Supercomputer slays U.K.'s top chess player

TalkBack 4 of 6:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

The human advantage

The problem for chess computers is that all the possible games are incalculable. A computer cannot be programmed to solve chess by looking at all potential moves in all possible positions.
Approaches have to be selected without complete knowledge of the outcomes.

Chess computers were once developed on parallel tracks. The first was brute force, move-crunching, based on only simple priorities for moves to be examined. The second was more human-like, making guesses based on principles and understanding of positions.
Believe it or not, computers proved far better at brute force than at understanding.

A chess master once described strategy as what you do when there's nothing to do.

For a human to beat a move-cruncher, the essential aspect is avoiding obviously likely moves to crunch. That leaves the computer to waste a lot of time on ineffectual continuations.

One person is still beating another. The grandmaster is beating the programmer of the move selection prioritization process.

The problem is, the faster the computer, the more moves that can be crunched, the worse the grandmaster has to outfox the move prioritizer.

Because the human advantage is with nothing happening, expect a lot of very dull games for the human to win.

Adams plays very interesting chess. That doomed him.

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 07/01/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More? A Few Small Changes May Dramatically Increase Your Efficiency VMware Companies have rapidly adopted server virtualization over the past few ... Download Now
• Building the Virtualized Enterprise with VMware Iinfrastructure VMware VMware virtualization software has been adopted by over 120,000 enterprise ... Download Now
• The Impact of Virtualization Software on Operating Environments VMware Today's use of virtualization technology allows IT professionals to ... Download Now