POLL:Man vs Machine ?

[Don]

Hello,

2600 is generic, anyway the difference in strenght between a 2600 and a 2800 is huge. If we consider any kind of GM, of course the machines are clearly dominant.

I agree with that. What is interesting to me is not so much who is better but why they are better. What makes the computer stronger at normal human-like time controls?

Part of the answer has to do with the time controls and why humans play better and better with more time. There is still the tactical vs positional play issue and we might now ask if computers generally outplay humans positionally. I think in general they seem to but their dominance is not so clear in this respect. Computers have this extremely solid style where they do not seem to overlook anything and I don't necessarily mean what we call tactics.

Really there is no such thing as tactics, it's a word we made up to mean not overlooking big things, like obvious wins of material. Computers are good at that but they don't overlook little things either - provided they understand them. That's where they are really dominant and they are so good at it that it seems to cover over their inferior positional understanding faults. You cannot tell they are inferior when they calculate so well.

[Werewolf]

Part of the answer has to do with the time controls and why humans play better and better with more time. There is still the tactical vs positional play issue and we might now ask if computers generally outplay humans positionally.

Related to that comment is the fascinating subject of what strong humans do when they play chess with (say) 10 minutes to think per move. I'm trying to formulate an 'algorithm' for what goes on which is more detailed than what Kotov proposed back in the 70's.

If engines have an algorithm.....why can't humans?

[Sedat Canbaz]

I respect all opinions over this issue,but i think its time to see the real facts

So...in other words,there is only one way-who is right ?!

I challenge any Top GM (including GMs of +2600 Elo) to play with me

I mean,my conditions will be:

Code: Select all

Hardware:i7 980X @4.33GHz
Engine:Houdini/Rybka/Critter
Book:Perfect 16
TC:15m+10s or 60m+15s (i can't accept 120/40,due to we can't produce many games)

Who are interested for a such challenge, please feel free to contact me:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/contact/

Best Regards,
Sedat Canbaz

Hi Sedat,

well you would need money to attract any GM. Don't know how much would be needed to make them interested, but try something like 5000$ for playing, 2000$ for each draw and 5000$ for a win.
And besides that, I am quite sure that if the GM is not trying to win but just going for a draw the difference might be even less then 100 Elo. (I doubt that a human can WIN a longer match these days because it is really not easy to win against those monsters, but I still think that it is easier to make a draw if someone follow let's say Kurt Utzinger rules. That results in some kind of boring chess. Of course you could try to prevent that with some special opening book but I am not sure if that helps nearly as good as it helps in blitz games. Remember: comparing Computer Elo to Human Elo is simply a "no-no".

Greets, Thomas

Just for your interest:

some years ago I played with a quite slow computer (Athlon 1800 MHz) with Quark in the main playing hall of playchess.de. I achieved almost the same results with it against humans then Shredder, Hiarcs or Fritz, partly Quarks result were even better. And that version is definitely 300 or more Elo behind those three engines. Playing engines with an engine and playing humans with an engine is something completely different.

Greets, Thomas

P.S.: Besides that, Kurt Utzinger posted a lot of games in the past against top engines where he could achieve extremely often a draw. Just with playing "boring" eventless chess. It doesn't matter what hardware is used, this is still possible against almost all engines.

Dear Thomas,

Ok...i am ready to donate with a prize:5000 USD,in case of less than 500 Elo Difference

But what about my prize,if there will be more than 500 Elo difference ?!

Who will donate me 5000 USD ???

Actually,we need to find a serious sponsor...

About Kurt Utzinger,
He was a expert on Chessmaster settings and plus he is a good chess annotator
But however Nobody (including Kurt) can't be sure for the power of Top Chess Engines+Perfect book on latest fast hardwares

One thing more,i have a little bit experience too on Playchess server
And during my book testings... i was quite satisfied by the performance of some engines:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/playch ... ober-2009/

Best,
Sedat

[Don]

Part of the answer has to do with the time controls and why humans play better and better with more time. There is still the tactical vs positional play issue and we might now ask if computers generally outplay humans positionally.

Related to that comment is the fascinating subject of what strong humans do when they play chess with (say) 10 minutes to think per move. I'm trying to formulate an 'algorithm' for what goes on which is more detailed than what Kotov proposed back in the 70's.

If engines have an algorithm.....why can't humans?

When I made very rapid improvement in tournament chess I made up algorithms for myself. They were crude but they worked. At my level the primary problem was blunders, so I was determined to avoid blunders as much as possible and had several steps - one of involved doing the equivalent of a 1 ply search (which I did not do in time trouble) and I would ask myself what "good" is there in each legal move? Even the worst moves have something good about them if you use your imagination. This actually helped me play very imaginatively and I found tactics that were not obvious.

But the step that payed off the most was the last step. After getting a candidate move that I was ready to play, I had to convince myself that it was not a blunder (at least not an obvious blunder.) And I allocated a small amount of time checking the most obvious cases such is whether it would now be hanging, is the piece I'm moving defending something that is now vulnerable, can I be checkmated on the spot, etc. No matter how sure I was of the move before these steps I discovered that I still would benefit from doing this anyway. Most of this was trivial stuff, but the trivial will get you well beyond the median tournament player level.

I know this is not what you had in mind, but I think it would be fun to develop a deterministic move playing algorithm that you could "execute" in your brain. A human executed chess program. A computer could "test" the algorithm so you could work out the details. The only problem is that I would bet that you could not consistently execute the algorithm without making an occasional error. After a game you could check with a computer to see if you made any errors!

Such a human executed program would be very weak - but maybe it would still be over 1200 level. An enhanced version of such a program would incorporate some human judgement and might be much stronger.

[MM]

I respect all opinions over this issue,but i think its time to see the real facts

So...in other words,there is only one way-who is right ?!

I challenge any Top GM (including GMs of +2600 Elo) to play with me

I mean,my conditions will be:

Code: Select all

Hardware:i7 980X @4.33GHz
Engine:Houdini/Rybka/Critter
Book:Perfect 16
TC:15m+10s or 60m+15s (i can't accept 120/40,due to we can't produce many games)

Who are interested for a such challenge, please feel free to contact me:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/contact/

Best Regards,
Sedat Canbaz

Hi Sedat,

i like your challenge but i think you don't need to produce many short games instead of few long games.

I think it would be better the opposite, then few (relative few) games at long time control.

Consider that in 10 different days you can have at least 10/12 long games.

I know statistically 10/12 games don't proove anything...but they are a trend. For example, if the match finishes 11,5 - 0,5 in favour of the machine, everybody would have an idea of the difference in strenght.

I think 15' +10'' or even 60'+15'' are time control that don't allow strong Gms to have enough time to produce the best of their play.
Machines do not feel time pressure.
Humans do

My personal opinion.

Best Regards

[Werewolf]

Part of the answer has to do with the time controls and why humans play better and better with more time. There is still the tactical vs positional play issue and we might now ask if computers generally outplay humans positionally.

Related to that comment is the fascinating subject of what strong humans do when they play chess with (say) 10 minutes to think per move. I'm trying to formulate an 'algorithm' for what goes on which is more detailed than what Kotov proposed back in the 70's.

If engines have an algorithm.....why can't humans?

When I made very rapid improvement in tournament chess I made up algorithms for myself. They were crude but they worked. At my level the primary problem was blunders, so I was determined to avoid blunders as much as possible and had several steps - one of involved doing the equivalent of a 1 ply search (which I did not do in time trouble) and I would ask myself what "good" is there in each legal move? Even the worst moves have something good about them if you use your imagination. This actually helped me play very imaginatively and I found tactics that were not obvious.

But the step that payed off the most was the last step. After getting a candidate move that I was ready to play, I had to convince myself that it was not a blunder (at least not an obvious blunder.) And I allocated a small amount of time checking the most obvious cases such is whether it would now be hanging, is the piece I'm moving defending something that is now vulnerable, can I be checkmated on the spot, etc. No matter how sure I was of the move before these steps I discovered that I still would benefit from doing this anyway. Most of this was trivial stuff, but the trivial will get you well beyond the median tournament player level.

I know this is not what you had in mind, but I think it would be fun to develop a deterministic move playing algorithm that you could "execute" in your brain. A human executed chess program. A computer could "test" the algorithm so you could work out the details. The only problem is that I would bet that you could not consistently execute the algorithm without making an occasional error. After a game you could check with a computer to see if you made any errors!

Such a human executed program would be very weak - but maybe it would still be over 1200 level. An enhanced version of such a program would incorporate some human judgement and might be much stronger.

Don,
I would LOVE to speak to more about this because I've also made quite a jump recently in elo and some of my ideas sound vaguely similar to yours.

A month ago I posted about a 'Residual Image' problem I was having. I've read Nikolai Krogius' book on this and he suggests asking the question: "What has changed on the board?" (i.e. to do with legal moves) after every 1 ply of search in your head. I tried it and....well it helped a lot.

Here's another idea I actually developed from a comment Vas made a couple of years ago:

Premise 1: Strong players (>2200 elo) play well and rarely blunder.
Premise 2: Strong players blunder regularly against top engines

False conclusion 1: Humans don't concentrate well against machines, they don't take the game seriously
Better conclusion 2: Super accurate play from the machine induces blunders from humans

Action taken by me: Develop an extensive repertoire that leads to complex positions (well known to me) that require accurate play.
Result observed: It's amazing how even strong players will quickly go astray. In a bad position they are prone to blundering if they under pressure.

[Sedat Canbaz]

Hello,

2600 is generic, anyway the difference in strenght between a 2600 and a 2800 is huge. If we consider any kind of GM, of course the machines are clearly dominant.

I agree with that. What is interesting to me is not so much who is better but why they are better. What makes the computer stronger at normal human-like time controls?

Part of the answer has to do with the time controls and why humans play better and better with more time. There is still the tactical vs positional play issue and we might now ask if computers generally outplay humans positionally. I think in general they seem to but their dominance is not so clear in this respect. Computers have this extremely solid style where they do not seem to overlook anything and I don't necessarily mean what we call tactics.

Really there is no such thing as tactics, it's a word we made up to mean not overlooking big things, like obvious wins of material. Computers are good at that but they don't overlook little things either - provided they understand them. That's where they are really dominant and they are so good at it that it seems to cover over their inferior positional understanding faults. You cannot tell they are inferior when they calculate so well.

Sure that the difference is huge between 2600 and 2800 Elo

But however,it seems many of the chess friends dont care a lot about the speed of the processors and the strenght of opening books

Just i'd like to mention again that the hardware speed is very important factor

For example,980X @4.33GHz is approx.3 times faster than Quad 2.40GHz:

Code: Select all

Hardware-Processor        Speed      Cores     kN/s
Intel Core i7 980X      @ 4.33 GHz     6      18709
Intel Core 2 Q6600        2.40 GHz     4       6771

*The hardware Elo difference is expecting to be approx.130-150 Elo


Another very important note is that:the power of the opening books

Even exactly on same equal conditions (exception books),we can see huge different Elo standings

I have no much free time to post all my book tournament links,but here is the latest one:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/scct-super-league/


Hope this helps


Best,
Sedat

[MM]

Hello,

2600 is generic, anyway the difference in strenght between a 2600 and a 2800 is huge. If we consider any kind of GM, of course the machines are clearly dominant.

I agree with that. What is interesting to me is not so much who is better but why they are better. What makes the computer stronger at normal human-like time controls?

Part of the answer has to do with the time controls and why humans play better and better with more time. There is still the tactical vs positional play issue and we might now ask if computers generally outplay humans positionally. I think in general they seem to but their dominance is not so clear in this respect. Computers have this extremely solid style where they do not seem to overlook anything and I don't necessarily mean what we call tactics.

Really there is no such thing as tactics, it's a word we made up to mean not overlooking big things, like obvious wins of material. Computers are good at that but they don't overlook little things either - provided they understand them. That's where they are really dominant and they are so good at it that it seems to cover over their inferior positional understanding faults. You cannot tell they are inferior when they calculate so well.

Sure that the difference is huge between 2600 and 2800 Elo

But however,it seems many of the chess friends dont care a lot about the speed of the processors and the strenght of opening books

Just i'd like to mention again that the hardware speed is very important factor

For example,980X @4.33GHz is approx.3 times faster than Quad 2.40GHz:

Code: Select all

Hardware-Processor        Speed      Cores     kN/s
Intel Core i7 980X      @ 4.33 GHz     6      18709
Intel Core 2 Q6600        2.40 GHz     4       6771

*The hardware Elo difference is expecting to be approx.130-150 Elo


Another very important note is that:the power of the opening books

Even exactly on same equal conditions (exception books),we can see huge different Elo standings

I have no much free time to post all my book tournament links,but here is the latest one:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/scct-super-league/


Hope this helps


Best,
Sedat

Hi Sedat,

yes, i know hardware and opening book gives plus elo.
But basically a huge hardware is devastating against a small hardware. Much less devastating against a superGM.
Why?
Because two engines supported by very different HW make a battle of tactics and the one who has the better HW triumphs almost always.

In matches Engines vs Humans, if the engine has a limited chess knowledge, you can give it a 20 times stronger hardware and that engine will probably keep on missing the correct positional manouevres, because it has a limited sensibility for the positional play and the add of calculation power hardly can compensate it (it depends by the position and the depth of the position anyway).
And this is very important because in match human vs engine, the human being should and must try to drive the game into a positional strategical direction, in which engines have the main difficulties.

So the difference in elo that you showed in your scheme, are obviously right, but they are related to machines vs machines, not to machines vs humans.

Basically: if engine A, with super HW and elo 3500 is 350 elo stronger than engine B, with small HW, and this same engine B has the same elo of Carlsen, we are not allowed to say that engine A is 350 elo stronger than Carlsen, for the reasons i just explained.

As regards the opening book, it is different. The impact of an opening book, if made very well, can make you win a game so i would say that it is very important.

Thank you.

Best Regards

[Don]

Hello,

2600 is generic, anyway the difference in strenght between a 2600 and a 2800 is huge. If we consider any kind of GM, of course the machines are clearly dominant.

I agree with that. What is interesting to me is not so much who is better but why they are better. What makes the computer stronger at normal human-like time controls?

Part of the answer has to do with the time controls and why humans play better and better with more time. There is still the tactical vs positional play issue and we might now ask if computers generally outplay humans positionally. I think in general they seem to but their dominance is not so clear in this respect. Computers have this extremely solid style where they do not seem to overlook anything and I don't necessarily mean what we call tactics.

Really there is no such thing as tactics, it's a word we made up to mean not overlooking big things, like obvious wins of material. Computers are good at that but they don't overlook little things either - provided they understand them. That's where they are really dominant and they are so good at it that it seems to cover over their inferior positional understanding faults. You cannot tell they are inferior when they calculate so well.

Sure that the difference is huge between 2600 and 2800 Elo

But however,it seems many of the chess friends dont care a lot about the speed of the processors and the strenght of opening books

Just i'd like to mention again that the hardware speed is very important factor

For example,980X @4.33GHz is approx.3 times faster than Quad 2.40GHz:

Code: Select all

Hardware-Processor        Speed      Cores     kN/s
Intel Core i7 980X      @ 4.33 GHz     6      18709
Intel Core 2 Q6600        2.40 GHz     4       6771

*The hardware Elo difference is expecting to be approx.130-150 Elo


Another very important note is that:the power of the opening books

Even exactly on same equal conditions (exception books),we can see huge different Elo standings

I have no much free time to post all my book tournament links,but here is the latest one:
http://www.sedatcanbaz.com/chess/scct-super-league/


Hope this helps


Best,
Sedat

The most effective way, in my opinion, to measure the difference in humans and computers can be done at any time control. You simply turn off pondering and play time handicap games. I would recommend that the computer be rigged not to move faster than it normally would anyway. So if the time control is 40/30 minutes and the handicap is that the computer play 40/5 minutes, that is a 6 to 1 handicap. So if the computer has a move ready in 5 seconds it should "wait" for 30 seconds, that is 6x longer, to return the move. Of course the interface or the computer can be rigged to return the move.

The reason for this is that humans can be upset by pace. If the computer is playing instantly the human is still be robbed of time and most humans can be provoked into playing too fast if their opponent is playing fast.

Once you have established a baseline of equivalence, you can extrapolate pretty easily. In fact you don't need a top player, just get a strong player who is 200-400 below the top players who is willing to play a lot of games, or better yet get a number of players over 2400 willing to do this but who have well established ratings. We need to do something like this because we are getting the point where we don't really have reliable data on how strong computer are compared to humans - this would at least give us a good reference point.

[Sedat Canbaz]

Hi Sedat,

yes, i know hardware and opening book gives plus elo.
But basically a huge hardware is devastating against a small hardware. Much less devastating against a superGM.
Why?
Because two engines supported by very different HW make a battle of tactics and the one who has the better HW triumphs almost always.

In matches Engines vs Humans, if the engine has a limited chess knowledge, you can give it a 20 times stronger hardware and that engine will probably keep on missing the correct positional manouevres, because it has a limited sensibility for the positional play and the add of calculation power hardly can compensate it (it depends by the position and the depth of the position anyway).
And this is very important because in match human vs engine, the human being should and must try to drive the game into a positional strategical direction, in which engines have the main difficulties.

So the difference in elo that you showed in your scheme, are obviously right, but they are related to machines vs machines, not to machines vs humans.

Basically: if engine A, with super HW and elo 3500 is 350 elo stronger than engine B, with small HW, and this same engine B has the same elo of Carlsen, we are not allowed to say that engine A is 350 elo stronger than Carlsen, for the reasons i just explained.

As regards the opening book, it is different. The impact of an opening book, if made very well, can make you win a game so i would say that it is very important.

Thank you.

Best Regards

Dear Maurizio,

Not at all...its my pleasure

Actually i agree with some of your notes,but however not with all

Especially i dont agree with you about the hardware speed's factor

Believe me,the hardware speed is playing a big role,if we are talking about Man vs Machine

I know that in 1990 years, the egines were weaker...but remember also that the hardwares were much slower too

I think this is one of the main reasons/factors about why in 1990 years GMs were stronger than the Machines

Some notes about the previous played matches-Man vs Machine:

1)In 1990 years = GMs were stronger than Chess Engines
2)In the early of 2000 years = GMs were equal to Chess Engines
3)In 2003/2004/2005/2006 = Chess Engines performed approx. 190 Elo better than GMs
4)Now we are in 2012 = We have Houdini,Rybka,Critter and much faster hardwares than the past


Kind Regards,
Sedat