cracraft@hyper-sun1.jpl.nasa.gov (Stuart Cracraft) (06/11/88)
Now that there has been a "settling in" period, when people have been able to digest the recent news, it seems advisable to put it in perspective. A brief retrospective: Two new chess machines played in an Eastern U.S. chess tournament against 18 masters and a few experts and class players. While the performance of the machines, especially one of them which came in 2nd in the tournament with a performance rating of over USCF 2500, is laudable, an inspection of the games reveals that many of the machine's human opponents sacrificed pawns and exchanges needlessly. This style of play against an unknown opponent (the machine) by players would seem to indicate a level of contempt that is generally self-defeating. Discomforting is the fact that several of these players had faced very powerful computer programs earlier in their careers, almost always scoring a plus. The players who indicate contemptuousness end up taking unordinary risks and generally underestimating most of their opponent's moves; this lowers their quality of play and greatly degrades their performance. So, while I think the performance of the 2nd-runner and its predecessor is quite good, I also feel that players will be "on-guard" even more so in the future and that this incident does not mean a lessening of human chess; rather, it is a call to arms so that we may all regard our opponent with more respect. Stuart
erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) (06/13/88)
In article <6998@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>, cracraft@hyper-sun1.jpl.nasa.gov (Stuart Cracraft) writes: > This style of play against an unknown opponent (the machine) by players > would seem to indicate a level of contempt that is generally self-defeating. Now maybe this is already done, and my ignorance will get me a swift boot to the ego, but... Why not play these games double-blind? Not being an avid chess player, there may be lots of reasons that this wouldn't work that don't occur to me at this moment... Problems: 1. Players able to tell by "style" that they're playing a computer(?) I know this is true for most any computerized wargame/combat simulation. 2. Undue discomfort for the human players by not being able to see *any* opponent ever. Always playing a "black-box" human flunkie/motorized chess piece mover. (See benefit #1) Benefits: 1. Above discomfort would be spread equally against all opponents this was the point in the first place: create an equal level of discomfort for those playing humans. (Discomfort could be nonexistant for each therefore equal.) 2. Um.. Um.. Oh well. It was just a thought... -- Know Future Skate UNIX or go home, boogie boy... J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007 ..!bellcore!tness1!/