of thinking so much in evidence at the time, Deep Blue beat Kasparov at chess, ergo Deep Blue is smarter than Kasparov (witness the outbreak of "will computers replace humans?" panic stories).
By similar reasoning, and based on the fact that Kasparov beat the entire world at chess, it is not difficult to show that Deep Blue is smarter than the entire world put together. Perhaps Deep Blue ought to be renamed Deep Thought.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" -Salvor Hardin
...when it was clear that we had lost. This was only a formality. There were many that wanted to play Gary to checkmate, but in a true professional match, one resigns immediately when ones defeat is assured (or at least very strongly suspected.)
I think that with all that we have learned, and with a few minor rule/organizational changes, we could possibly beat him, or at least draw.
In fact, this game should have been a draw - it was only due to technical problems that we lost.
This was much more instructional than his match against deep blue, because the slow speed of play helped to give us time to study chess theory in depth.
I for one learned a thing or two...
Thanks to Irina Krush. She will take away Garry's title someday. We need to commend her on her efforts she put a ton of work into the game! She contributed months and months of painstaking, in-depth analysis. Thanks, Irina!
<SIG>
I think I lost my work ethic while surfing the web. If you find it, please email it to crispy@crotch.caltech.edu.
</SIG>
My sig has a broken link in it.
how about kasparov vs. every computer in the world? We can do a seti@home type of thing where computers user their idle time to come up w/ checkmate. That would have been more interesting
The game can be seen here.
I find it strangely telling that when IBM set out to defeat Kasparov, they did so by building the fastest computer that ever played chess, and succeeded, while Micrsoft set out to do so with a lot of hype, media attention, and flashy web pages, and lost...
-
After The World resigned, Kasparov announced a 25-move forced mate after move 62 (read: the world would've lost on or before move 87, no matter what it did). You can see the page here, and it has a bit of commentary with Kasparov's analysis.