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If A Computer Solves Chess Will You Quit Playing?

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Avatar of Maria_Mihai
Maria_Mihai
May 21, 2010
0
#101

the story with alekhine... i don't belive it, but it's cool!

Avatar of Gil-Gandel
Gil-Gandel
May 21, 2010
0
#102
bgangioni wrote:
Gil-Gandel wrote:
bigpoison wrote:

What if man solves chess?  Will the computers quit playing?

 There was a short story once where Alekhine, on his deathbed, recounted the story of when he was at the St Petersburg tournament and an old Russian peasant came to his hotel room claiming to have found a way for White to checkmate in twelve moves from the initial position. Alekhine, at first scornful, eventually got the pieces out and let the old man try it out. Twelve moves later he looked at the board in amazement. "Do that again!". The old man obliged. After losing in twelve moves several times over, Alekhine rushed along the corridor to fetch Lasker. Same result. The two grandmasters looked at each other in horror as they realized that chess was now solved...

"And then?" asks the listener. "Then?" whispers Alekhine, almost with his last breath. "Why, we killed him, of course."

Bigpoison and Gil-Gandel, you both made me laugh hard... XD

BTW Gil-Gandel, Is that an elvish name?

Yes, it is. It means "Star-harp" (in Sindarin, if you care) and is the name of a Grey-elf bard I roleplay.

Avatar of zankfrappa
zankfrappa
May 22, 2010
0
#103

Will chess be solved first by a computer or will The Terminator machines
take over first?

Avatar of dannyhume
dannyhume
May 22, 2010
0
#104

Stupid question, clearly chess will be solved first...humans already can't beat computers in chess, but in the future John Connor beat the machines at world domination (at least a draw in spite of their winning position).   

Avatar of DMX21x1
DMX21x1
May 22, 2010
0
#105

No I wouldn't quit playing.  I would just continue to live in fear of computers, more so.

Avatar of bgangioni
bgangioni
May 22, 2010
0
#106
Gil-Gandel wrote:
bgangioni wrote:
Gil-Gandel wrote:
bigpoison wrote:

What if man solves chess?  Will the computers quit playing?

 There was a short story once where Alekhine, on his deathbed, recounted the story of when he was at the St Petersburg tournament and an old Russian peasant came to his hotel room claiming to have found a way for White to checkmate in twelve moves from the initial position. Alekhine, at first scornful, eventually got the pieces out and let the old man try it out. Twelve moves later he looked at the board in amazement. "Do that again!". The old man obliged. After losing in twelve moves several times over, Alekhine rushed along the corridor to fetch Lasker. Same result. The two grandmasters looked at each other in horror as they realized that chess was now solved...

"And then?" asks the listener. "Then?" whispers Alekhine, almost with his last breath. "Why, we killed him, of course."

Bigpoison and Gil-Gandel, you both made me laugh hard... XD

BTW Gil-Gandel, Is that an elvish name?

Yes, it is. It means "Star-harp" (in Sindarin, if you care) and is the name of a Grey-elf bard I roleplay.

Suilad nîn mellon Gil Gandel, Im Dúrflad-en-Dúnlad-en-Celebdor.

Sindarin! I do care. Of all of Tolkien's languages, that's the only one I've studied - a bit. A few years ago, I used to roleplay a knight called Dúrflad (dark-skin, in Sindarin).

It's always nice to meet people who like Tolkien, either his writings or his languages. :)

   :Anar kaluva tielyanna:

Avatar of jesterville
jesterville
May 23, 2010
0
#107

i remember when i pegged a bird while golfing. it was a beautiful drive off the first tee. nice and straight (which i'm not accustomed to hitting). stupid bird flies right into the ball and drops to the ground. the ball bounces back towards me and almost rolls up back onto the tee area.

i decide to hit another ball. slice it off to the right obviously. we then start walking up the fairway to the bird that's just sitting there. as soon as we get close to it it flies away. i think it was just trying to screw me over and faked its injury.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poor Bird...flying along his merry way...harming no one...then being attacked by the most destructive force on the planet (humans)...then to add insult to injury (he was obviously dazed by the hit)...his attacker believes he was just faking his injury...I guess he did not see the internal injuries to his tiny brain...which he died from about 2 hours later...but not before detailing all this to his only baby son...who vowed to seek retribution...till the day he too dies.

...I guess it all depends on your vantage point...Laughing

Avatar of trigs
trigs
May 23, 2010
0
#108
jesterville wrote:

 

i remember when i pegged a bird while golfing. it was a beautiful drive off the first tee. nice and straight (which i'm not accustomed to hitting). stupid bird flies right into the ball and drops to the ground. the ball bounces back towards me and almost rolls up back onto the tee area.

i decide to hit another ball. slice it off to the right obviously. we then start walking up the fairway to the bird that's just sitting there. as soon as we get close to it it flies away. i think it was just trying to screw me over and faked its injury.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poor Bird...flying along his merry way...harming no one...then being attacked by the most destructive force on the planet (humans)...then to add insult to injury (he was obviously dazed by the hit)...his attacker believes he was just faking his injury...I guess he did not see the internal injuries to his tiny brain...which he died from about 2 hours later...but not before detailing all this to his only baby son...who vowed to seek retribution...till the day he too dies.

...I guess it all depends on your vantage point...

lol

Avatar of theoreticalboy
theoreticalboy
May 23, 2010
0
#109

The pony pieces can jump.  That's chess solved for ya.

Regarding the peasant story, I read this line with interest; "Alekhine rushed along the corridor to fetch Lasker."  Are we to take it that Alekhine, Lasker, and others were invited to take rooms in a stately English home for the weekend, and, if so, has anyone informed Agatha Christie there's a murder mystery to be written?

Avatar of zankfrappa
zankfrappa
May 24, 2010
0
#110

According to many GM's chess is a theoretical draw anyway.  It would be
interesting for a computer to confirm those beliefs.

Avatar of FlowerFlowers
FlowerFlowers
May 24, 2010
0
#111

I see what you mean about chess being solved with a computer, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.  I would continue to play because it is a fun activity, why would I work out a math problem if the answer is in the back of the book... the mental exercise is challenging and rewarding.

Avatar of Gil-Gandel
Gil-Gandel
May 27, 2010
0
#112
theoreticalboy wrote:

The pony pieces can jump.  That's chess solved for ya.

Regarding the peasant story, I read this line with interest; "Alekhine rushed along the corridor to fetch Lasker."  Are we to take it that Alekhine, Lasker, and others were invited to take rooms in a stately English home for the weekend, and, if so, has anyone informed Agatha Christie there's a murder mystery to be written?

No, they were in St Petersburg for a chess tournament and staying in a hotel.

Avatar of orangehonda
orangehonda
May 27, 2010
0
#113
Natalia_Pogonina wrote:

In terms of play, there is hardly and difference for a human. Soon engines will be like 3500, i.e. it won't be possible even to draw them. And then only a fight vs an even more stronger engine could prove something...

Well, of course, it would be fun to learn, for instance, that some lines lose by force. However, no one will be able to memorize why that is so.

Exactly.  Some people seem to think solving means it would spit out one perfect game, this is ludicrous.  Also as Natalia said it would be impossible to memorize why a certain line loses by force when before even reaching 10 moves ahead you would be required to know a billion unique lines, or at least a few thousand relevant lines.

It's the same as when you let Rybka go from a depth of 20 to 21 and it changes its evaluation and best move.  You could spend hours trying to figure out why, and gain very little -- and even supposing you did, you would still lose in a real game vs the 2nd best move if your opponent was better than you because the error rate of even top GMs is too high over the course of a whole game.  Of course this difficulty is multiplied when dealing with a "perfect game"  Memorizing a perfect game would do nothing for your ability.

Avatar of dannyhume
dannyhume
May 28, 2010
0
#114

You would have to be a chess genius rather than a genius who plays chess (which is quite different) to memorize the perfect game and its numerable perfect variations (not "innumerable" since chess has been solved for the purposes of this sentence).  

A piece of garbage like Kasparov may be called a chess genius, but he is more like an idiot-savant; outside of chess he knows nothing.

But he hasn't solved chess yet, or maybe he did and it's on his laptop and/or possibly in Magnus' brain.  

Avatar of trysts
trysts
May 28, 2010
0
#115
dannyhume wrote:

You would have to be a chess genius rather than a genius who plays chess (which is quite different) to memorize the perfect game and its numerable perfect variations (not "innumerable" since chess has been solved for the purposes of this sentence).  

A piece of garbage like Kasparov may be called a chess genius, but he is more like an idiot-savant; outside of chess he knows nothing.

But he hasn't solved chess yet, or maybe he did and it's on his laptop and/or possibly in Magnus' brain.  

I take it you don't like Kasparov, dannyhume, or am I missing somethingLaughing

Avatar of dannyhume
dannyhume
May 28, 2010
0
#116
trysts wrote:

I take it you don't like Kasparov, dannyhume, or am I missing something

What?!  I love Kasparov the friendly chess-playing Soviet ghost, who is neither dead nor a Soviet.  

Some of the greatest genius quotes of all time are on this webpage linked below, many of the rest are my posts (just a matter of opinion until a computer solves genius-quotes)...

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer

I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing.


Avatar of trysts
trysts
May 28, 2010
0
#117
dannyhume wrote:
trysts wrote:

I take it you don't like Kasparov, dannyhume, or am I missing something

What?!  I love Kasparov the friendly chess-playing Soviet ghost, who is neither dead nor a Soviet.  

Some of the greatest genius quotes of all time are on this webpage linked below, many of the rest are my posts (just a matter of opinion until a computer solves genius-quotes)...

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer

I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing.


I totally missed the reference, dannyhumeSmile UNBELIEVABLE quote!Laughing

Avatar of Alacron
Alacron
May 28, 2010
0
#118

1) To "solve chess" means that say if you solve with White wins, then no matter what Black plays there will always be a reply such that White will win (aka like a forced win/forced mate in 300/whatever). Of course, the amount of variations would be beyond even the quadrillions or quintillions, as put, in the order of 10^50 or something like that!

2) This means that a) we are a long way from Chess to be solved. Keep in mind that even 10^50 is equal to 100 trillion trillion trillion trillion!! That's 100 x 1 trillion x 1 trillion x 1 trillion x 1 trillion...

Even if this were done (Which it potentially could be) again as mentioned there is little to no impact on human play. Humans simply don't have the capacity to do that sort of mass-scale memorization, and let's face it, what fun is there in such a high-depth memorization? Most human play is strategic with elements of memorization (for openings/endgame tablebases) and that's where the fun in chess lies, that's why humans can continue playing chess even with finite numbers of possible games.

Avatar of Benjiboy
Benjiboy
May 29, 2010
0
#119

i've read a book (14 pages :p) on google books called "chess" by rachel sky where she claimed chess was solved.

she gave a line 25 moves deep, but it didn't look that "solved" to me


Avatar of dannyhume
dannyhume
May 29, 2010
0
#120
trysts wrote:

I totally missed the reference, dannyhume UNBELIEVABLE quote!

Yeah Fischer brings much joy and interest to chess, so I may have to stop bashing him and move him back into my top 3 since genius-quotes directly correlate with player strength, something which I am clearly capable of judging...my own games of course don't count since I only play for complications and play the person not the board from the beginning (and middle and end if I get there)...the price I pay for being a theoretical novelty pioneer.