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Machines have taken over chess

Some say it all started with the industrial revolution, others even say the invention of the wheel was a bad idea after all, but it is generally agreed upon that the introduction of digital watches was the beginning of the end of human intellectual supremacy. In the world of chess however, people say that when Kasparov lost |1| to IBM’s Deep Blue |2| in 1997 (capable of calculating 200 million moves per second |3| ), it was all over  for humanity in chess. |4|

The humanity must take a stand right now! A while ago I figured, the hell with the machines I can beat them. They won, so I went back and, and they won again… So for the sake of humanity I prolonged my own ‘Man vs Machine’ epic, which by the way, is prevailed with force majeure by the machine , but every so now and then, there seems a glimpse of hope for humanity after all.. I would call it luck.

Strategy

Nevertheless, there are ways to defeat a chess program like Fritz. Mainly by focusing on long-term and ‘out of book’ strategies that cannot be foreseen by the computer within this short 5 min period, at least not when calculating 1,5 million moves per second. From a strategic perspective, one should concentrate on closed and fairly unorthodox positions that emerge from unusual opening variations. These openings need some finetuning by the way since the computer vastly outperformes by far most of the humans in the opening already, and when you let them dig from the database of more than 3 million games, together with the computing power, you will by definition be comminuted at least several times. Unless your name is Kasparov, or Fisher…

If you go for open or complex positions you will be crushed with brute force like an icecube. I often use the so called Trompovsky attack which I developed on my onw before seeing the opening. Furthermore, winning is also only under the condition one doesn’t make any mistakes, not one! Current day chess programs running on contemporary hardware are far superior in calculating mindboggling tactical combinations that make your head spin like you’ve just drank a PanGalactic Gargleblaster. Yes, even the Kasparov’s and Fisher’s of this world are no match for ‘the machine’ when it comes to brute force calculations…

So, as in my case, strategic pitfalls like the ones below are the only way to win against the machine since they still need to make selections based on some strategic and positional input given by the developers of the algorithms because there are simply too much options to try then all out.

Here are some of the games against the ‘Fritz 10‘ at grandmaster level, playing strength varies from 2400 ELO up to 2800+ ELO points. Most are won by the machine, of course, but since Kaparov’s loss the chess programs have defeated all of the world champions. Humans have lost, Terminators’ rule chess nowadays.

• Engine: Chessbase Fritz
• Hardware: AMD X2 Dual Core 4,4GHz, 1GB RAM
• Stats: time:5 min.; depth: 9ply; 1,5 million moves /s

Fritz 11 (ELO 2700+)

• A.Alajmovic – Fritz 11 (ELO 2700+); 1 – 0
• A.Alajmovic – Fritz 10 (ELO 2622); 1 – 0
• Fritz 10 - A.Alajmovic (ELO 2622); 1/2 – 1/2
• Fritz 10 - A.Alajmovic (ELO 2622); 1 – 0
• Fritz 10 - A.Alajmovic (ELO 2622); 0 - 1
• A.Alajmovic – Fritz 10 (ELO 2501); 1 – 0
• Fritz 10 - A.Alajmovic (ELO 2501); 0 - 1
• A.Alajmovic – Fritz 10 (ELO 2402); 1 – 0

P.S.

|1| And ever since, no human has been able to beat the strongest chess computer program in a tournament play setting. Many of world’s top grandmasters have tried, like Kramnik, Anand and either drew or lost. And Kasparov himself later on drew all the games albeit this time against Deep Fritz 10 and Deep Junior, playing clearly causiously and not taking risks at all. Most probably, the psychological impact of the loss in 1997 played a role…

|2 | IBM’s ‘Monster’ weighted 1,4 tons, had 30 parallel micro-chip processors and was specifically designed to beat Kasparov, or so he claims. One of his complaints were that he didn’t get any access to the computer’s logs while Deep Blue had access to a database of all the games ever recorded in history of chess, including those of Kasparov, so it was capable to retrieve, analyze and improve upon all of the games ever played… Another complaint was that he, as a human, didn’t get any rest and was tired out, while the machine doesn’t have those problems. Some call him just a bad loser. By the way, from a personal point of view I agree with all of Kasparov’s complains.

|3| Note that back then, 200 million of moves were necessary since the chess software was’t that developed so it needed to use ‘brute force’ to achieve that level of play. Nowadays the programs can disregard most irrevant moves by altorithm so the amount of calculations per second doesn’t need to be that high. However, that kind of computing power combined with current day software is vastly superior to humans. And it will stay that way.

|4| My humble Dual Core computer obviously doesn’t have enough computing to reach these levels but it did make it to several draws and even wins over top lever grandmasters!

Related posts:

1. “Think fast. Think under pressure. Think strategically.” Kasparov vs empty suits, 26 – 0
2. Fritz story; The Daclytic Hexameter
3. Magnus The Viking