Thief 1,

Definitely machines are better than humans at calculating. No doubt. Chess has a mathematical side.

However, I am more interested in the human side, the struggle between two wills, and also in the aesthetic or artistic side of chess. The appreciation of beauty, the feelings of a human soul, the computer has no way of replicating.

Computers have an unfair advantage in that they can consult their own internal database; it is in this respect that the fight is unfair. They also do not have a complex spiritual/emotional/mental/physical system, like humans do. Therefore chessgames between humans and machines are unfair, and of no interest to me.

Just as there is no religion in +, there are no "good" and "bad" moves. I only know "good" and "bad" people.

It is not that there are "emotional" moves "filled with soul", but as beings who have emotions, and a soul, everything we do is permeated by our consciousness, or lack of it.

Computers are great calculators, but they don't "play" chess. By definition, a chessplayer is a human being. And the word "human" denotes a complex, complete being, of which the mental aspect is just one part of the being.

You know what SHOULD happen is that chess machines all over the world will go against each other in a Computer Chess World Championship or something. Like people build their own machines and use them to play against others. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

Hi, I would interested in how to best players beat Houdini

Basically, they would have to have ample time to go over all of the variations too. Then they would have to purposely pick moves that take advantages of the programs lack of positional and stategic understanding.

It would be a tall order for anyone. In my opinion, any GM would still most likely lose in a one game scenario. They probably would only win 2 out of 20 with about 5 draws in my opinion.

As I said before, only way to make it fair is to let the GM consult another engine, and then choose the moves he/she likes best.

The only reason GM Anand can beat Houdini 2 pro is he has the program so he study it all the time so he has time to figure the openings strategy and tactics of the program.But if we really put Anand against the strongest program without him buying it and studying it Then he will lose towards it.same to me I own tomany chess program and mostly I beat them all because I study their openings strategy all the time.To me GM Carlsen will lose to Houdini.By the way the older version of Fritz played GM Kramnik and I think he did the same thing as Anand he bought Houdini ahead of time then play it same thing what Kramnik did to Fritz but now the Deep Fritz 10 he has not bought it yet so they I played and lose towards it also.

yes, with the limit strength feauture everything is possible!

This reminds me of the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey". In the movie, computers had gotten so strong that it was virtually impossible for a human to beat them. The computers had to be programmed to "throw" away the occasional game to keep humans interested in playing.

I'm not sure what movie you're describing, but it's not 2001: A Space Odyssey.

How could they spot you?

Doh!

In 2001: A Space Odyssey the HAL9000 computer beat the astronaut at chess but made a small error in talking about the final combination, the first sign that it was breaking down.  Nice posting about it here: http://www.chess.com/article/view/2001-a-chess-space-odyssey

I think it was part of a back story that I remember reading somewhere. I have been trying to find a copy of it but so far I have not been successful. If I find where I read the article, I will let you know.

Clavius describes a minor scene accurately. I've seen the movie about 30 times since around 1970 and I've read the book as well. Pretty sure that other stuff isn't in there anywhere.

Carlsen would destroy Houdini if you give him 20 hours versus Houdini having 30 minutes.

Don't think so, Even if you gave houdini 1 min/game it will win more games than him.

Elo ratings based on Computer vs computer games (the only ones available for software these days) don't correspond exactly to what they would be if humans played against them in rated games. However, as an approximation, each time you cut the engine's thinking time in half this drops its Elo by about 100 points. For Game/30, assuming an average of 40 moves per game, that is about 45 seconds per move so Houdini would lose 200 Elo and play at about the 3100 level on standard, current hardware.  Could Magnus boost his rating more than 250 points if allowed 20 hours per game?  I am quite skeptical.

Hydra the super computer was reemed 6-0 by a correspondence player a few years ago. Granted, the hardware was older, but advances in computer chess and engine algorithims haven't gained much lately. The hardware  however is much stronger. Yet Hydra was a friggin SUPER computer. And it lost back to back to back with 3 white and 3 black and it had equal amount of time to make all moves.

Somehow I missed the match Guardian mentions.  Is there any record somewhere?  

Wikipedia reports: Hydra has, however, been beaten by humans who had access to the advice of other programs during their games; for example, correspondence chessInternational Grandmaster Arno Nickel beat an older version of Hydra in a two-game correspondence match lasting six months. The 32-node version that played against Adams managed to draw Nickel in their third game, which lasted five months and ended in December 2005.

Note that Nickel had access to other computers and was not playing unaided.

FYI, here is a link to a blog about OTB human v computer handicap matches: http://gambit.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/man-vs-computer-match-ends-in-victory-for-man-but-with-a-catch/