Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
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RE: virus: The Rise of the Machines
« on: 2004-10-10 02:49:25 » |
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[Blunderov] There have been some doings in the chess world lately.
Vladimir Kramnik finds himself hard pressed by a very determined Peter
Leko in Brissago. Meanwhile...
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1947
Machines attack, humans strike back
08.10.2004 The man vs machine team chess championship in Bilbao started
with a depressing 0.5-2.5 loss for the biological systems. But in round
two humans struck back - in fact at one point they were very close to a
3:0 whitewash. The president of the sanctioning body ICGA, David Levy,
gives us a provocative assessment of the event.
Man vs Machine World Team Championship
in Bilbao, October 6 - 9, 2004
This encounter between chess playing entities, biological and
electronic, is taking place in the city of Bilbao in the Basque region
of Spain. It pits three strong grandmasters against three top programs.
The humans are Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria, Elo 2757, world number five);
Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2710, No. 13); and Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine,
2576, who at 12 was the youngest GM in the history of the game).
The computers are: Hydra, a hardware machine running on a 16-processer
array that is located in Abu Dhabi, UAE; Deep Junior, the reigning
computer chess world champion, playing on a remote 4 x 2.8 GHz Xeon
machine located at Intel UK (Swindon); and Fritz 8, running on a
Centrino 1.7 GHz notebook in the tournament hall. The organisers felt
that this would provide interesting comparative data, for amateurs and
press, about program performances on three different platforms.
The rate of play is two hours for the first 40 moves and 60 minutes for
the rest of the game.
The first round ended fairly disastrously for the human players. Young
Sergey Karjakin was dominated by Fritz, while his friend and mentor
Ruslan Ponomariov turned a position that looked at least optically
winning into a loss to Hydra. Only Veselin Topalov was able to hold his
game with black against Deep Junior. Score: 0.5-2.5 for the machines.
On the second day the humans struck back - almost devastatingly. There
was a phase in the round when it looked like all three would score full
points against the machine. Sergey Karjakin outplayed Deep Junior from
start to finish, never leaving a doubt about who was in charge. Ruslan
Ponomariov got a substantial edge against Fritz, one that looked as
though it could be transformed into a win. But the little notebook kept
its calm and held the ex world champion to a draw.
The most dramatic encounter was between Veselin Topalov with the white
pieces against the 16-processor Hydra. The human did not seem to have
anything in the opening, but demonstrated his mastery of the game when
he took advantage of an unfortunate pawn advance by Hydra by picking up
this pawn and getting a totally winning position. However the six-hour
session took its toll on the human's ability to focus his full attention
on all the finesses of the endgame and in the end he had to concede a
draw to the machine, which showed absolutely no signs of fatigue. Score:
2:1 for the humans.
A Great Show!
By David Levy, President of the ICGA
There were some lively discussions here in Bilbao over the dinner table
last night, following the 2.5-0.5 lead taken by the computer team over
the Grandmasters in the 1st World Man vs Machine Team Chess
Championship. Inevitably the subject of the Kramnik-Leko match also came
under discussion and some comparisons were made. My own view is that the
games in Bilbao are far more interesting for the chess public than are
those played in Brissago. I would go further, and say that in the game
won by Hydra, as Black, against Ponomariov, there was more drama than in
all of the first seven Brissago games put together. Let me explain.
There are several obvious differences between the type of chess played
in a match for the human World Championship and the type of chess played
in a top class human vs computer event. Firstly, the players in Brissago
are both inordinately afraid of losing the game each time they sit down
at the chessboard. This is not a criticism, it is a simple fact, one
that is perfectly understandable when we consider what is at stake for
Kramnik and Leko.
Being afraid of losing a game in a world championship match is, in many
ways, the mark of a true chess professional. For those Grandmasters who
play chess at the highest professional level a single loss in a title
match is much more than the words suggest, it could mean the loss of the
title, the loss of what might be one's last chance of gaining the title,
the loss of that nice apartment that one would like to buy on the
Boulevard Saint Germain in Paris, or even the start of a career
nosedive. So we should not blame Kramnik and Leko for producing games
that fail to delight the vast majority of chess enthusiasts. They must
play at the highest level they can, to maximize their chances of success
in the match, and without any regard whatsoever for the loss of chess
artistry that results.
But although one might accept the approach of Kramnik and Leko as being
the epitome of professionalism, insofar as they are both trying their
very best to end their match as the holder of the World Championship
title, this does not mean that at the same time one has to applaud games
that are devoid of artistry. Imagine watching a boxing match in which
the two antagonists dance around on opposite sides of the ring, afraid
to go too near each other more than once every few rounds in case of a
lucky blow coming in the opposite direction. If that was the approach of
World Heavyweight Championship contenders, how long would boxing last as
a spectator sport? It might be considered by some to be perfect or
near-perfect professionalism, but does that interest the crowd? No, it
does not. In boxing the crowd wants blood, just as the chess crowd wants
to see blood on the chessboard.
In a Grandmaster vs computer game the computer program knows no fear and
never shows any. The program is there to win if it can and the
Grandmaster is therefore under pressure from the start of the game. So
it is a completely different type of struggle, and this difference makes
for more dramatic games from the perspective of the vast majority of
chess enthusiasts.
The Ponomariov vs Hydra game is, in my view, an example of high drama at
the chessboard. Watching the game develop we see White taking complete
control of the a-file, establishing a rook in a menacing position and
eyeing a backward black pawn on c6. Meanwhile Black, the program,
appeared to be floundering, for example when it played its bishop to g5
attacking a very well protected white pawn on e3. But look what happened
over the next few moves. Black's feeble pawn on c6 was eaten up, while
Black lashed out on the king side with the advance of its h-pawn, which
looked at first sight like desperation. But it was not desperation. At
that point in the game, despite being a pawn down, Hydra was displaying
a plus score - it was searching so deeply that it already knew that it
stood better. And within another couple of moves what had, at first,
seemed like clutching at straws, was revealed to be a blistering attack
against which it was almost impossible to suggest a defence for White.
Maybe there was one, of sorts, by sacrificing the exchange with Rxf6,
but whether it would have enabled White to survive is highly doubtful.
The opinion of the grandmasters here in Bilbao appears to be that I am
completely wrong, and that the games in Brissago up until now (game 7)
are definitely more interesting than those in Bilbao yesterday. Maybe
this is true for them, but what about for the much larger number of
chess fans throughout the world whose Elo ratings are hundreds or even a
thousand or two points below the rarified level of the super GMs? If
chess is to become a media success then the games watched by the masses
of chess fans need to interest them. Do the games in Brissago interest
the masses of chess fans? No they do not. They may interest many GMs and
super GMs, but not vast majority of the less brilliant amongst us who
number tens of thousands or more for every holder of the GM title.
Roll on the day when every World Chess Championship match is contested
between the strongest human player and the strongest computer program.
"But what happens..." I hear you ask, "...when the computers can
regularly defeat the strongest humans? Isn't that the end of the story?"
No, it most certainly is not. Kasparov's matches against computers have
enthralled the chess world and many outside it, far more so than any of
his matches against Karpov. If, ten years from now, Kasparov or his
successor regularly succumbs to the leading programs, let us not despair
but instead become creative. Perhaps pawn odds will come back into
fashion, as it was in the 19th century. Who knows?
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