- About Us
- Chess Improvement
- Chess Puzzles
- Chess Research
- College Chess
- General News
- Home
- Major Tournaments
- News
- Polgar Events
- Privacy Policy
- Scholastic Chess
- SPICE / Webster
- Susan’s Personal Blog
- Track your order
- USA Chess
- Videos
- Women’s Chess
- Contact Us
- Daily News
- My Account
- Terms & Conditions
- Privacy Policy
I should say: let the machines build a computer, programm it and then challenge someone …
Give the human player a hammer? That way if you’re losing you can always do a quick spot of ‘reprogramming’.
Yes, I know thats a Douglas Adams joke. Interesting question though.
Yes, its always comforting to know that we still have power over the electricity switch! We can turn the clever little sods off any time we please 🙂
This is an opinion that not many people will agree with if any but after all it is my own. I think that programs have no right in competitive chess….and should only be used in chessplayers homes for preparation. Im sure i will be criticized for my opinion 🙂 but nonetheless I will stick with it!
All Kramnik-supporting sites (Russian and ChessBase) wail bitter tears about what martyr Kramnik is in this unequal match, how exhausted he looks, especially after game 4, and how he makes superhuman efforts to defend and achieve draws.
But let’s not forget that the issue is $1 mil. Many people have survived a lot more torture for such money. And Kramnik and his lawyers did everything possible to get the most favorable clauses for Kramnik in the contract. If rules in this game are unequal, they are in favor of Kramnik, not the opposite.
Well … the question is not about Kramnik but a general one.
The conditions have to be adjusted these days I guess, otherwise there wil be no fun in it.
The matter of the fact is, that computers are very fast these days and if Kramnik or anyone else would have to compete against the fastest Computer with Fritz or Shredder he would have no chance any more.
It is not the machines though who are better players. The machines and the software are our ( human ) products.
There can be no ‘fair’ competition against man vs. machine. First of all the comparison of the speed of logical thinking is astounding. If Fritz can can go through 1 million moves a second, in about 2 seconds he has done what takes a human at Kramnik’ s level at least a minute. Please correct me if I’ am wrong, do not know more accurate numbers for a GM’ s node/sec search speed. There is no competition there. Yet a computer can only ‘think’ in boolean, 0 or 1, true or false. It has no intuition, a file-based memory and no inspiration. Now a file-based memory has the benefits of holding alot of information in a small space, and being fast but it is not cross-linked like a human brain. It does not have bits of The Art Of War cross-linked with say a list of 50-goal scorers in the NHL for the last two years. It can not pull in other information from experience to aid it. So there is no competition there. Really there is no competition as a human and machine are two different beings, where there strengths do not even match up. Chess being a game that can be represented through mathmatic s, and is in a computer program, the human mind is ill-equipped in the future too match a computer in calculation. Someway though, there is a weakness humans have not found yet to defeat the machine.
The computer should be allowed to use an opening book and a table base as large as its memory can hold. No limits!
The only thing the programmers and assistants should be allowed to do in the match is turn the computers on, input the moves and move the pieces on the board for the computer. They should not be allowed to change any strategies or anything similar. That’s for the computer to decide.
The human player should also be allowed to use a memorized opening book, and also a memorized table base (if he or she can do it!).
The human player should (of course!) not be allowed to peek at what the computer is planning.
Otherwise all rules should be as usual.
The computer should get the prize money if it wins. If the programmers need a share of the money, they’ll have to take that up with the computer.
Yep, Bertilo, treat the machine with respect and give it fair play 🙂
Isn’t “injecting” book moves and endgame telebases “performance enhancing”? 😉
Why is this obsession with Kramnik’s match, Susan ? Your blog has slowly turned into a joke. Publish about ‘Topalov Super Second’, Publish about UNPRECEDENTED conditions, wow. You are really angry at Kramnik !!
No endgame tablebases to be allowed for the computer. This would be an analog of cheating, because no calculation is involved then. The computer just looks up the correct move in his sheet. Computers should be forced to calculate the endgame.
If you play against a computer than you play against a computer. It’s not a computer’s fault it has huge memory and it’s fast. If i’m playing against a GM, I can’t say: ok, to make this game fair, you are not allowed to use 100% of your memory, knowledge, experience… And, playing opening, you must tell me all moves you know have been played… etc. It’s just silly.
The fair condition is: let both humans and computers be able to play in the best way they can! And if ”we” can’t beat ”them” anymore, so what? We can’t win a race against a car neither…
Arlauk
IMO the conditions for humans and computer programs should be equal. Therefore, endgame tables are of course NOT allowed since the computer program is usually not able to generate them, it just uses the knowledge generated by an another program, stored on a harddisk, i.e. outside the playing program. If the program can generate the endgame tables during the game (not really a problem for all 4-men and a lot of 5-men tables) then it is fine, it may use them. Otherwise, it would be only fair to give the playing human assistance by other humans who are specialized for endgames etc.
Dear Lord:
Every single evening
As I’m lying here in bed,
This tiny little prayer
Keeps running through my head.
God bless my Mom and Dad, and other family.
Keep them warm and safe from harm
For they’re so close to me.
And God, there is one more thing
I wish that you could do.
Hope you don’t mind me asking,
Bless my computer too.
Now I know that it’s not normal
To bless a motherboard
But listen just a second
While I explain to you, ‘My Lord’
You see, that little metal box
Holds more than odds & ends
Inside those small compartments
Rest so many of my FRIENDS.
I know so much about them
By the kindness that they give
And this little scrap of metal
Takes me in to where they live
By faith is how I know them
Much the same as you
We share in what life brings us
And from that our friendship grew.
Please, take an extra minute
From your duties up above
To bless those in my address book
That’s filled with so much love
Wherever else this prayer may reach
To each and every friend,
Bless each email inbox
And the person who hits send.
When you update your heavenly list
On your own CD-ROM
Remember each who’ve said this prayer
Sent up to ~ “God.com”
>>Why is this obsession with Kramnik’s match, Susan ? Your blog has slowly turned into a joke.
Anyone else see the joke? I don’t. lol
‘Fairness’ is also about not misleading the public.
The title ‘Human v Machine’ implies that neither the Human nor the Machine have been assisted or constrained in special ways.
If this is not the case, then one should say ‘Human* v Machine**’, and attach the special conditions to the asterisks, e.g.:
* special conditions:
1) can examine machine’s thinking while ‘in book’
2) can use chess engines with unlimited EGT capability during an adjournment
3) is granted any draw in the ‘Endgame Table (EGT) Zone’ without having to achieve it [e.g. in KQPKQ, KRBKR, KRPKR]
** special conditions:
1) cannot analyse the game during the adjournment period,
2) cannot use any EGTs beyond 5-man
3) cannot push for a win in 5-man difficult-to-defend endgames
g
Just play. No modifiers, no special rules, no restrictions, no peeking into openings. One anon was right: no interference with the computer either, the programmers shouldn’t be able to modify the program after each game. There is the computer/program, there is the human, sit down and play as it comes. That is the only fair condition I can imagine, if the real goal is to determine which entity can play better chess.
Gabor
A computer is not an entity! It is a piece of hardware. Manbuilt hardware with manbuilt software running it.
Given the hardware available even now man cannot compete any more. Maybe it takes a little more time.
That point made, games like the one we see these days will not draw much attention any more.
I guess one or two more games of this kind and it will be over.
What can happen after this? Chess could be played in teams: man/computer. Who will be the best human who can use pc assistance?
>>What can happen after this? Chess could be played in teams: man/computer. Who will be the best human who can use pc assistance?
Such tournaments are played even at present. It’s called Centaur (or free-style) chess. I think 4th or 5th such tournament recently
No openning book or endgame tables this is cheating, let the computer think all the time!!
If not, computer is assisted!!!
human memory is imperfect … computers electronic memory is perfect (besides tunneling effects ..^^). to balance this human disadvantage in man vs. machine – i suppose that it should not be allowed
(for the machine)
1. to have unlimited hardware memory
2. to have internet access
3. to have a humanmade opening book. moreover, the opening book (e.g. from move 10 on or so..) should be created from machine vs. machine matches…(rybka vs. rybka – only the best ones count – LOL)
4. to use tablebases above 4-piece endings (= elementary endgames) + K+N+N vs. K+p
5.to change the opening book during the competition, besides new sidelines calculated from the actually given game /s were added
7.to offer draws
the human counterpart should be allowed:
1. to have a five seconds time increment for mechanical moving and notifying the move on the sheet.
2.to smoke over the board whenever he want’s to (a “Vohaul” condition ^^)
3. to adjourn the game after move 60 (40+20 within 2h+1h time control)… btw., hehe, the remaining position would be analyzed by a chess player’s laptop and honestly i can not see an advantage for the human side at all … besides the secundants – all humans – over the opponents high end machine …
4. to have a restroom without camera surveillance
5. to have the opportunity to take a time-out for at least one match
the human should not be allowed to have insight to the computer’s opening book – too much of an advantage …!
greetings
I think a fairer way would be no opening books or endgame databases. The computer can only store what it has learned by playing games with other opponents. What I mean is the computer has to teach itself and not be programmed with all the accumulated chess knowledge at the beginning. The computer should get no upgrades to its programming unless the ability is in the original program to modify itself without human intervention. No upgrades to CPU or Memory should be allowed for the life of the computer. It will still never be fair. What human can calcluate 10 – 14 ply deep in an instant? Humans will always blunder. Soon this will not even be a contest any more and everyone will lose interest in human v computer. Just ask John Henry.
http://www.towson.edu/csme/mctp/StudentProjects/TallTales/page3.html
I think this point goes to Gabor! The computer has a better memory, so what? It also takes some time to evaluate this memory.
Those of you who argue in terms of nodes per second or are against opening books or endgame databases enrage me. The rules are simple: build a machine (mechanical/electronic device) that produces chess moves with no outside help. The fact that you know how Fritz works is a *favor* and you should be grateful. Instead you use that knowledge to dictate what can and cannot happen inside the box, which is simply insulting.
I seem to remember…
when man could run faster than the automobile
and then only the horse could run faster than the car
and finally the auto outpaced all animals
Is is any wonder that the sum of the efforts of thousands of people scattered over many decades since the beginning of time would ultimately prevail in a contest against a single human?
Rather, I wonder at how long it has taken
Fischer Random Chess.