Lee Se-dol retires in face of AI...

[smatovic]

..
"I'm not at the top even if I become the number one."
...
"There is an entity that cannot be defeated,"
...

https://games.slashdot.org/story/19/11/ ... e-defeated


Singularity vs. Humans - 1:0

--
Srdja

[towforce]

I wonder if the relentless advance of the machine was a factor in Gary Kasparov's retirement?

[smatovic]

I wonder if the relentless advance of the machine was a factor in Gary Kasparov's retirement?

Singularity vs. Humans - 2:0

--
Srdja

[duncan]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50573071


Despite his retirement, Lee Se-dol is due to play against another AI system in December.

He will play against HanDol, a program developed by South Korea's NHN Entertainment Corp, which has already defeated the country's top five Go players.

Lee will be given an advantage of two stones in the first game, but suspects he will lose.

"Even with a two-stone advantage, I feel like I will lose the first game to HanDol. These days, I don't follow Go news. I wanted to play comfortably against HanDol as I have already retired, though I will do my best," he said.

[BrendanJNorman]

I wonder if the relentless advance of the machine was a factor in Gary Kasparov's retirement?

No, I don't think so...in some part yes, but overall no.

Kasparov retired because he realized he was losing strength and his big secret (prepping openings with Deep Junior 6 and 7 at the time) had been discovered and copied by guys like Topalov.

So his big strength (computer-aided opening novelties) had been adopted by Topalov (who beat him in Linares 2005, his last event) and he lost a bit of confidence.

The fact that Kasparov retired in 2005 and Topalov's BEST years (of his OWN dominance) were 2005-2006 only stand to give credence to this theory.

Someone with Kasparov's ego cannot bear to play on a stage where he is not the absolute hero of everybody in attendance...he knew that the days he would be "competing" with the young guys were creeping closer and closer.

So he retired so as to (in his own mind, we all know he is an ETERNAL chess legend) preserve the legend of his being absolutely dominant and unbeatable.

Personally, I have warmer respect for Karpov, another real legend, who loves the game so much that he continues to play, even when the odd blunder in his old age causes him to loser to a much weaker player.

[shrapnel]

..
"I'm not at the top even if I become the number one."
...
"There is an entity that cannot be defeated,"
...

https://games.slashdot.org/story/19/11/ ... e-defeated


Singularity vs. Humans - 1:0

--
Srdja

Only Human ! HUH !

[lkaufman]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50573071


Despite his retirement, Lee Se-dol is due to play against another AI system in December.

He will play against HanDol, a program developed by South Korea's NHN Entertainment Corp, which has already defeated the country's top five Go players.

Lee will be given an advantage of two stones in the first game, but suspects he will lose.

"Even with a two-stone advantage, I feel like I will lose the first game to HanDol. These days, I don't follow Go news. I wanted to play comfortably against HanDol as I have already retired, though I will do my best," he said.

Any information about the handicap in games AFTER the first game? It's strange to state the terms of only the first game.

[Uri Blass]

I wonder if the relentless advance of the machine was a factor in Gary Kasparov's retirement?

No, I don't think so...in some part yes, but overall no.

Kasparov retired because he realized he was losing strength and his big secret (prepping openings with Deep Junior 6 and 7 at the time) had been discovered and copied by guys like Topalov.

So his big strength (computer-aided opening novelties) had been adopted by Topalov (who beat him in Linares 2005, his last event) and he lost a bit of confidence.

The fact that Kasparov retired in 2005 and Topalov's BEST years (of his OWN dominance) were 2005-2006 only stand to give credence to this theory.

Someone with Kasparov's ego cannot bear to play on a stage where he is not the absolute hero of everybody in attendance...he knew that the days he would be "competing" with the young guys were creeping closer and closer.

So he retired so as to (in his own mind, we all know he is an ETERNAL chess legend) preserve the legend of his being absolutely dominant and unbeatable.

Personally, I have warmer respect for Karpov, another real legend, who loves the game so much that he continues to play, even when the odd blunder in his old age causes him to loser to a much weaker player.

I disagree.

Kasparov's big strength was not computer aided opening novelties.
Kasparov became world champion and beat karpov clearly earlier than Junior6 or Junior7 and at that time computers were too weak to help him with opening novelties.

Note that karpov does not play often and he plays only few games every year(only 3 games at long time control in 2019).

https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=4100026

[BrendanJNorman]

I wonder if the relentless advance of the machine was a factor in Gary Kasparov's retirement?

No, I don't think so...in some part yes, but overall no.

Kasparov retired because he realized he was losing strength and his big secret (prepping openings with Deep Junior 6 and 7 at the time) had been discovered and copied by guys like Topalov.

So his big strength (computer-aided opening novelties) had been adopted by Topalov (who beat him in Linares 2005, his last event) and he lost a bit of confidence.

The fact that Kasparov retired in 2005 and Topalov's BEST years (of his OWN dominance) were 2005-2006 only stand to give credence to this theory.

Someone with Kasparov's ego cannot bear to play on a stage where he is not the absolute hero of everybody in attendance...he knew that the days he would be "competing" with the young guys were creeping closer and closer.

So he retired so as to (in his own mind, we all know he is an ETERNAL chess legend) preserve the legend of his being absolutely dominant and unbeatable.

Personally, I have warmer respect for Karpov, another real legend, who loves the game so much that he continues to play, even when the odd blunder in his old age causes him to loser to a much weaker player.

I disagree.

Kasparov's big strength was not computer aided opening novelties.
Kasparov became world champion and beat karpov clearly earlier than Junior6 or Junior7 and at that time computers were too weak to help him with opening novelties.

Note that karpov does not play often and he plays only few games every year(only 3 games at long time control in 2019).

https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=4100026

Hi Uri, thanks for sharing your opinion.

I still disagree.

Firstly, I don't think anything in your argument refutes any of the assertions I made.

Here's why:

The Kasparov of 1983-1989 is quite a different player to the Kasparov of 1999-2001

All champions become champions due to superiority over all rivals (with some exceptions), and obviously Kasparov is terms of raw strength was stronger than Karpov by the end of 1984 or early 1985.

Kasparov admitted that during the 1984 match he was forced to improve his positional chess, in order to deal with Karpov's relentless precision, so this match helped him to gain more edge over the others too, for sure.

He was a tactical genius with enormous powers of calculation and this was enough to blow away most elite GMs.

But that being said, his opening preparation even at that point was getting him good positions out of the opening.

Consider his revival of the Tarrasch Defense in his Candidates Match period in the 1980s (used to beat guys like Korchnoi, Seirawan, Larsen and Beliavsky).

Regardless of this, I feel Kasparov began to prepare his openings with Junior 5 or 6 (he has openly said that he used Junior 6) which were released around 1998-2000 and interestingly, this period (1999-2001) is the one where Kasparov enjoyed his most dominant EVER period.

Helped in large by his amazing opening preparation. GMs like Anand at the time spoke of trying "survive the opening with white"

He was winning miniatures on BOTH sides of the Najdorf against EVERYONE else, and against Karpov's Caro Kann (which had always proved a tough nut to crack previously), BLASTED him with prep in a line he'd only ever used in a simul before.

[pgn][Event "Linares 18th"] [Site "Linares"] [Date "2001.02.28"] [Round "5"] [White "Kasparov, Garry"] [Black "Karpov, Anatoly"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B12"] [WhiteElo "2849"] [BlackElo "2679"] [PlyCount "61"] [EventDate "2001.02.23"] [EventType "tourn"] [EventRounds "10"] [EventCountry "ESP"] [EventCategory "19"] [Source "ChessBase"] [SourceDate "2001.05.17"] 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2 Ne7 7. Nf4 c5 8. dxc5 Nd7 9. h4 Nxe5 10. Bg2 h5 11. Qe2 N7c6 12. Nxg6 Nxg6 13. Bg5 Be7 14. gxh5 Nf8 15. Nb5 Nd7 16. h6 Nxc5 17. Bf4 Kf8 18. hxg7+ Kxg7 19. O-O-O Kf8 20. Kb1 a6 21. Nc7 Rc8 22. Bxd5 exd5 23. Rxd5 Qxc7 24. Bxc7 Rxc7 25. Rf5 Rd7 26. c3 f6 27. Rg1 Nd8 28. Qg4 Ke8 29. Rh5 Rf8 30. Rxc5 Bxc5 31. Qh5+ 1-0[/pgn]

I was a huge fan during this time and following all the events like Linares and Corus, both of which were being won by huge margins with absolutely dominant opening preparation with both colors.

And yes, when you have a super, super-elite GM and he is the ONLY one using a GM strength engine to check his analysis, the results will be devastating.

But as engines became stronger, GMs took notice and began to prep openings with them too.

I believe Anand was one of the first, perhaps inspired by his Advanced Chess victory over Karpov in 1999, where Karpov struggled with the ChessBase software and suffered a massive thrashing.

The result was a 5-1 landslide for Anand. Karpov apparently had trouble integrating the computer with his own calculations and repeatedly ran way behind on the clock. The time limit was all moves in one hour.

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/11/arts ... match.html

And later, after his training with Kasparov and essentially being handed the keys to the kingdom, Nakamura (IMO rudely stated):

there is something to be gained from his sessions with Kasparov, mainly in the opening preparation, but not much else. "I mean you look at middlegames or endgames and I’m quite convinced there are other players who are better than he was, but he was able to get advantages out of the openings so that was his main strength."

https://en.chessbase.com/post/now-it-s- ... g-nakamura

By 2005, MANY players were using engines for preparation, most notably Topalov...and 2005-2006 were his best and most dominant years

So Kasparov retired and Topalov dominated for a while.

[pgn][Event "Corus"] [Site "Wijk aan Zee"] [Date "2005.01.19"] [Round "2"] [White "Kramnik, Vladimir"] [Black "Topalov, Veselin"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "B80"] [WhiteElo "2754"] [BlackElo "2757"] [PlyCount "40"] [EventDate "2005.01.15"] [EventType "tourn"] [EventRounds "13"] [EventCountry "NED"] [EventCategory "19"] [Source "ChessBase"] [SourceDate "2005.04.11"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e6 7. f3 b5 8. g4 h6 9. Qd2 b4 10. Na4 Nbd7 11. O-O-O Ne5 12. Qxb4 Bd7 13. Nb3 Rb8 14. Qa3 Nxf3 15. h3 Nxe4 16. Be2 Ne5 17. Rhe1 Qc7 18. Bd4 Nc6 19. Bc3 d5 20. Nbc5 Qa7 0-1[/pgn]

[pgn][Event "Sofia MTel Masters 1st"] [Site "Sofia"] [Date "2005.05.21"] [Round "9"] [White "Topalov, Veselin"] [Black "Ponomariov, Ruslan"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "E15"] [WhiteElo "2778"] [BlackElo "2695"] [PlyCount "59"] [EventDate "2005.05.12"] [EventType "tourn"] [EventRounds "10"] [EventCountry "BUL"] [EventCategory "20"] [Source "ChessBase"] [SourceDate "2005.08.01"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Ba6 5. b3 Bb4+ 6. Bd2 Be7 7. Nc3 O-O 8. Rc1 c6 9. e4 d5 10. e5 Ne4 11. Bd3 Nxc3 12. Rxc3 c5 13. dxc5 bxc5 14. h4 h6 15. Bb1 f5 16. exf6 Bxf6 17. Qc2 d4 18. Ng5 hxg5 19. hxg5 dxc3 20. Bf4 Kf7 21. Qg6+ Ke7 22. gxf6+ Rxf6 23. Qxg7+ Rf7 24. Bg5+ Kd6 25. Qxf7 Qxg5 26. Rh7 Qe5+ 27. Kf1 Kc6 28. Qe8+ Kb6 29. Qd8+ Kc6 30. Be4+ 1-0 [/pgn]

Both of the above games were aided by serious computer preparation by Topalov himself and by his second Ivan Cheparinov.

I don't think there is a coincidence that this is happening at the same time as Kasparov is retiring...that's all.

Karpov plays 3 or so games a year, BUT he's still playing long time control games...even at 68 years old.

Lastly, regarding Karpov, this guy started to lose strength already in 1998-1999 and started hemorrhaging Elo as a result...

...he dropped from World Number 4 to World Number ten in a few months.

It was would been understandable for him to retire after a long and very successful career and keep his ego intact.

Yet he kept playing actively for many years (much more so than now in 2000-2008) and his "few games a year" now is a testament to his not caring about rating drops or ego.

To use the words of the mighty emperor Donald Trump: "Karpov is a very stable, very humble genius"

[Ovyron]

there is something to be gained from his sessions with Kasparov, mainly in the opening preparation, but not much else. "I mean you look at middlegames or endgames and I’m quite convinced there are other players who are better than he was, but he was able to get advantages out of the openings so that was his main strength."

Interesting.

So why did nobody think about playing "Relay Chess"? The idea would be to let Kasparov play the opening stage of the game, and once he's out of book, he passes the game to his team mate, who is one of those that were better than he was for the rest of the game.

No matter what kind of domination Kasparov had at the time, such a two heads chess entity would have been deadly!