quote: On Tuesday a chess spectacular is scheduled to begin in London: top UK grandmaster Michael Adams will face the awesome power of the Hydra chess machine, which has the processing power of more than 200 standard PCs and can calculate 200 million positions per second. Adams can achieve about two. Still, an expert in the field says the human can win.
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Tell us everything about the matches. I meant our connection to the chess match thing. Sometimes I'm oddly inspecific. I'm sorry.
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Sure, I'll try to keep you updated. I'm sure chessbase.com will have round by round reports and if so I'll post the links in here.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Ok, they have started the first game one hour and twenty minutes ago. Adams had black and played a line which helped him earn a draw against Leko at this year's Linares, but Hydra deviated from it. The position seems balanced right now, so Adams is likely to obtain half a point from this.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Well, it seems that Adams made one error that is likely to cost him this game. And there's little hope the machine will make a mistake from now on.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Oh well, 1-0 for the machine. That error that Adams made (23... Rc7 instead of 23... cxd4) was indeed enough for the program to win.
Here's a link to the game on chessgames.com, with lots of comments from the users made during the live transmission. (yeah, there are people who actually watch live chess, me included! ) And here's the chessgames forum dedicated to the whole match.
I wasn't here for the whole game but it seems that Adams' error was partly due to him running into time crisis. This was caused by Hydra managing to open the position and creating lots of tactical problems for Adams to solve. In Man vs Machine matches humans usually try to obtain closed positions in which there's no "obvious" move and with plans running for 20-30 moves toward a minimal advantage, so that they would surpass the programs' calculating powers. Of course humans will not calculate all 20-30 moves to see if the plan is correct, but they can get an idea of the correctness of the plan from previous experiences in similar positions. I've seen many times how in such positions computers start to shuffle their pieces behind the pawns with no concrete plan whatsoever, until at one moment they realize that the human actually has a winning attack! Oh well, you live, you learn... Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
In other news, current FIDE World Chess Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov will play another Man vs Machine match against the "AI Accoona ToolBar". Here's the live coverage and the chessbase article about the match.
There is an important difference between the two AI entities. While Hydra is a calculating monster, something that (to my knowledge) wasn't attempted since Deep Blue, the "AI Accoona ToolBar" is a "learning program":
quote:The Accoona ToolBar chess program is very special in one way: it learns from experience. Every game it plays against users on the net is sent to a central server, where it is analyzed by AI engines, which locate weaknesses and suggest possible improvements. These are automatically integrated into the Accoona ToolBar chess program, which becomes progressively stronger as it plays tens and then hundreds of thousands of games.
It is however based on one of the best chess engines currently available, called Fritz, but it will be more "knowledge" oriented.
The "normal" chess engines like Fritz, Shredder and Junior, are also computation-based, as is Hydra, but they are running on normal computers, while Hydra relies on a 32-processor cluster and hardware chess cards. To a lesser extend this is what Deep Blue was too.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
First game of the Kasim - Accoona match was drawn. Kasim had the white and got a really closed position and then went for a knight sacrifice that got black into an even tighter defense. But you can't expect computers to play less than perfect king defense*, so the game ended in a draw by repetition.
*When the king is under attack they can disregard most of the moves that won't defend the king, so they're able to calculate further than in other types of positions.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote: Every game it plays against users on the net is sent to a central server, where it is analyzed by AI engines, which locate weaknesses and suggest possible improvements.
Do you think I can get special treatment for signing up early to plug into the Matrix? Mmmm, Cranial net access and a tub full of pink jello...
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Well, you might get bored of playing only chess in this early version. You should wait a little till they get more interesting stuff happening in there... Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Hmm, it seems that there was only one game between Kasim and Accoona. You can read the chessbase report here.
Game two between Adams and Hydra ended in a draw. Adams managed to obtain a really blocked position after which both he and the program shuffled their pieces behind the pawns for a while and then a draw was agreed. I'd really want to see an Adams win, perhaps in the 4th round when he has white again. He might try to improve on today's game but it will be bloody hard to slay the monster...
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Game three of the Adams - Hydra match just ended in a bitter defeat for Adams. What's even worse is that he didn't seem to make any big mistakes but Hydra managed to squeeze him and get the full point nonetheless...
The overall score after three rounds is now 2 1/2 - 1/2 in favor of Hydra, and with three games to go there's no chance in hell Adams will win the match. But at this point I'll be happy if he gets even a single win against the program...
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I take comfort in the fact that the very best Go playing programs can still be beaten easily by a competent human player.
quote:Chess has long been the focus of much research, and now, finally, computers are competative with the best of human players. Only a few years ago, the computer Deep Blue II defeated the World Champion Gary Kasparov. But now what is there for AI to do?
Go is the next frontier in computer board game Artificial Intelligence. The game is simple enough for one to learn all of the rules in a day, but so far, no computer has managed to even compete with any professional players. The best programs in the world are beaten regularly by smart school-children!
The computers lack ability because Go is a much larger game than chess. In an average chess position, there are about 15 to 25 legal moves. In Go, that number is usually around 250, making it virtually impossible to create a program based entirely on the minimax game tree in the way that Chess programs are written. Brute force no longer works so well.
There is also another problem. Go professionals often play by instinct. They often say such things as "this move feels good" or "that move seems a little slack" and "that seems to submissive." Needless to say, it is very difficult to consult with a Go professional about Go when the professionals themselves have a difficult time explaining the reasons behind some of their own moves!
Thus, Go programming requires a different route from chess programming. Instead of simulating the techniques human players use to play the game, the programmers must model human thought itself! Not only must a computer now act like a person, but it must also think like a person!!
If we start developing a Go program that can play Go as well as a human, THEN its time to start preparing for our machine overlords. What the programs do in chess isn't really "thinking" (though we are moving toward that, like the computer Corwin is referencing).
posted
Adams just lost another game against Hydra, this time with white. The score is 3 1/2 - 1/2 for Hydra. Man, this is worse than I expected... Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Ouch, chalk up another point for the silicon monster... 4 1/2 - 1/2 for Hydra. Adams is getting the beating of his lifetime I think. I hope he'll be able to learn from this and not let himself drown in sorrow. One more game to go, and so far he's earned $10,000. Maybe he can double that tomorrow?! :sad smile: They receive $25,000 for a win, $10,000 each for a draw, and nothing for a loss.
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And the slaughter is over... Five victories for Hydra and one draw kind of say everything there is to say about the match. I hope other GMs will get to play against it, and obtain better results, cause this was downright humiliating!
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I would love to Mike . I haven't played in forever, so it would likely be quick. I don't mind losing though .
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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The FIDE World Chess Championship started a few days ago.
Some sites that are worth watching during the tournament: - official website - unfortunately they had the stupid idea of charging people to see the live games... - live games that you can see for free on freechess.com if you have a verifiable email address, and on a Hungarian website; probably on other sites too - chessgames.com has live coverage of one game per round and also allows comentary - all for free; they also have a specific page for the championship where people can discuss the other games - chessbase.com have round by round reports, with an additional report by GM Nigel Short (you can find this one on the championship's official webpage too)
Today is a rest day after four rounds. GM Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) is in the lead with 3.5 points from four games, followed by GM Peter Svidler (Russia) with 3/4. They face each other in the 5th round on Monday, Svidler having the white pieces.
Enjoy! I know I do! Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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