Why not ask Carlsen himself curtains?

I think I agree with Dire here if I understand him correctly. Who cares about who is better at chess a human or a computer? The question is an empty one.

Well, I care because it saddens me to see computers dominate chess so thoroughly. Obviously I'm thinking a bit wishfully, but I also think that I have some reasoning to back up my claim.

This whole side argument about obvious ways in which computers are terrible seems to me to actually be even better evidence that the computers have the edge. Imagine how crushingly awesome they will be when we figure out how to implement good enough positional evaluation skills to handle problems like the one Dire posed! Combinatorial explosion is certainly a problem, but deeper evaluation isn't the only road to better chess performance.

Well, never forget that it's people who are building the machines. What's happening in chess is that one group of tool-assisted people is beating another unassisted group, ultimately.

Yeah, but that's pretty hollow. Imagine if a new symphony was written and everyone hailed it as the greatest ever, and then it came out that it was written by a computer program. Same situation, but obviously sad in a way.

Why?

Machines are better than humans at every single rudimentary and well defined task, and chess though infinitely complex, can be broken down into rudimentary "bites". You don't expect Lance Armstrong to outbike a motorcycle. You don't expect a mathematical phenom to outcalculate a calculator, etc. And I'm sure if some company so desired to, it would be trivial to develop a biped shaped robot that could easily outswim Michael Phelps. Chess is no different and I have no idea why some people treat it as if it should be some sort of exception to the rule.

It's only because they were alive in a time where humans were significantly better than machines. I'm sure they'd feel the same about arithmetic if they grew up in the 1500's when a machine couldn't do basic math. Whenever someone experiences the change in their lifetime, they are more likely to be somewhat irrational about it.

with all due respect to nakamura, his blitz games against computers are simply pathetic, he plays them just to eek a rating. Do you really enjoy watching those games where he just shuffles his pieces back and forth on the first rank?

I for one, do not.

I'm not so sure he's doing it to eek out a rating. I think either he's got a sick sense of humor and he gets off on forcing closed positions against engines or it's somehow part of his training regimen. I doubt he'd spend countless hours just for an online rating when he's got the talent to shoot for the world championship.

You said it. The fact that computers are better than humans at chess just shows that chess is akin to arithmetic. That's why it's sad. Note that computers are not better than humans at abstract mathematics.

Or, to put it another way, it's sad because of what it says about chess, not because of what it says about people or computers.

It's pretty obvious that -

Chess has no randomness
Chess has no hidden information
Chess has a finite set of possible states

Given this it's pretty clearly that chess is one of the easier things for computers to excel at

FYP. Maybe even 1900's is more appropriate -- otherwise, I agree completely.

I suspect that machines are better at dealing with small amounts of randomness than humans are. I have something like blackjack or SNG endgames in mind here, where the problem is akin to just averaging a bunch of different possibilities together. The human might be able to estimate these quickly, but the machine can do it exactly.

There's also the point to be made that chess is too easy. Pick a harder game (like go) and it will take the computers a little longer to catch up, because people don't understand go as well, and so can't teach the computers all of their tricks.

what is the strongest chess engine atm? also i was under the impression that the best chess player(s) in the world at this time were still better than computers

Rybka is generally regarded as the strongest chess engine. Here's a wikipedia article on computer chess, which includes the following chronology:

# 1997, Deep Blue wins a six-game match against Garry Kasparov.
# 2002, Vladimir Kramnik draws an eight-game match against Deep Fritz.
# 2003, Kasparov draws a six-game match against Deep Junior.
# 2003, Kasparov draws a four-game match against X3D Fritz.
# 2005, Hydra defeats Michael Adams 5.5-0.5.
# 2005, a team of computers (Hydra, Deep Junior and Fritz), wins 8.5-3.5 against a rather strong human team formed by Veselin Topalov, Ruslan Ponomariov and Sergey Karjakin, who had an average ELO rating of 2681.
# 2006, the undisputed world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, is defeated 4-2 by Deep Fritz.

lol@those games being for training.

maybe he plays those for fun but I really don't see what he gets out of it (except rating). every game is basically the same, he puts his pawns on the third rank hoping to lock the position, and then moves random pieces on the first rank.

maybe we should post some of those games here to see if we can learn anything from them?


btw he's usually ranked 1st in blitz and bullet on ICC and sometimes on playchess too, so he obviously does spend countless hours playing speed chess online and also cares about being ranked number 1.

[ ] You know why Nakamura plays the way he does against the engines he does

imo

[ ] but you do?
[ ] your reasons made any more sense than mine?

Neither of us know why he plays those games. Your opinion doesn't give Naka the benefit of the doubt, so without any other information, my opinion is more fair.

Whatever, this thread has gotten way off-topic. Let's get back on track, please.

As far as Nakamura playing Rybka game after game in 3 0. I read something a few months back on his blog. HikaruNakamura.com

I searched his blog and I could not find what I was looking for.

However the jist of it that I remember was:

He said he was playing game after game of blitz vs. Rybka as a humbling experience. He said something about it being very rare that he loses game after game. I think he also said something about testing his resolve playing game after game vs. such a strong entity (my words, not his - but thats the jist of it).

Hmmm...so maybe after 50 games where he tried to win and lost every game, he started playing for a draw with White just because he was so sick of losing?

One thing to keep in mind is that he does beat Rybka regularly (infrequently, but regularly). It's usually with some slow, building attack that the computer fails to see before it's too late. I've seen it happen.

Try to find a game where does exactly that (slow, building attack) and post it here.

[Event "ICC blitz 3 0"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2008.03.15"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "-"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Rybka (Computer)"]
[Black "Hikaru Nakamura"]
[ECO "A00"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "2697"]
[PlyCount "510"]

1. g4 d5 2. h3 h5 3. g5 g6 4. d4 Bg7 5. Nc3 c6 6. Nf3 Bf5
7. Nh4 e6 8. Nxf5 exf5 9. Bf4 Ne7 10. e3 O-O 11. Qd2 Nd7
12. O-O-O Re8 13. Bg2 Nf8 14. Be5 Ne6 15. f4 Nc8 16. Kb1 Nd6
17. Bf1 Qd7 18. a4 b6 19. Ba6 Nc7 20. Be2 a6 21. Bd3 b5 22. h4
Ne6 23. Ne2 Re7 24. Ka1 Ree8 25. Qa5 Nb7 26. Qd2 Nd6 27. Rh2
Bf8 28. Rf2 Ng7 29. a5 Nb7 30. Ng1 Qd8 31. b4 Qd7 32. Nf3 Nd6
33. Bxd6 Bxd6 34. Ne5 Qb7 35. Kb2 Rac8 36. c3 Re7 37. Be2 Ree8
38. Bf3 Re7 39. Qc2 Rd8 40. Rfd2 Bb8 41. Be2 Re6 42. Bd3 Re7
43. Rf2 Re6 44. Qd2 Re7 45. Rg1 Re6 46. Rff1 Re7 47. Qd1 Re6
48. Rg2 Re7 49. Qc2 Re6 50. Rfg1 Re7 51. Rf2 Re6 52. Qe2 Re7
53. Qf3 Re6 54. Rd2 Re7 55. Rgd1 Re6 56. Qg3 Re7 57. Kb1 Re6
58. Bc2 Re7 59. Nd3 Re6 60. Nc5 Qc8 61. Nxe6 Qxe6 62. Kb2 Re8
63. Re1 Qd7 64. Qf3 Re7 65. Bd3 Re8 66. Rg2 Re7 67. Kb3 Re8
68. Ra2 Re7 69. Rc1 Re8 70. Rca1 Re7 71. Rg1 Re8 72. Rh2 Re7
73. Qg3 Re8 74. Ka3 Re7 75. Rb1 Re8 76. Rd2 Re7 77. Kb3 Re8
78. Ra1 Re7 79. Kb2 Re8 80. Re2 Re7 81. Ree1 Re6 82. Qf3 Qe7
83. Qf2 Qe8 84. Be2 Qe7 85. Bd1 Qe8 86. Bf3 Qe7 87. Qd2 Qe8
88. Kb3 Qe7 89. Kc2 Qe8 90. Kb2 Qe7 91. Rab1 Kf8 92. Qf2 Ke8
93. Be2 Kd8 94. Bd3 Qe8 95. Qf3 Ke7 96. Kb3 Kf8 97. Ra1 Qe7
98. Bc2 Kg8 99. Kb2 Qe8 100. Qf2 Qe7 101. Qd2 Qe8 102. Bd3 Qe7
103. Be2 Qe8 104. Rad1 Qe7 105. Rc1 Qe8 106. Bf3 Qe7 107. Qf2
Qe8 108. Rcd1 Qe7 109. Be2 Re4 110. Bd3 Qe6 111. Bxe4 fxe4
112. Ra1 Nf5 113. Kb3 Kf8 114. Rh1 Ke8 115. Rh2 Kd7 116. Qe1
Kd8 117. Rd1 Kd7 118. Rc2 Kd8 119. Qf2 Nd6 120. Ka2 Qf5
121. Rh1 Kd7 122. Qg3 Ke6 123. Qh3 Ke7 124. Qxf5 Nxf5 125. Rh3
Ke6 126. Kb3 Bc7 127. Re2 Bb8 128. Re1 Bc7 129. Ra1 Bb8
130. Rd1 Bc7 131. Re1 Bb8 132. Re2 Bc7 133. Rg2 Bb8 134. Rg1
Bc7 135. Rb1 Bb8 136. Rbh1 Bc7 137. Rg1 Bb8 138. Kb2 Bc7
139. Kc2 Bb8 140. Kd2 Bc7 141. Rh2 Bb8 142. Rc1 Bc7 143. Ra1
Bb8 144. Ke2 Bc7 145. Rg1 Bb8 146. Rhh1 Bc7 147. Kd2 Bb8
148. Rc1 Bc7 149. Rh3 Bb8 150. Ra1 Bc7 151. Rhh1 Bb8 152. Rae1
Bc7 153. Rh2 Bb8 154. Rh3 Bc7 155. Ra1 Bb8 156. Kc2 Bc7
157. Rf1 Bb8 158. Kb3 Bc7 159. Rf2 Bb8 160. Kc2 Bc7 161. Rg2
Bb8 162. Kd2 Bc7 163. Rh1 Bb8 164. Rf2 Bc7 165. Rfh2 Bb8
166. Rd1 Bc7 167. Rf1 Bb8 168. Re1 Bc7 169. Ke2 Bb8 170. Rh3
Bc7 171. Kd2 Bb8 172. Kc2 Bc7 173. Rb1 Bb8 174. c4 dxc4
175. Kb2 Bd6 176. Ka3 Ne7 177. Rb2 Nd5 178. Rg3 Kf5 179. Rb1
Be7 180. Rh3 Bd6 181. Kb2 Be7 182. Re1 Bxb4 183. Re2 Bxa5
184. Kc1 Bb6 185. Kc2 a5 186. Rh1 a4 187. Kc1 a3 188. Rc2 Ba5
189. Rh3 Bb4 190. Re2 Bd6 191. Re1 b4 192. Kb1 b3 193. Rh2 c3
194. Rc2 Bb4 195. Ka1 bxc2 196. Ka2 Nxe3 197. Kb3 Kxf4
198. Rc1 c5 199. dxc5 Bxc5 200. Rh1 Kg3 201. Ra1 Kxh4 202. Rc1
Kxg5 203. Rg1+ Kf4 204. Rh1 g5 205. Ra1 h4 206. Rc1 h3
207. Kxc3 g4 208. Kb3 g3 209. Ka4 g2 210. Kb5 Bd4 211. Ka6 Bb2
212. Ka7 Bxc1 213. Kb7 Bb2 214. Kb8 h2 215. Kb7 f5 216. Kb6
Ke5 217. Kc6 f4 218. Kb5 f3 219. Kb6 a2 220. Kb7 f2 221. Kc8
f1=B 222. Kb7 g1=B 223. Kb8 h1=B 224. Kb7 c1=N 225. Kc6 a1=B
226. Kd7 Nd5 227. Ke8 Ne7 228. Kxe7 Nd3 229. Kf7 Nc5 230. Ke7
Nd7 231. Kxd7 e3 232. Kd8 e2 233. Kc7 e1=B 234. Kd8 Ba5+
235. Ke8 Bd8 236. Kf8 Be7+ 237. Kxe7 Bb5 238. Kf8 Bd5 239. Ke7
Bb6 240. Kf8 Bd8 241. Kg7 Ba3 242. Kh6 Bf8+ 243. Kh5 Bf7+
244. Kg4 Bf1 245. Kg3 Bd4 246. Kg4 Bf2 247. Kf3 Be1 248. Kg4
Bg6 249. Kf3 Bh5+ 250. Ke3 Bh3 251. Kd3 Bg6+ 252. Kc4 Bd7
253. Kb3 Bb5 254. Ka2 Bda5 255. Kb2 Bfb4 256. Ka2 Bec3
257. Kb3 Bbd3 258. Ka4 Bc2+ 259. Kb5 Be8+ 260. Ka6 Bc6
261. Ka7 Bd3 262. Kb8 Bdb5 263. Kc8 Kd6 264. Kb8 Bf6 265. Kc8
Kd5 266. Kb8 Bd6+ 267. Kc8 Bd7+ 268. Kb7 Bd4 269. Ka8 Bac7
270. Kb7 Bdb6 271. Ka8 Bbc6# 0-1

But is it art?

That's not a "slow, building attack": it's exploiting a known bug/weakness of the engine in closed positions where it thinks it is winning but needs to avoid a draw by the 50-move rule.

It's still impressive, but it's basically just using one trick and he can only do it one game in 50 or so where the computer co-operates by allowing such a closed position.