Who cares what is better, just switch on Rybka or Fritz whatever. These positions cannot be analyzed by humans. You are wasting your time when you try to do something that even Anand didn't do at home and what Leko was unable to do over the board.

Am I missing something? - Are their opening repertoires so predictable they can start an analysis on a position on move 20something knowing their opponent is going to take the theory that far?

Starting to think Fischer was right about Chess960 being the future of the game - phooey

rb

I don't know you, you might be a smart guy, but your last couple responses are ******ed.

Have you ever done, or witnessed, extensive opening preparation with a team of seconds? None, NONE of the opening novelties are found by computers. NONE. I will repeat one more time in case it was not clear. NONE. They are all found by human beings. Stop overrating the machines, please!

I've had a pleasure to witness some ridiculously extensive opening preparation and I can assure you that computers are being used only as a kind of checks and balances thing, that is to look for simple human errors. I've witnessed multiple times how computers are absolutely unable to grasp the position even if you leave it for them for hours and hours, while human analysis on the board clearly shows that the line is winning due to some deep positional stuff or etc. Computer is always simply a tool - without your own analysis it will not help you much at all.

It was stated on Chessbase today that the novelty was found by Kasim, and I would be surprised if the team of like 5-6 people didn't work their asses of analyzing it before submitting it to Rybka to check if they didn't BLUNDER something simple.

Saying that those positions cannot be analyzed by humans is just such a ridiculous thing to say.. On the board, probably not. At home during an extended time period - most definitely yes. Or is that not fine with you either, as you don't like preparation in general?

Chess trends. The line they played (anti moscow gambit) is currently super trendy and really interesting. It could be next month that another world class player starts playing a new interesting line, everybody saddles up and suddenly they're all playing the same first 20 moves.

Like take for instance the current sharp main line of the slav with 11. .. g5. The position leading up to move 11 was hugely popular about 80 years ago and then just disappeared as it seemed white just 'clearly' had the better of it. Enter year 2000 and Morozevich with his typical creativity comes up with the idea of 11. .. g5!? (which I suspect you can leave rybka on for a week and it still won't be finding it) and suddenly the whole variation is revived. By 2003 or 2004, it was the main line and is now one of the trendiest lines there is. For instance, it was the line played in the recent Carlsen - Wang Yue game.

If you don't want to play these super topical hotly contested theoretical lines you don't have to. In many cases (such as this one), just a few years before - nobody was playing them [at the top level]! Which is why it's so silly when amateurs try to base their opening repertoire around what the world class players are currently playing and then complain about opening theory in chess. Is 1. g3 2. Bg2 3. b3 4. Bb2 refuted? No. It's not a great opening, but it works. If you don't want to play theory, you don't have to.

Over the years we always have 1 GM and 2 IMs on our team. Some of these GMs were 2600+. Of course computers do not find strong novelities, it is a question/answer format. The player enters ideas and lets the engine check them. You look at the list of candidates and scan through moves and evaluations. You look what the engine suggests, then you enter what you think makes sense and so on. The outcome is more like advanced chess - computer assisted humans - than pure computer moves.

I will never claim that Anand just lets Rybka analyze for 10 hours and then plays the exact line. It does not go like that. What he will do is to look for positions where the evaluation changes a few moves later in the sequence though as those are the lines with potential.

In the end this isn't classical analysis like Polugaevsky or Geller used to do, it is working with a computer and the best team of "operators" triumphs. The difference nowadays is not the engine, because they all use Rybka - the computer is the oracle that gives the answers - it is all about the questions you ask.

What I don't like about that game in question is the irrational nature of the whole line. Humans cannot figure this out over the board and it would take them a long time to figure it out with classical methods of analysis. It is all about creating a highly complex position that your opponent has not seen before while you are clearvoyant.

Compare it to analysing a position of Fischer Random Chess and getting that exact piece setup in the game. You know everything and your opponent hardly has a chance. The creative work is not done at the board anymore, it is done at home and not even by the player alone, most of it was done by an engine. What is left from the chess back in the days of Rubinstein and Capablanca or Botvinnik and Smyslov or Fischer and Tal? They all did their homeanalysis also, but with an electronic safety net.

Finally I want to use the analogy to Fischer Random. Yes, the whole variation is like a position from Fischer Random and you don't analyze them either. You accept the outcome and move on, because you know that this position will not occur again. Will this position of the Semi-Slav-Moscov-Gambit ever occur in one of your games? I doubt it...

I don't think this would work for the game in question. Rybka's evaluation will always be about zero when you let it calculate for both colours. To see how difficult the task is for black you have to try to defend it with your own head against the engine.

You underestimate the capabilities of these super grandmasters IMO. The position after 22.Nxd4 plays easy for each player in that tourney for the white side. It was probably more surprising for them to see that black's position is hard to defend but most of these players would have been able to hold it without home preparation, also Leko on a better day.

well, we know from somewhere - (I can't remember where I read it but I definitely read it - prob. on chessbase) that when Anand went into prep for the title match, he and his team went into a room full of computers - like no books - just computers - so the possibility of multiprocessor pc's studying this stuff doesn't surprise me - just that you could so easily predict the line the GM's are gonna follow - this is why I'm glad I'm too dumb to stay in theory for long

RB

update - found the link - http://business.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?262378

it's not like you (even a super-GM "you") can predict how every game goes for the first 15 moves. It's more that there are a small number of extremely popular, extremely fashionable lines and if you prepare a few things in each of them, if you play a 9 game round-robin against other super-GMs you are going to get a couple of chances to show your preparation.

...or lack thereof.

well, round 6 is looking like two wins, two draws, and I think Kramnik should be able to take Rustan down (he's up the exchange) - think I will go to bed

funny thing heard this morning on the Chess FM broadcast was (I paraphrase) - "The Buzz has been all about Carlsen though he's not quite the household name of Anand or Kramnik"

leading me to think, yah, household names - Anand and Kramnik there

Well, they have are/have been world champions, that said I'm sure some people still think Kasparov/Fischer is

What in the world is with Kramnik. The man is just an absolute beast. He's just been playing insanely sharp tossing material for the initiative any chance he can get. Wouldn't it be something if all his complaining about being sick during every tournament for the past 5 years was actually true.

I'm sure you'll also like Kramnik's game today much more than Anand's Shandrax . They were out of preparation real fast. Ponomariov left pondering as early as move 8. It's unclear when Kramnik did. He started hitting the tank hard at move 16, but the moves between 8-16 were all pretty simple and forced for the most part.

Well, Kramnik's sickness IS true. He was suffering from rheumatism from 2000 onwards and only was cured in 2006.
The Kramnik-Ponomariov game today was very exciting. So many different stages in the game, really fascinating. One of the best games of the tournament so far.
I also liked Ivanchuk's game today. Very impressive bishops and knights. And he was wearing his mask again.

On a side note, I hate that the sites transmitting the games like Chessdom all have live Rybka evaluation that can't be turned off. It keeps me from thinking myself about the games.

amazing endgame conversion too by Kramnik, it looked like he might have several ways to win the somewhat complicated late middlegame position but instead he exchanged to a R+hP vs B+hP position that I think many GMs wouldn't know is winning, never mind the exact technique, and played it perfectly from there.

http://www.aeroflotchess.com/online/

At first I thought that 15.Bg4, 16.e6, 17. Re1 and 22.Nxd4 was a devasting absolutely unhuman sequence, but then I followed up the theory of this line and it seems that only 22.Nxd4 was the novelity. Anand had the line on the board with black against Radjabov in 2006, so the whole thing is coming down to earth a bit. Anand's novelity is just 1 powerful move and not a sequence of 3 piece sacs in a row.


If the position after 22.Nxd4 is such an easy win for white, why did Radjabov and Kramnik play 22.b4 instead? Radjabov may have had to calculate it over the board, Kramnik on the other hand had 2 years to analyze it.

I'm surprised by the surge of popularity the ragozin/vienna QGD is recieving, is the 5.Bf4 QGD really that much of a nuisance? Especially the Vienna looks quite risky without generating serious winning chances for black...

Everything that doesn't lose by force is a fashionable opening these days. Style or personal preferences do not matter that much anymore, it is all about competitive results.

I don't think you can't say it doesn't generate significantly more winning chances than the more classical queens gambits. Look at the position in Kramnik's game after move 15. Ponomariov wasn't just blown off the board or anything. Without too much analysis I'd almost definitely prefer black there. He had excellent chances himself but Kramnik is just playing insanely strong lately. Compare that to the positions typically arising after 15 moves in a more classical queens gambit.

Yeah but that wasn't the vienna

The Vienna always looks like white can try for a while and if he doesn't get much going he sacs something for a perpetual.

What i was thinking of was that the ragozin was considered dubious ever since Fischer dabbled in it, at least that's what i remember when i looked at his games in the 90s. The Vienna also looked pretty much refuted after some crushing Kasparov attacks (e.g. one against Hjartarson i believe) and Kramnik-style squeezes.

what about this one? http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1250705

also, is this the kasparov game you're thinking of?
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1553500

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070478

i meant this one, quite a nice attack, i like black's desperate attempts to avoid the deadly rooks swing and at the end it somehow just costs the knight on a5 that seemingly hasn't anything to do with it.

any thoughts on carlsens win today? I thought the winning combo was very pretty.

A couple of Carlsen's games including this one have been amongst the most fun to watch - he may not win but he's putting on a good show - LOL

been watching from Chess.fm on ICC as theyr'e usually thru the opening by the tine I get home from work- they do a broadcast during the games and bounce back and forth - they had GM Radinaov commenting today and he was pretty good - made it entertaining

most of the other games were not so hot - I think the Kramnik/Leko game was a virtual repeat of a previous game - and Radinaov was having fun with Aranion for dragging out the rook ending that was drawn - "He might think he can rewrite the rules for rook endings - I think probably not" - LOL

one day left - not sure whether the blitz rounds will offer anything interesting

Expect "Drawnik" instead of Kramnik 2.0 today ( will we see another Petrov? ). The key game to watch is Anand - Aronian to see what the "A-team" has in store. No matter what happens, a memorable tournament so far, including the "masking of Chucky".