Artificial intelligence was a big idea with the advent of computers and many early developers dreamed of creating algorithms that could emulated human intelligence, and the classic game of chess was a perfect arena. But long long ago everyone switched to brute force number crunching. There are no engines that play like humans because the way they play is fundamentally different. Just like calculators aren't mathematicians, there's simply an input and an output. Instead of playing chess engines today number crunch because that's what gave (and continues to give) the fastest results. Computer AI as applied to chess is still (relatively) unexplored.
Which Engine Plays Like Human?
Sort:
As a computer science major, I have to agree with orangehonda... IBM was more worried about proving they can create a program that can beat any human, to prove that technology has no limits when it comes to meeting and surpassing human achievements.
I believe once the world tires of WC-destruction via cold calculation (which will inevitably happen) that programmers will start to be more interested in seeing if they could create a chess computer with human-like ways of thinking... and then see if they can make it beat the World Champions :)
Progress also needs to be made in understanding how chess champions think. I think that a true human-like AI will have to start off simple and then learn from there, just like humans. It would have to store databases of games that it has played, and it would have to "read" games and books to acquire more insight into the game. Since its still a computer and is incredibly fast, it would probably do this better than most of us ;)
I didn't like the way Chessmaster GM played and bought Shredder 12. Much more like a human player than Chessmaster. Try the demo, it's free.....See what you think..
Shredder.com
Does shredder also have personalities with set ratings. I'd also be interested in playing against a computer that simulates various players with different ratings/etc to measure my progress.
BacteriaInfection wrote:
Does shredder also have personalities with set ratings. I'd also be interested in playing against a computer that simulates various players with different ratings/etc to measure my progress.
From my experience with Fritz and Chessmaster their "simulation" is to drop a pawn or knight in the first few moves then play at GM level through the middle game and finish with an ok endgame (I don't have to tell you this is not very realistic). Rigamagician says before this post that Shredder isn't as prone to this... but even if it's a little prone, it's very disappointing. Just a heads up.
Yeah, but I was thinking about buying another engine since I have a very very old copy of chessmaster and this is a feature I'd like to try.
What about Fritz 12. Anyone know if it has the personalities or elo modifiers like shredder mentioned above?
One difference between Chessmaster 10 and Fritz 12 (I have both), is that Fritz can resign, Chessmaster play until you checkmate him. Chessmaster has different personalities, with ratings between 600 to chessmaster 2900+. Fritz just have option to alter his playing style and strength to match your skill.
I did not play Fritz very much, so I do not know how it works. But chessmaster sucks. His idea of weak play is to give you 4 pieces for free in first 5 moves.
Not one machine can simulate Tal. As Lasker said once, you do not play only vs pieces on board. You play vs person too. If I know that my friend is week when I pin pieces, I will do that every time even if it is not best move at the moment.
When Tal sacrifice a piece, you must be worried. Because that is Tal! Even if it is unsound, it is Tal!! I did not see that engine have different styles of play, that match GM's in the list of personalities.
Mar 5, 2010
0
#11
Fritz plays more humanlike in sparring mode than Chessmaster. Hiarcs, which comes with the Fritz GUI, has long been considered more humanlike than most other engines. Orangehonda's comments are on the mark for the most part, but at the 2200 level (or even 1800, but not below 1600), Hiarcs is a good sparring partner that resembles human play relatively well.
orangehonda wrote:
BacteriaInfection wrote:
Does shredder also have personalities with set ratings. I'd also be interested in playing against a computer that simulates various players with different ratings/etc to measure my progress.
From my experience with Fritz and Chessmaster their "simulation" is to drop a pawn or knight in the first few moves then play at GM level through the middle game and finish with an ok endgame (I don't have to tell you this is not very realistic). Rigamagician says before this post that Shredder isn't as prone to this... but even if it's a little prone, it's very disappointing. Just a heads up.
I have played a couple of hundred games with Shredder and never had it drop a pawn in the opening.
Today I just played against Crafty 19.19 for the first time. I was surprised with it's strength and speed of calculation. I set the rating to 2300+ and I was beaten for the first 5 games (still 10 minute rated games) so easily. But then came the surprise...
In the last game Crafty inaccurately (imo) responded to my off-book 3...Bg4 with 4.cxd5?! so then he had to choose between having an isolated pawn (5.exf3) or having his king "trapped" in the center (5.gxf3). After the game I run Fritz engine and in the beginning both engines prefer having isolated pawn tho with time it seems they prefer to take the knight with g-pawn instead of e-pawn. Because this was a quick game, I guess 5.exf3!? was mistakenly considered the best move by the engine.
But the big surprise was on the 8th move. Shredder's average thinking time during the first 7 moves is less than 10 seconds but on his 8th move he took 7 minutes 5 seconds!!! But he found the correct answer (which is not too difficult). But it didn't help because he soon lost on time. Yuks.
I am not sure what the engine should have done on move 4, on move 5 I would have played exf3 myself.
short answer: none
I have Chessmaster 10th Edition, I think that especially grandmasters simulation is poor...
channet wrote:
no engines will ever reach human style of play,they will only rely on algorithmic calculation setting up score,difference btween and engine or pc is that pc or engine can calculate with precise accuracy or fast than human although human can do it but no average man can beat it unless ur r supergm and even an average or below average can beat engine at any skill level(unless ur well versed in chess) ie an engine have limitations in it thinking ie intellectual process wether artificial or any other it only respond according to the program set in algorithmic form,but a normal person most should be atleast some +1 above average will have no limitations in its intelligence of thinking,even there were some effort for developing programs or pc that think like human but it still lacks complete human capability,it might get atleast 10 to 20 percent of us, but major part of us cant simulate artificially,problem arose when people say c fritz,shredder defeated master or some others we say it bettered human,but the fact is that human might have lost ot its accuracy in precise calculation and not intellect,nothing is going to beat human unless we r deprived of brain...............comparing rating they may have higher or lower rating than a champ does but but we cant take it to skill level of human playr,human alway have their psycological point of view hindering or motivating game ,but these stupid engines doesnt hve any emotions to bother and will out play us forsometime
Some editing would help here, it's not so much a language problem as an issue of organizing thoughts. I cannot make sense of this passage.
I was so happy to find out that Chessmaster GM Edition has those personalities (fictitious players) with interesting playing styles. That motivated me to use the software to improve my chess, because I don't play with human except in tournaments. So I started with playing against Lori (2210). It took me 3 days (more than 100 games) to really outplay her (I play 10 minute rated games). I was a bit dissapointed but she's just 2210 so I moved on. But when playing other higher rated players I couldn't hide my dissapointment. I believe that a human player will not play weak lines in the opening. Also the positional judgement from the engine was quite strange imo. If the rating is equivalent with FIDE, I don't believe masters have that level of skill. I tried to find a quality (win) game that I will annotate but I'm not interested when my opponent make a "stupid" mistake in the first place, tho it is only a weak line in the opening.
My question is, is there any engine that can play like human, and the rating is comparable to human rating?