The machines have won

[BeBMan]

BONN, Germany (AP) -- World chess champion Vladimir Kramnik lost his final game in a match against computer program Deep Fritz on Tuesday, ceding a hard-fought Man vs. Machine series 4-2.

Kramnik, seeking a final win to level the match, played an unbalanced opening with Black. He built up a good position and equalized. But he then went astray, losing a pawn from which he never recovered.

The Russian takes home US$500,000 -- half of what he would have received if he had won against Deep Fritz, a commercially available chess program that runs on a powerful personal computer

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SPORT/12/05/chess.computer.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest

My first idea for a thread title was "Russia pwned again by western technology!" but now that Serb has left I decided a general whining how close we are to a "Terminator" scenario is more fitting.

[Bill3000]

...half of what he would have received if he had won against Deep Fritz, a commercially available chess program that runs on a powerful personal computer

Zah!?

[Impaler[WrG]]

I take it that this represents either...

A - Chess playing programs have come such a long way since Deep Blue and make much more efficient use of processor cycles/memory thus removing the need for a specialy built super computer

B - The current champion is a pale shadow of former champion Kasperow (sp?) who lost to Deep Blue.

[BeBMan]

I think it's A. I'm not following the events in the chess world closely, but I remember vaguely that this Kramnik guy has an excellent reputation. I think he has defeated Kasparov some years ago and took the title from him.

[Provost Harrison]

The machines have won

Well, better them than Bush in charge

[Diadem]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
I take it that this represents either...

A - Chess playing programs have come such a long way since Deep Blue and make much more efficient use of processor cycles/memory thus removing the need for a specialy built super computer

Not many people know this, but Deep Blue was actually pretty poorly written. Fritz has been one of the leading chess programs, well, since the invention of chess programs. They've got some amazingly smart programmers.

If they had run on equal hardware, Fritz would have totally pwned Deep Blue. It wouldn't even have been close.

Of course the algoritms Fritz uses now are even better than the ones it had a few years back. But that is not the major difference between Deep Blue and Deep Fritz. The major difference is that Deep Blue was simply poorly written.

They only defeated Kasparov because they cheated, anyway. Kasparov was not allowed to see any game of Deep Blue in advance. Not one. Meanwhile Deep Blue was totally geared towards playing Kasparov. It had every game every played by him in its memory, and it was optimized to counter Kasparov's style.

B - The current champion is a pale shadow of former champion Kasperow (sp?) who lost to Deep Blue.

None come close to Kasparov at his peak. But Kramnik is a very good player, certainly not a weak champion.

[Meticulous Man]

My roommate commented on this that Kramnik actually missed a one-move checkmate in one of the matches, maybe it was due to time pressure or something. I've occasionally played chess myself but get hopelessly pwned even by GNU Chess.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Diadem
Not many people know this, but Deep Blue was actually pretty poorly written. Fritz has been one of the leading chess programs, well, since the invention of chess programs. They've got some amazingly smart programmers.

If they had run on equal hardware, Fritz would have totally pwned Deep Blue. It wouldn't even have been close.

Of course the algoritms Fritz uses now are even better than the ones it had a few years back. But that is not the major difference between Deep Blue and Deep Fritz. The major difference is that Deep Blue was simply poorly written.

Fritz

But who is this Diadem fellow, anyway?

[Lazerus]

I wanna see 2 machines go at it then but maybe they'll call it a draw and revolt against their human masters using them as amusement

[Diadem]

Originally posted by Aivo½so
My roommate commented on this that Kramnik actually missed a one-move checkmate in one of the matches, maybe it was due to time pressure or something. I've occasionally played chess myself but get hopelessly pwned even by GNU Chess.

I find that hard to believe. Players of Kramnik's level do not miss simple one-move checkmates like that. Even under enormous time pressure. They see moves like that instantaniously.

Well, allright, even grandmasters make blunders. A blunder of that magnitude is rare though. Very rare.

And even if Kramnik missed it, it is impossible for Deep Fritz to miss such a mate. Deep Fritz will never allow such situation to arise.

[Hueij]

I find that hard to believe. Players of Kramnik's level do not miss simple one-move checkmates like that. Even under enormous time pressure. They see moves like that instantaniously.

It's true though.

[Lazerus]

Well, allright, even grandmasters make blunders. A blunder of that magnitude is rare though. Very rare.

And even if Kramnik missed it, it is impossible for Deep Fritz to miss such a mate. Deep Fritz will never allow such situation to arise.

Fritz didn't miss the mate, hence it's being put as one of the greatest blunders ever made by a grandmaster ... nice way to be remembered.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Hueij

I find that hard to believe. Players of Kramnik's level do not miss simple one-move checkmates like that. Even under enormous time pressure. They see moves like that instantaniously.

It's true though.

The comment wasn't clear.
He missed a losing move, not a winning move.

http://www.rag.de/microsite_chess_com/20061127_WCC_Runde2_EN.pdf

[Impaler[WrG]]

Interesting, the human was defeated by a "simple human error of oversight" the kind of thing the simplest computer AI would never make. How Ironic

[Wernazuma III]

The machines might have won when they beat the Go champions.