Comments on: World Chess Challenge: Kramnik vs. Machine

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 02:40:16 +0000

Meanwhile, anyone want to participate in the inaugural Troppo chess challenge – to be played on http://www.freechess.org ?

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 00:32:09 +0000

I thought the monster had Kramnik when I went to bed last night. Kramnik played into a position that I think he thought would favour his style of play, but it became clear very quickly that it favoured Fritz. I expected Fritz to come down the board and squeeze the life out of Kramnik. But he defended well, and came up with a plan - to swap a rook for a bishop and a pawn and then it was easy to draw (for Kramnik that is!) The official blurb on Chessbase says this.

The third game in the National Art Gallery in Bonn, Germany, saw Deep Fritz pressing for win with the black pieces in an Open Catalan. However the world champion defended well and the game ended after 44 moves in a draw.

Play through here if you want.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 06:09:29 +0000

There have been no mate in ones missed by a player at Kramnik's level. But one move which looks worse, where Reschevsky took a pawn with his queen in what would have been mate, but it was guarded by a bishop! It's all very sad as in both games Kramnik got the better of the computer (no mean feat with black in this game) and had winning chances.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 04:59:44 +0000

Well how about game two?

After smoothly gaining the advantage Kramnik continued to play quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. On move 33 he captured on c1, apparently believing that Black was winning easily after 33..Bxc1 34.Nxf8 Qe3. Since that move contains a fatal flaw, 33..Re8 should have been played. Black's queenside pawns would still give him chances. Instead, Kramnik played one of the most unbelievable blunders ever seen at this level of chess, allowing mate in one with a half and hour still on his clock.

Play through the game if you like here.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 06:28:52 +0000

Sorry James. I agree that 'pattern recognition' versus 'raw computing' does beg a few questions. But I've taken the distinction at face value. No doubt more could be said following up the relevant google links, but doing so quickly turns up more of the same kind of question begging implicit assumptions that the distinction isn't particularly problematic. No doubt I'd have more to say with a bit more time on it - but it was a bit of a throwaway line, not a post about patten recognition.

By: James Farrell

James Farrell — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 04:55:01 +0000

But what does ‘recognise patterns’ mean? If that’s the key concept in your post, isn’t it worth spelling out a bit? Does it mean seeing something familiar in a particular configuration and thinking, ‘I’ve come across this situation before, and it lead to the knight taking the bishop four moves later, so I should avoid it while I still can’? If so, does it mean the computers are fed a database past matches which they can scan? If not…