World chess championship 2013,disaster or miracle?

[arildno]

What's the point in competing with outdated software??
There is no point in competing with current programs like Stockfish and Houdini, either.

 

[Caveat]

^*World champion outdated software.

Only way someone is beating a computer on that level at chess is by pulling out it's power chord.

 

[arildno]

Why should a world champion in chess be regarded as "outdated software" any more than say an athlete can't compete against a car?

 

[Caveat]

@arildno

The way you worded your question is strange no offense (or maybe I don't get it)

Humans excel at abstract, lateral thinking (imo) whereas with linear and systematic problems, computers and AI outpace and outsmart the best of us (as the Chessmaster computers/software proves)

So are you saying that the computer to a human is like a car to a sprinter? idk imho the game is different, you can't really compare the two

Besides Kasparov won overall against Deep Blue

 

[Chronos]

Modern chess engines are very strong. I suspect the best of them would defeat Carlsen right now. I believe they are already close to making chess obsolete. Personally, I think that is unfortunate.

 

[PeroK]

The human against computer competition is always going to be artificial. Not least because the computer needs no sleep, food or rest between matches. A computer could play a 12-game
world championship match back-to-back with no rest.

On the other hand, computers are allowed to play with a reference library of openings and whatever else on disk. You could argue that this is analogous to a human writing down opening theory and carrying it into the match. Opening theory is far less in the computer's memory than it is in the player's. It's allowed to look up anything it likes while it's playing, while a human is not.

Computers will put an end to competitive chess between humans no more than the bicycle put an end to the foot race!

 

[arildno]

Modern chess engines are very strong. I suspect the best of them would defeat Carlsen right now. I believe they are already close to making chess obsolete. Personally, I think that is unfortunate.

Why would it render chess obsolete??
Once we learn, and internalize, to the chagrin of our vanity, that our much-vaunted "thinking" is nothing more mysterious than processes of somewhat faulty calculations, that is, has no mysterious, otherworldly qualities like "The Soul", we can perfectly well accept that machines can outsmart us, and see that this is to our benefit, rather than threatening our marginalization.

 

[Borek]

Just because every chess program will beat me doesn't mean I can't play chess for a pleasure with similarly dumb opponent.

 

[AlephZero]

I suspect most people don't have any real idea how good professional human players are, let alone computers.

When I was at uni I got "addicted" to Go for a while. One of the uni club members was a Japanese guy who was training to become a professional Go player. His idea of a "gentle warm-up exercise" was to spend an hour playing simultaneous games with 15 or 20 club members, and then play through each game explaining all the mistakes that had been made. The explanations were usually given at a diiferent club meeting, several days after the games were played. And he never made any written notes.

(Note for non-go-players: games are usually of the order of 200 to 400 moves (more moves if the result is close). Playing simultaneous games, he was playing at an average speed of about one move per second, and complaining that his opponents were too slow!

He said it was better for memory training to do that against "average" players, because they made more irrational moves which meant there was more to remember!

 

[arildno]

I suspect most people don't have any real idea how good professional human players are, let alone computers.

The Norwegian newspaper VG made a small statistic on how many of Carlsen's and Anand's moves were among "the top 3" suggestions of Houdini.
Results: Carlsen: 88%, Anand: 84%
For picking the first priority, Carlsen was at 54%, Anand at 52%

While many of these choices are what we call either obvious, or even "forced", this statistic at least shows that "computer chess" isn't really THAT different from "human chess".

 

[arildno]

Speaking about computers, humans and chess, this article in Wall Street Journal is well worth a read:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB40001424052702304337404579209980222399924

 

[Monsterboy]

Speaking about computers, humans and chess, this article in Wall Street Journal is well worth a read:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB40001424052702304337404579209980222399924

Nice

 

[Monsterboy]

One year later ,the unexpected Carlsen-Anand rematch.

 

[lendav_rott]

I was hoping Carlsen would crush him

although chess is kind of boring now with the engines and whatnot. Not nearly as exciting as games from the 19th century and mid 20th century from Spassky, Fischer, Tal, Keres, Spielman etc

 

[Monsterboy]

although chess is kind of boring now with the engines and whatnot. Not nearly as exciting as games from the 19th century and mid 20th century from Spassky, Fischer, Tal, Keres, Spielman etc

Yea ,you are correct to some extent ,what GMs mostly do today is 'remember' what the engines would do (given their situation in the game) ,although engines have helped them get better.

I might be wrong ,i don't know to what extent they understand why the engines make such moves.

 

[lendav_rott]

Lots of discussions about whether chess is a science or an art. One of the best attacking players, Mihhail Tal, said that chess is an art. To him it really was, since he played with his opponents' heads, not caring whether his combinations were 100% foolproof, what he wanted was chaos. Then a player like Fischer, who played extremely positionally while showing off some great tactical skills, his play was very often very sound - there are some moves even the current engines couldn't understand. Nowadays, though, you can't really pinpoint that "something" about a player - sure they are all very talented, have extremely accute memories, but something is missing.

I always considered chess as an art, though, I like to play chess myself and while I do use engines, I mostly analyse games without them and try to understand moves from the human perspective - not to say I don't appreciate soundness in a position, but engine chess is not chess, sorry :(

 

[consciousness]

Anand orchestrated one of the best comebacks I have ever seen.
After being being totally demolished last year, he played the Candidates as if he were deaf to all the criticism he received. Respect!