November 11, 2003
THE ONE IN THE DRY SHIRT:
He Beat Us All: Against Kasparov, any machine is better than I was. (BRIAN M. CARNEY, November 11, 2003, Wall Street Journal)
Starting today in New York, Garry Kasparov, the world's best human chess player, is to play four games against X3D Fritz, the world's best computer player. And while this week's match will be billed as another round of "man vs. machine," Mr. Kasparov is a chess-playing machine of a sort too. I should know; last month in London, I faced the Kasparov machine over the board. I lost.But this was no fair fight, one-on-one. That night, he played 24 games simultaneously against me and 23 other players in what is known in chess circles as a "simul." He beat us all.
In a simul, the boards are positioned around the edge of the room, and the grandmaster (it usually is a grandmaster, the highest title short of world champion a chess player can obtain) walks around the center of the room, making a single move in each game before proceeding to the next board, circling until all the opponents have been dispatched.
I was checkmated on move 27; Mr. Kasparov had moved on to examine the position on the board to my left before I'd even realized that the game was over. The last holdout, a semiprofessional local player, lasted less than 20 moves longer.
In three hours, Mr. Kasparov dispatched 24 opponents without ever stopping to sit down or sip from the tea or water left for him in the center of the room. Someone asked him afterward whether he found the experience exhausting. "If it is a hard day, the shirt is wet," he said, tugging at an unrumpled light-blue dress shirt. "Tonight, the shirt is dry." And he tucked into his dinner.
Went to summer camp with the #1 ranked under-18 player in Montreal--he used to beat us blindfolded. He stunk at Rock-Scissor-Paper though... Posted by Orrin Judd at November 11, 2003 7:02 PM
Kasparov used to regularly give simuls against 20 or so players of International Master caliber - and win them all.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at November 11, 2003 7:52 PMSo did Fischer. Back before he went nuts.
Kasparov v. computer at his age isn't fair. Chess players peak at 26; the USCF did a study on that a decade ago, and I remember thinking, I'm ten years from senility?
Posted by: Chris at November 12, 2003 11:05 AMDid Kasparov get to study X3D Fritz's previous games?
Posted by: Benjamin at November 12, 2003 1:20 PMSimultaneous blindfold exhibitions have become almost commonplace among grandmasters -- and have been for a long time. George Koltanowski, to take one example, gave such exhibitions well into his eighties.
The chess matches between Kasparov and computer gives fodder to diehards (like me) who refuse to accept the "man is a machine" argument. Chess computers are fantastic at calculating combinations, or forced sequences of moves. Where they are notably less successful is spotting familiar configurations and evaluating positional strengths and weaknesses, i.e., the less tangible factors.
This would bear out Roger Penrose's argument (see The Emperor's New Mind for fascinating details) that man-made machines must function in accord with Newtonian physics, whereas the way our minds operate seems to be more in the realm of quantum phenomena.
Posted by: Josh Silverman at November 12, 2003 6:22 PMThe Deep Blue team "cheated" - using raw power to compensate for no intuition.
It's the equivalent of proving that a tractor can pull a greater load than a human.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 13, 2003 7:11 AMThat's "Rock Paper Scissors"' not "Rock Scissors Paper"' OJ! You'll never pick up chicks playing RPS if you don't even speak the lingo.