Mr. William L. Hosch, Mathematics and Computer Science Editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica recently sent me this interesting article. Hope you enjoy it.

How to Cheat at Chess
William L. Hosch
– November 16th, 2006

World chess champion Vladimir Kramnik is scheduled to play a six-game match against the computer program Deep Fritz starting on November 25. His odds don’t look good as he just managed to draw against the last iteration of the program in 2002. Assuming a chess rating of 3000 for Deep Fritz, Kramnik can be expected to lose, 1.5 to 4.5, in which case I think that this will be the last meaningful human-computer chess match. Of course the program cheats; all computer programs cheat. They have access to millions of games with all of the latest opening theory and databases that allow them to play perfectly in situations with reduced pieces. In contrast, Kramnik must rely on imperfect human memory.

As every chess player knows, your opponent had to cheat to beat you. Of course, strong players wouldn’t fall for tricks like a pawn up the sleeve that drops on the board when they aren’t looking or a piece sitting across two squares so that their opponent can j’adoube (“I adjust”) it later. So how can strong players be cheated?

Intimidation is probably the oldest and least subtle means of cheating. Chess is known as the royal game and, for obvious reasons, many players have preferred throwing a game to their liege over losing their head. In a widely disputed claim, some chess historians believe that the Estonian Paul Keres, after years of Soviet detention for allegedly cooperating with the German occupation, was ordered to throw games to the Russian Mikhail Botvinnik during the 1948 tournament to fill the vacancy left when world champion Alexander Alekhine died. There is no dispute, however, that the Soviets refused to release the family of the defector Viktor Korchnoi, the challenger in the 1978 world championship match with Anatoly Karpov. According to the Soviets, the fact that Korchnoi’s son was in a Siberian prison had no connection to the match.

The full article can be read here. Thank you for sharing this with everyone!
Posted by Picasa

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Tags: