correspondence players wrongly trusted human moves

[Uri Blass]

15.Nc1 is a human move and probably the first mistake of white in the following game

https://www.iccf.com/event?id=7670


Note that statistics for 15.Nc1 is bad but humans often played that move.

I believe that trusting human moves and ignoring statistics about results that seem to be what part of the correspondence players did is clearly worse than ignoring opening theory and trusting only computer moves more than 10 years ago.

If you use statistics about results in order to decide about the move then it was possible to do it also for engine-engine games in the past so I do not see that human theory was superior to computer theory even more than 10 years ago.


[pgn][Event "240'/40+240'/20+240'"] [Site "?"] [Date "2006.10.23"] [Round "?"] [White "Keith Kitson"] [Black "Uri Blass"] [Result "*"] [ECO "B92"] [Opening "Sicilian"] [Variation "Najdorf, 6.Be2 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.O-O O-O 9.Be3 Be6 10.Qd2"] [TimeControl "40/14400:20/14400:14400"] [Termination "unterminated"] [PlyCount "102"] [WhiteType "human"] [BlackType "human"] {256MB, Fritz8.ctg, URI-PC} 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be2 e5 7. Nb3 Be7 8. O-O O-O 9. Be3 Be6 10. Qd2 Nbd7 11. a4 Rc8 12. a5 Qc7 13. Rfd1 Rfd8 14. f3 h5 15. Nc1 d5 16. Nxd5 Bxd5 17. exd5 Qxc2 18. Qxc2 Rxc2 19. b3 Bd6 20. h3 Kf8 21. Bc4 e4 22. f4 Bc5 23. Bxc5+ Nxc5 24. Ra2 Rxa2 25. Nxa2 Ne8 26. Kf2 h4 27. Rc1 Nd7 28. Be2 Ndf6 29. Nb4 g6 30. Rc4 Nd6 31. Rc7 Rc8 32. Rxc8+ Nxc8 33. Ke3 Ke7 34. Bg4 Na7 35. f5 Kd6 36. fxg6 fxg6 37. Be6 Ke5 38. Bf7 g5 39. Be6 Nb5 40. Kf2 Nh5 41. Bg4 Nf4 42. g3 Nxd5 43. Nxd5 Kxd5 44. gxh4 gxh4 45. Ke3 Ke5 46. Bc8 Nd6 47. Bd7 Nf5+ 48. Kf2 Ne7 49. b4 Kd6 50. Bg4 Kd5 51. Ke3 Kc4 * [/pgn]

[jdart]

Your point is maybe not as clear as it might be, but I think you are referring to the fact that no previous correspondence players (in my DB, anyway) played Nc1, which is a real good indication that a move is bad or at least suboptimal. Some OTB players are good at openings but it is well-known that correspondence players generally really know openings.

--Jon

[Uri Blass]

Your point is maybe not as clear as it might be, but I think you are referring to the fact that no previous correspondence players (in my DB, anyway) played Nc1, which is a real good indication that a move is bad or at least suboptimal. Some OTB players are good at openings but it is well-known that correspondence players generally really know openings.

--Jon

I do not think correspondence players generally know openings.

Note that I never had best hardware in correspondence games but inspite of it I could get the ICCF GM title because my opponents probably also did not have top hardware and they also used the computer for less time than me.

my own moves were usually results of analysis with engines and only in rare cases I chose not to play the computer move and even in that case it was based on computer analysis.

[jdart]

Ok, I get what you are saying. I do think some people rely on computer analysis too much: they expect it to find the "truth" of a position when the resolution of any issues in it is many plies away, and they aren't using enough search time to get an accurate score. But you are right: human move statistics are in many cases even less reliable.

--Jon

[Peter Berger]

This is relevant knowledge, Uri, but it is outdated.

A few months ago I talked with Matthias Kribben about "Fernschach" by accident. I know him in person because of a completely different context and the topic just so happened to come up in discussion. For once I felt pretty knowledgeable and eager to give my opinion, that is +somehow+ similar to yours in general.

I still feel that I know a little more about computerchess than him in general in hindsight, but I came to the conclusion that I'd probably just be able to draw with him at best under reasonable game conditions. People just don't do this anymore, follow random human analysis that never gets challenged seriously. To the contrary, people have probably become just a little too much believers in the verdict of computers, but I haven't been able to test this in practice yet.

Peter