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Not too impressed with Fritz. Why should the average club player care whether a program plays at 2800, 2900, or even 3000 strength? What matters to him is how well a program is able to impart its knowledge to the user. Chessmaster, though probably a weaker program head to head, actually does a better job with this kind of thing, with more tutorials and computer identities set to play a certain way.
Kramnik? Yeah, except for one move, his play has been pretty impressive, but that one move was a doozy. If this were baseball, he’d have loaded the bases in the first two innings, but failed to score, while giving up an unearned run on a through-the-legs error. In the end, what matters is not how well you play, but how much you score. Base hits are no good if you don’t convert them to runs.
So far Fritz has displayed nothing spectacular. In fact, as you and YS explained during the game, “it/he” doesn’t even recognize yet the draw. The only advantage that Fritz has is that he never gets tired, and there is virtually no possibility of making a one move blunder.
I still think Rybka is better all around and haven’t seen any program regularly able to defeat it. However Rybka is good for only two things. Analysis and playing against other programs. Its too strong to be of any playing use to anyone except top super gm’s.
So for regular patzers like me Chessmaster/Fritz are a better fit with the ability to “dumb them down” to my level and provide tutorials and explanations.
Not too impressed. Fritz 10 is not as good as Rybka or Shredder. I doubt that Kramnik would even draw against Rybka (well, maybe one time).
In fact, Fritz isn’t even the Computer World Champ any longer. It seems logical that the best computer program would play the best human player (i.e. the world chess champ).
Too much money involved, however.
Even Kasparov could never beat Rybka. If he could…he would.
Fritz 10 impressed me much in this game than in the two previous ones.
In this third game he played most of the part like a human, except in one move, when playing a3 that let kramnik time to enter to a drawn endgame.
Versus a good human,i think that the endgame would have been hopeless for him.
i was impressed by Kramnik in game two – a very nice game, up to move 31…a4?! much better was 31… Qf7 – defending the e6 pawn – in my eyes (and apart from this blunder of course – incredible – i cried out loud!).
Fritz10 impressed me today (but i still think – and i think it more and more – 28.qd4 is much stronger than 28.qb3)
i was a little disappointed with game one – a really nice endgame given away by Kramnik… (even me, a patzer, could find the right plan).
so – the organization, the transmission over the internet (with free GM commentaries in german and english) – i like it (the server speed on spiegel-online is sometimes a little dull – ok – the fly in the ointment^^)
the event is impressive and exciting – and bear’s lot’s of endgame analysis…^^ – my chess world!
Kramnik has played an excellent anti-computer strategy. Unfortunately, he has made the very mistakes humans tend to make — failing to find the winning move in Game 1, making a silly blunder in Game 2.
If Fritz’s “chess knowledge” has improved over earlier versions, it must be pretty subtle. It may calculate faster and more deeply, but it has the same kinds of blind spots as before.
Everyone says Rybka would have done better, but no one has actually offered any analysis to that effect. Does Rybka “know” that the final position in today’s game is drawn? How early does Rybka see the draw (if it sees it at all)?
I agree that Chessmaster is a superior training and sparring package for players below master level. Obviously, it was built for a whole other nich of the market place than Fritz. But it is still strong enough to beat most humans.
I am VERY impressed with Kramnik. Many chessplayers don’t realiaze either the pressure that he’s under or the accuracy of his play. 2600 players with their own computers, minus stress and having take-backs on not a true measure of what is happening. An unaided 2600 player would be absolutely swept away by fritz 10. Fritz 10 is probably very close to HYDRA. To fully appreciate Kramnik’s effort. Be open minded and look at the Adams-Hydra games. (Adams is around 2740 strength) the advantages given to Kramnik are really incidental. As even skilled, competitive amateur player, we really need to be humble.
These have been the most boring games I’ve seen so far.. (except for the blunder).. not impresed at all with either. Rybka vs Topalov would have been a lot more of a crow teaser…
churchill: “Fritz 10 is probably very close to HYDRA.”
That’s where you are absolutely wrong. Rybka is 200 points higher than Deep Fritz.. Hybra is arguably equal or better than Rybka.
Susan I think you against Fritz 10 would play more entertaining games than Vlad ‘The Master’ of the draw.
Fritz 10 hasn’t displayed antything spectacular, because the spectacularly even and accurate play of Kramnik has regulated the spectacular lines of Fritz 10 in the notes. Even the greatest of GMs (or still even COMPUTERS) CAN BE overcome by post-mordem “best play” I think that any insights that Susan can give us about what Kramnhik has to go through at the actual moment would be very illuminating
I am not an apologist for Kramnik. But I would like to mention that the great, dynamic Gary Kasparov did not play like his hero Alekhine aginst the computers. At times he opened with 1) Nf3.
Absolute wrong is a pretty confident statement. And to continue that confidence with an astronomical 200 points of difference does seems suspect. As a mere 2100 player I do not have the qualifications to judge. Susan, if you care to weigh in on this one please do. But I do respect the post and comment made, and primarily for this reason. I would love to see Fritz 10 or any of the commercial programs play Hydra. That very triggered thought made your comment worth amny times it’s weight in gold. Intersted parties will not allow this, I fear.
There have been measurements of increased processing power leading to greater ply search and corresponding computer strength. The increase in computer power leads to incremental, not exponetial elo points. Hydra superiority, if I understand it right, is in the hardward application, not the software. Anyone from a software, hardware point of understanding please take the floor. I will glady differ.
I am very impressed with Kramnik’s play against Fritz 10. I also have Rybka which is right now the strongest computer playing program bar none. To play against a program which never gets tired, will not miss any tactics under 12 moves deep and plays a rock solid game accordingly, it is only possible to beat it by not making any blunders as we saw, and only long range strategic plans will succeed. Kramnik has this style! He reminds me somewhat of being from the Capablanca/Karpov school while Kasparov/Topalov come from the Alekhine/Lasker school. Fischer was universal like Spassky/Botvinnik/Rubenstein/Keres/Morphy.
Donninger stopped his development work on the Hydra project, among other things, because hardware can not be commercialized like software.
Deep Fritz 10 is not commercially available, yet – so, any comment about the “ELO” difference between Rybka x.xx and Deep Fritz 10 is not only dull, but unmask the poster to be blissfully ignorant of the computer chess scene.
nevertheless i watch and read it to my pleasure …!
… whilst slowly shaking my head and exercise myself in astonishment … ^^
NOT impressed! by both…
>Does the latest version of Chessmaster still play the occassional silly move?
>
Some personalities do. You can customize that kind of thing somewhat. Variable wildness, or do things like tell the computer that a Queen is worth the same as a Rook.
Frankly, that’s what I want in a chess program. A program that I could never ever beat is only good as an instructional tool. The original purpose of chess computers was to have an opponent that you could call on at any time. With the internet that’s not as big a deal as it used to be, but it’s still gotten a bit lost in the shuffle. It would still be nice to have an opponent that you could experiment on, play at your own pace, test lines, set it to play at your strength, set it 100 points below you, 100 points above, whatever, and just practice with actual games. If you just want to practice your favorite White opening over and over, you could do that with a computer opponent, while an Internet opponent might play something else, or want White sometimes himself.
I have been going through the games using Crafty 20-14 as the analyizing chess engine. What surprised me, if Fritz is so good why has the new Crafty picked 90% of the same moves? Now Deep Frtiz is running on much better hardware than mine. It takes 2-3 seconds for Crafty on my computer to search 1M nodes. That is two to three times slower than Deep Fritz according to Kramnik. Yet after limiting the search to six seconds Crafty was picking most of the same lines. I can get Crafty for free, and can compile with optimizations further improving the strength of the engine. Why pay money for a program that is marginally better? Another point of interest is that when Crafty picked different moves the it picked were more positional.
Fritz 10 is a monster chess player, better than any human player on Earth or Martian on Mars. One day, when Fritz get’s its own concience, it will be readt to challenge other interplanetary chess software.
CAN KRAMNIK TALK DURING THE GAMES?? Talking won;t bother Fritz, and it’ll help Kram thrash the silicon.
Am I allowed to post something here that I don’t mean really?
Mot impressed. I am ashamed that my idol has disgraced himself and chess humanity with the blunder he made.
Did Kramnik lose the second game with dignity? Haven’t followed the match much.
I don’t see how Deep Fritz is going to handle the doping control without cheating:)
I understand that ANY result different from 6-0 for Deep Fritz is a win for Kramnik. So, Kramnik won the match after game 1. If you ever played against an engine, you must agree with me.
“Did Kramnik lose the second game with dignity? Haven’t followed the match much.”
Yeah, that’s true. He has followed Susan’s credo on that, at least. If it had been Topalov, he’d just have disgraced the game again with more accusations (who knows what this time? Orbital mind control lasers?), and Danailov would have issued a press release saying that Fritz’s moves showed a 100% correlation with Fritz.
Good point. Kramnik’s not only a better winner than Topalov, he’s a better loser, too. I guess he’s just better, period.
>I understand that ANY result different from 6-0 for Deep Fritz is a win for Kramnik. So, Kramnik won the match after game 1. If you ever played against an engine, you must agree with me.
>
Me playing against an engine and a super GM playing against an engine are two entirely different things. Super GM’s can still be expected to score at or near 50%
I am extremely impressed with Deep Fritz, or more accurately, with the technology itself. I was impressed with Chess Challenger 7 way back when, despite that I could easily beat it.
Why? Well…because these machines are the first step toward true artificial intelligence. After all, these chess playing programs (and the computer of course) became better in something, which was considered specifically the “property” of the intelligent human, playing chess. Now, we could argue until doomsday comes that these computer don’t actually think, that’s not the point, because the outcome is as if they did think. People confuse self-awareness and thinking. The two is not necessarily the exact same thing.
——————-
I have a small story to tell. I have a friend who lives in Germany. He is into book publishing. He planned to publish in Germany the translated book of a very well known hungarian writer. He sent to me the first chapter to read and form an opinion. In there, one of the subject was chess and computers. The writer obviously didn’t know how quickly computers were developing (it was the very early 90s) and wrote with absolute confidence about the uniqueness of the human mind, and that computers will never defeat the top chess players. I wrote back to my friend, that he should recommend to the writer to change that chapter, because computers are improving with full blast. It was done. Lucky for the author, because by the time the book hit the German market, computers started to defeat higher and higher level chess players and it wasn’t much time before Kasparov-Deep Blue.
What is fascinating to me, is the incredible speed this whole thing is developing, changing. In 1978-79, I don’t remember exactly, I didn’t buy Chess Challenger 1, because it failed to recognize a mate in 1.
Two and a half decade later, here we are, and the real challenge is the world champion. Yes, I am impressed.
Gabor
Has any Super GM or world champ ever blundered into a mate in 1 other than ‘K’ ?
K is playing not to lose, he’s certainly not playing to win.
Needless to say I am completely unimpressed by him. As for the software, why would I be impressed by a program that is not the world champ?
K is the world champ, so he should be playing the computer world champ. Anything less shows fear, as does his style of playing not to lose.
All this in the face of overwhelming, unprecedented advantageous match conditions he has that no other human ever had in a match with a computer.
Above, one comment was, “Chessmaster is a superior training and sparring package.” Well, maybe, but maybe again maybe it’s how you use it. I’m glad I can create my repetoire for white and black (in ChessBase) and plug it into the Fritz Training folder… and use that for opening training in sparring in Fritz. Works for me. It would be great if I could do the same in Chessmaster, because undoubtedly Chessmaster’s 3D graphics are great.
It’s a boring match and arranged.
In game 3 Kramnik received a great gift from ChessBase after …a3??
>> Everyone says Rybka would have done better, but no one has actually offered any analysis to that effect. Does Rybka “know” that the final position in today’s game is drawn? How early does Rybka see the draw (if it sees it at all)?
I did some quick analysis of game 3 with Rybka. It doesn’t know that the final position is drawn. Up to 20 ply (10th move) it thinks that Black is better 91 cps (centipawns). It also didn’t see the point of the sacrifice (131 cps for Black). However, its play was very different than Fritz, and I think the moves were stronger although the time of analysis was much shorter than the actual game. I can give the whole analysis move by move but do not think that it is of enough quality to bring it to the public.
“arranged” is bull. fritz does not need to win very badly. deep blue was the first to beat world champion. hydra beat a respected gm – and beat him bad. fritz is not going to be the first if it wins.
fritz team is most concerned about showing steady, strong game. for which an occasional blunder or lucky win are not helpful.
Hmm, many people are of the opinion that Chessmaster is a better learning tool then Fritz is, but this is wrong (maybe for someone who is 1200 player chessmaster is the better coise, but even in this case if the person is not laizy I wuld recomend Fritz – or any other engine with the Fritz interface!)
*About being able to play against Fritz – of course you can, you can dumb him down – you can make him behave in a certain way – agressive… And the most important thing you can make usefull analysis with fritz – which is impossible to do with Chessmaster because of the impractical interface (I’m refering to the notation and the lack of analysis options)!
P.S. I think that the chess engine behind chessmaster is called The King (you can check this – by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del while Chessmaser is running and ten check which aplication in the processes tab is using the most memory/cpu!)
**Another thing someone said that he wuld like to see a match between Hydra and Rybka – ok -> there were about more then 50 games played betwen these two chess entities – and Hydra won. You can check for yourself – the games were played it the freestyle – matches organised by Chessbase (pure – engine Rybka player -> not the ones using centaur mode got crushed by Hydra) -> check TWIC for the games – and check chessbase for the nickname of hydra in those games.
D.K.
>>P.S. I think that the chess engine behind chessmaster is called The King
Yes, it’s called The King, and the version in Chessmaster 10 is The King 3.33. The King is tested separately from interface (Chessmaster) because the interface takes much processing power from the computer with all this 3D graphics. The King 3.33 with many different settings is currently 15-20 place in the CEGT lists of engines.
>> If it had been Topalov, he’d just have disgraced the game again with more accusations
Topalov wouldn’t disgrace himself with association to the gang of liers in the ChessBase.
Here is an interesting article on Man vs. Machine matches:
http://www.doggers-schaak.nl/?p=620&lp_lang_view=en
>>
Topalov wouldn’t disgrace himself with association to the gang of liers in the ChessBase.
>>
But he WOULD disgrace himself other ways?
“That Topalov. He’s pretty picky about how he disgraces himself. He won’t disgrace himself just any old way.” LOL. Whatever.
Is this way of disgracing himself worse than associating with Chessbase (which he HAS done in the past, despite your assurances)?
http://www.chess-players.org/eng/news/viewarticle.html?id=565
At least you disgrace yourself anonymously. I don’t see how lying about Chessbase does any good when not a single GM in the whole world outside his own entourage supports Topalov’s behavior. Every one either denounced him or kept quiet. Even Bulgarian GM’s can’t support him. If they did, they’d be inviting unsubstantiated attacks on themselves.
Everyone who supports Kramnik disgraces himself because he consciously supports a cheater.
This match is nothimg else than a big fat commercial for Fritz. Other comps are stronger.
>> This match is nothimg else than a big fat commercial for Fritz. Other comps are stronger.
Right. ChessBase swindlers count on the Chessmaster suckers.