GM says Rybka & Fritz weaker than best GMs in classical

[bob]

No it wouldn't. You are thinking "full-width plies" not "plies". A selective search program could look 50 plies deep and make all sorts of tactical blunders by excluding (forward-pruning) critical moves. Humans are _far_ better at doing this than computers. But the depths computers now reach are enough to compensate for their lack of selectivity. But in the right kinds of positions, the GM can simply out-search the computer along the _critical_ paths. There are way too many endgame positions in Fine's "Basic Chess Endings" book that no computer has a chance of finding, yet a human did it 50 years ago or more when there were no computers to use at all...

GMs are indeed better at most endgames than engines, without even calculating very deep. However today's engines win the games before the GMs get a chance of getting that far.

Your point in the whole thread is thus that
in GM vs. engine matches the engines can be expected to be the match winners, but it is the GMs that are stronger (as the thread title says). Right ?

Matthias.

\

Not what I said at all. I simply explained _why_ computers are winning more than they are losing against strong GM players. GMs are far stronger positionally, but make enough tactical errors to make that advantage disappear.

And as strong GM players adapt better, they can certainly dictate the tactical flavor of the game to an extent and won't lose that many games in the middlegame...

[Uri Blass]

A GM can _way_ out-calculate a computer along sharp tactical lines for the most part,

That is not true for today's hardware and top engines !!!!!.

Matthias.

Easy to say, but programs have a fixed and fairly shallow horizon. GMs sometimes calculate variations to 40-50 plies. Programs don't.

If you mean in correspondence chess, aided by engines, you are right.
Otherwise there is no proof for your claim.

Statistics prove that you are wrong:
if the GMs were that strong, they would not be blundering as frequently as they do in important human-human tournaments.
Just pick _any_ one of such tournaments and count the blunders at _shallow_ depth. There is no way they can calculate variations to 40-50 plies without using engines.

Matthias.

I'm only going to say this one more time and then move on to other topics. Correspondence play in the 1960's and 1970's did _not_ use computers, yet the variations were calculated out to depths that I considered impossible. Berliner had some gems and did _not_ need a computer to help him, since none were available back then.

GMs blunder because they are human, and make mistakes in time pressure, or when distracted, etc. But overall their moves are quite good. Otherwise I guess all the "greatest games" books need to be trashed as too full of blunders to be useful?

This is one of those "impossible to prove" situations so there is little point in continuing the back and forth discussion. You can have the last word. I still believe GM players are far stronger than computers overall in terms of positional play. And in the case of certain types of very deep and forcing tactics. Computers don't miss anything within their search horizon, and this horizon has gotten deep enough that they give GM players great trouble now. A GM can certainly calculate as deep as or deeper than a computer program. But at a cost of mental energy, and eventually fatigue will decide the outcome in many games... it is more a case of the GMs losing than it is a case of the computers winning... and it now happens frequently enough that GMs are beginning to not do very well against computers. Whether they would do better with one game a week is unknown since such an event would take forever.

Bob, don't waste your time with them, they know far more than we do.

That's not polite.
In a conversation where 2 sides disagree, one side states its arguments and the other answers by trying to refute them and provide better. Etc, and conversation continues.
By saying, like you did, with an ironic way that you know better, and also expecting everyone to agree with what you say is ridiculous.
You can't force everyone to agree with you and if they don't, to start being ironic against them is a bad thing....
You should try to refute their statements instead.

He can't,the truth and the statistical data are obvious for everyone to see....
No more human strategical superiority nonsense,set on the table and prove it,or let one of your GM searching 500 plies ahead do it....

As I said, I have given up trying to explain. I've not said that GMs can beat programs OTB very often, although they can still do it. I have simply explained _how_ the computer is beating the GM. And based on my experience, my reasoning is correct. I've watched it over the years. We started beating GMs at blitz in the late 70's, not because we outplayed them, but we let them make mistakes that turned out to be fatal. Today the same idea is holding on, and it is approaching the point where a GM simply can not play with enough accuracy over a long enough period of time, to hold off the computers. But to say that computers can positionally outplay top GM players is just silly, for anyone with enough chess skill to understand the ideas involved...

A computer is so bad at recognizing weak pawns, weak squares and such. But its tactics carry it anyway...

IM larry kaufman in OTB chess has a different opinion.

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... 3#pid71643

"The key to Rybka's strength (and other programs too, though to a lesser degree) is that a decent evaluation after a very deep search will produce better positional play than a super evaluation after a much shallower or narrower search. No practical number of takebacks will change this; the human GM will be outplayed positionally despite his better evaluation, because he cannot possibly compete in the realm of search"

Uri

I don't see how that disagrees with what I wrote at all. "very deep search". That is exactly the issue.

very deep search will produce better positional play
so larry claims that rybka play better positionally than the GM's and
the advantage is not only tactics.

In monority of the cases rybka may make mistakes and the GM may get advantage but usually the computer simply get positional advantage(not material) and win and it is not a case when the GM get positional advantage only to lose later because of tactical errors.

Uri

[bob]

In a conversation where 2 sides disagree, one side states its arguments and the other answers by trying to refute them and provide better. Etc, and conversation continues.
By saying, like you did, with an ironic way that you know better, and also expecting everyone to agree with what you say is ridiculous.
You can't force everyone to agree with you and if they don't, to start being ironic against them is a bad thing....
You should try to refute their statements instead.

Oh God, I must say it:
Terry and Bob are right in this case -- cause they have looked on the other side too unlike you.
They have expirience that you missed -- you, Mathias, Wael (sorry, doc!): experience of knowing GM's in live.
So I can repeat my words from some posts below -- you underestimate grandmasters, guys. You strongly underestimate them.

No
They are simply wrong

Bob said:
"Easy to say, but programs have a fixed and fairly shallow horizon. GMs sometimes calculate variations to 40-50 plies. Programs don't."

This is simply not correct
I believe that
programs calculate variations to 40-50 plies more often then humans.

The claim that program do not calculate sometimes variations to 40-50 plies is wrong.
programs have extensions and the extensions can push them to calculate 40-50 plies.

I believe that GM's do not calculate 40-50 plies forward in most of their games even in their selective search.

Uri

First "sometimes". Means "some part of the time", not "all of the time". In this context, "calculates to 40-50 plies" means "calculates _meaningful_ paths to a depth of 40-50 plies. I didn't give any time constraint, but simply discussed _accurate calculation". And don't give me the "I don't believe it" because I )really_ don't care what you _believe_. This is about what I _know_. I have sat at a table with a GM who was helping us adjudicate a game at an ACM event and Saw him do this in a reasonably complicated endgame position. And when asked "are you sure that is won" he played out the moves on the real board to show his final position. An IM (Mike Valvo and possibly Danny Kopec) would then say something like "what if black plays this here" and he would quickly reel off a series of moves and they would conclude "OK, that is also won".

So that is not speculation.

The fact that programs search to depth 50 on occasion (which I happen to agree with) has nothing to do with this. All of that is wasted effort because no program ever produces a PV in a real game that is 50 moves long. I doubt you can get a 50 move PV in fine #70, for example, where everything is locked up. You might get fairly close maybe.

So believe what you want, it isn't going to affect anyone or anything. Some believe in what humans are capable of, some don't, and most don't even begin to understand what is being discussed. Computers waste 99.99999999999% of their search effort, humans do not. Humans make occasional mistakes in their search space. Many of those just happen to be picked up by the program, but not all.

I'm not even sure why I keep participating in such a pointless discussion...

[Uri Blass]

In a conversation where 2 sides disagree, one side states its arguments and the other answers by trying to refute them and provide better. Etc, and conversation continues.
By saying, like you did, with an ironic way that you know better, and also expecting everyone to agree with what you say is ridiculous.
You can't force everyone to agree with you and if they don't, to start being ironic against them is a bad thing....
You should try to refute their statements instead.

Oh God, I must say it:
Terry and Bob are right in this case -- cause they have looked on the other side too unlike you.
They have expirience that you missed -- you, Mathias, Wael (sorry, doc!): experience of knowing GM's in live.
So I can repeat my words from some posts below -- you underestimate grandmasters, guys. You strongly underestimate them.

No
They are simply wrong

Bob said:
"Easy to say, but programs have a fixed and fairly shallow horizon. GMs sometimes calculate variations to 40-50 plies. Programs don't."

This is simply not correct
I believe that
programs calculate variations to 40-50 plies more often then humans.

The claim that program do not calculate sometimes variations to 40-50 plies is wrong.
programs have extensions and the extensions can push them to calculate 40-50 plies.

I believe that GM's do not calculate 40-50 plies forward in most of their games even in their selective search.

Uri

First "sometimes". Means "some part of the time", not "all of the time". In this context, "calculates to 40-50 plies" means "calculates _meaningful_ paths to a depth of 40-50 plies. I didn't give any time constraint, but simply discussed _accurate calculation". And don't give me the "I don't believe it" because I )really_ don't care what you _believe_. This is about what I _know_. I have sat at a table with a GM who was helping us adjudicate a game at an ACM event and Saw him do this in a reasonably complicated endgame position. And when asked "are you sure that is won" he played out the moves on the real board to show his final position. An IM (Mike Valvo and possibly Danny Kopec) would then say something like "what if black plays this here" and he would quickly reel off a series of moves and they would conclude "OK, that is also won".

So that is not speculation.

The fact that programs search to depth 50 on occasion (which I happen to agree with) has nothing to do with this. All of that is wasted effort because no program ever produces a PV in a real game that is 50 moves long. I doubt you can get a 50 move PV in fine #70, for example, where everything is locked up. You might get fairly close maybe.

So believe what you want, it isn't going to affect anyone or anything. Some believe in what humans are capable of, some don't, and most don't even begin to understand what is being discussed. Computers waste 99.99999999999% of their search effort, humans do not. Humans make occasional mistakes in their search space. Many of those just happen to be picked up by the program, but not all.

I'm not even sure why I keep participating in such a pointless discussion...

"no program ever produces a PV in a real game that is 50 moves long."
is probably wrong.

There is a mate in 30 problem that part of the programs can solve by check extension and single reply extension and I do not believe that they never see something like that in games.

It may be interesting to see statistics about the longest pv but non pv lines clearly has an influence on the choice of the program so they are not irrelevant.

Note that 50 plies is more than 40-50 plies so it will be harder to find but I believe not impossible.

In situations when there are important moves to extend it may happen.

I will try to find 50 plies pv from practical game to post it here.

Uri

[ArmyBridge]

In a conversation where 2 sides disagree, one side states its arguments and the other answers by trying to refute them and provide better. Etc, and conversation continues.
By saying, like you did, with an ironic way that you know better, and also expecting everyone to agree with what you say is ridiculous.
You can't force everyone to agree with you and if they don't, to start being ironic against them is a bad thing....
You should try to refute their statements instead.

Oh God, I must say it:
Terry and Bob are right in this case -- cause they have looked on the other side too unlike you.
They have expirience that you missed -- you, Mathias, Wael (sorry, doc!): experience of knowing GM's in live.
So I can repeat my words from some posts below -- you underestimate grandmasters, guys. You strongly underestimate them.

No
They are simply wrong

Bob said:
"Easy to say, but programs have a fixed and fairly shallow horizon. GMs sometimes calculate variations to 40-50 plies. Programs don't."

This is simply not correct
I believe that
programs calculate variations to 40-50 plies more often then humans.

The claim that program do not calculate sometimes variations to 40-50 plies is wrong.
programs have extensions and the extensions can push them to calculate 40-50 plies.

I believe that GM's do not calculate 40-50 plies forward in most of their games even in their selective search.

Uri

First "sometimes". Means "some part of the time", not "all of the time". In this context, "calculates to 40-50 plies" means "calculates _meaningful_ paths to a depth of 40-50 plies. I didn't give any time constraint, but simply discussed _accurate calculation". And don't give me the "I don't believe it" because I )really_ don't care what you _believe_. This is about what I _know_. I have sat at a table with a GM who was helping us adjudicate a game at an ACM event and Saw him do this in a reasonably complicated endgame position. And when asked "are you sure that is won" he played out the moves on the real board to show his final position. An IM (Mike Valvo and possibly Danny Kopec) would then say something like "what if black plays this here" and he would quickly reel off a series of moves and they would conclude "OK, that is also won".

So that is not speculation.

The fact that programs search to depth 50 on occasion (which I happen to agree with) has nothing to do with this. All of that is wasted effort because no program ever produces a PV in a real game that is 50 moves long. I doubt you can get a 50 move PV in fine #70, for example, where everything is locked up. You might get fairly close maybe.

So believe what you want, it isn't going to affect anyone or anything. Some believe in what humans are capable of, some don't, and most don't even begin to understand what is being discussed. Computers waste 99.99999999999% of their search effort, humans do not. Humans make occasional mistakes in their search space. Many of those just happen to be picked up by the program, but not all.

I'm not even sure why I keep participating in such a pointless discussion...

´Dr. Hyatt Along this days I ve been reading with interest your posts, and I agreer with you, but I have a Question, you said that GM´s are far better than programs at positional games.. they only lost by tactical mistakes, ok , fews days ago there was a match between a strong GM (Illescas from spain) as you surley know ,Illescas is a good, a Fine positional player even he help to Kramnik some time to prepare for his match for World Championships, Illescas played this match helped by Junior 9 AND EVEN WITH THIS HELP ILLESCAS COULD NOT BEAT JUNIOR 11, according to which you have said, this could had been a easy victory for illescas, would you explain this? why if a GM is FAR better than a stupid program that only search with out plans, could not win??? Maybe is true that once said SMK, "maybe the right way to play chess is the programm´s ways"
Regards

[gerold]

In a conversation where 2 sides disagree, one side states its arguments and the other answers by trying to refute them and provide better. Etc, and conversation continues.
By saying, like you did, with an ironic way that you know better, and also expecting everyone to agree with what you say is ridiculous.
You can't force everyone to agree with you and if they don't, to start being ironic against them is a bad thing....
You should try to refute their statements instead.

Oh God, I must say it:
Terry and Bob are right in this case -- cause they have looked on the other side too unlike you.
They have expirience that you missed -- you, Mathias, Wael (sorry, doc!): experience of knowing GM's in live.
So I can repeat my words from some posts below -- you underestimate grandmasters, guys. You strongly underestimate them.

No
They are simply wrong

Bob said:
"Easy to say, but programs have a fixed and fairly shallow horizon. GMs sometimes calculate variations to 40-50 plies. Programs don't."

This is simply not correct
I believe that
programs calculate variations to 40-50 plies more often then humans.

The claim that program do not calculate sometimes variations to 40-50 plies is wrong.
programs have extensions and the extensions can push them to calculate 40-50 plies.

I believe that GM's do not calculate 40-50 plies forward in most of their games even in their selective search.

Uri

First "sometimes". Means "some part of the time", not "all of the time". In this context, "calculates to 40-50 plies" means "calculates _meaningful_ paths to a depth of 40-50 plies. I didn't give any time constraint, but simply discussed _accurate calculation". And don't give me the "I don't believe it" because I )really_ don't care what you _believe_. This is about what I _know_. I have sat at a table with a GM who was helping us adjudicate a game at an ACM event and Saw him do this in a reasonably complicated endgame position. And when asked "are you sure that is won" he played out the moves on the real board to show his final position. An IM (Mike Valvo and possibly Danny Kopec) would then say something like "what if black plays this here" and he would quickly reel off a series of moves and they would conclude "OK, that is also won".

So that is not speculation.

The fact that programs search to depth 50 on occasion (which I happen to agree with) has nothing to do with this. All of that is wasted effort because no program ever produces a PV in a real game that is 50 moves long. I doubt you can get a 50 move PV in fine #70, for example, where everything is locked up. You might get fairly close maybe.

So believe what you want, it isn't going to affect anyone or anything. Some believe in what humans are capable of, some don't, and most don't even begin to understand what is being discussed. Computers waste 99.99999999999% of their search effort, humans do not. Humans make occasional mistakes in their search space. Many of those just happen to be picked up by the program, but not all.

I'm not even sure why I keep participating in such a pointless discussion...

´Dr. Hyatt Along this days I ve been reading with interest your posts, and I agreer with you, but I have a Question, you said that GM´s are far better than programs at positional games.. they only lost by tactical mistakes, ok , fews days ago there was a match between a strong GM (Illescas from spain) as you surley know ,Illescas is a good, a Fine positional player even he help to Kramnik some time to prepare for his match for World Championships, Illescas played this match helped by Junior 9 AND EVEN WITH THIS HELP ILLESCAS COULD NOT BEAT JUNIOR 11, according to which you have said, this could had been a easy victory for illescas, would you explain this? why if a GM is FAR better than a stupid program that only search with out plans, could not win??? Maybe is true that once said SMK, "maybe the right way to play chess is the programm´s ways"
Regards

How many games were played

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

In a conversation where 2 sides disagree, one side states its arguments and the other answers by trying to refute them and provide better. Etc, and conversation continues.
By saying, like you did, with an ironic way that you know better, and also expecting everyone to agree with what you say is ridiculous.
You can't force everyone to agree with you and if they don't, to start being ironic against them is a bad thing....
You should try to refute their statements instead.

Oh God, I must say it:
Terry and Bob are right in this case -- cause they have looked on the other side too unlike you.
They have expirience that you missed -- you, Mathias, Wael (sorry, doc!): experience of knowing GM's in live.
So I can repeat my words from some posts below -- you underestimate grandmasters, guys. You strongly underestimate them.

No
They are simply wrong

Bob said:
"Easy to say, but programs have a fixed and fairly shallow horizon. GMs sometimes calculate variations to 40-50 plies. Programs don't."

This is simply not correct
I believe that
programs calculate variations to 40-50 plies more often then humans.

The claim that program do not calculate sometimes variations to 40-50 plies is wrong.
programs have extensions and the extensions can push them to calculate 40-50 plies.

I believe that GM's do not calculate 40-50 plies forward in most of their games even in their selective search.

Uri

First "sometimes". Means "some part of the time", not "all of the time". In this context, "calculates to 40-50 plies" means "calculates _meaningful_ paths to a depth of 40-50 plies. I didn't give any time constraint, but simply discussed _accurate calculation". And don't give me the "I don't believe it" because I )really_ don't care what you _believe_. This is about what I _know_. I have sat at a table with a GM who was helping us adjudicate a game at an ACM event and Saw him do this in a reasonably complicated endgame position. And when asked "are you sure that is won" he played out the moves on the real board to show his final position. An IM (Mike Valvo and possibly Danny Kopec) would then say something like "what if black plays this here" and he would quickly reel off a series of moves and they would conclude "OK, that is also won".

So that is not speculation.

The fact that programs search to depth 50 on occasion (which I happen to agree with) has nothing to do with this. All of that is wasted effort because no program ever produces a PV in a real game that is 50 moves long. I doubt you can get a 50 move PV in fine #70, for example, where everything is locked up. You might get fairly close maybe.

So believe what you want, it isn't going to affect anyone or anything. Some believe in what humans are capable of, some don't, and most don't even begin to understand what is being discussed. Computers waste 99.99999999999% of their search effort, humans do not. Humans make occasional mistakes in their search space. Many of those just happen to be picked up by the program, but not all.

I'm not even sure why I keep participating in such a pointless discussion...

´Dr. Hyatt Along this days I ve been reading with interest your posts, and I agreer with you, but I have a Question, you said that GM´s are far better than programs at positional games.. they only lost by tactical mistakes, ok , fews days ago there was a match between a strong GM (Illescas from spain) as you surley know ,Illescas is a good, a Fine positional player even he help to Kramnik some time to prepare for his match for World Championships, Illescas played this match helped by Junior 9 AND EVEN WITH THIS HELP ILLESCAS COULD NOT BEAT JUNIOR 11, according to which you have said, this could had been a easy victory for illescas, would you explain this? why if a GM is FAR better than a stupid program that only search with out plans, could not win??? Maybe is true that once said SMK, "maybe the right way to play chess is the programm´s ways"
Regards

A fine point of view
So the GM eliminated the risk of tactical shots against him and yet he didn't manage to beat Junior 11 which is not a top engine yet,I mean it's not any way near Rybka or Zappa....
Robert,Terry

[ArmyBridge]

In a conversation where 2 sides disagree, one side states its arguments and the other answers by trying to refute them and provide better. Etc, and conversation continues.
By saying, like you did, with an ironic way that you know better, and also expecting everyone to agree with what you say is ridiculous.
You can't force everyone to agree with you and if they don't, to start being ironic against them is a bad thing....
You should try to refute their statements instead.

Oh God, I must say it:
Terry and Bob are right in this case -- cause they have looked on the other side too unlike you.
They have expirience that you missed -- you, Mathias, Wael (sorry, doc!): experience of knowing GM's in live.
So I can repeat my words from some posts below -- you underestimate grandmasters, guys. You strongly underestimate them.

No
They are simply wrong

Bob said:
"Easy to say, but programs have a fixed and fairly shallow horizon. GMs sometimes calculate variations to 40-50 plies. Programs don't."

This is simply not correct
I believe that
programs calculate variations to 40-50 plies more often then humans.

The claim that program do not calculate sometimes variations to 40-50 plies is wrong.
programs have extensions and the extensions can push them to calculate 40-50 plies.

I believe that GM's do not calculate 40-50 plies forward in most of their games even in their selective search.

Uri

First "sometimes". Means "some part of the time", not "all of the time". In this context, "calculates to 40-50 plies" means "calculates _meaningful_ paths to a depth of 40-50 plies. I didn't give any time constraint, but simply discussed _accurate calculation". And don't give me the "I don't believe it" because I )really_ don't care what you _believe_. This is about what I _know_. I have sat at a table with a GM who was helping us adjudicate a game at an ACM event and Saw him do this in a reasonably complicated endgame position. And when asked "are you sure that is won" he played out the moves on the real board to show his final position. An IM (Mike Valvo and possibly Danny Kopec) would then say something like "what if black plays this here" and he would quickly reel off a series of moves and they would conclude "OK, that is also won".

So that is not speculation.

The fact that programs search to depth 50 on occasion (which I happen to agree with) has nothing to do with this. All of that is wasted effort because no program ever produces a PV in a real game that is 50 moves long. I doubt you can get a 50 move PV in fine #70, for example, where everything is locked up. You might get fairly close maybe.

So believe what you want, it isn't going to affect anyone or anything. Some believe in what humans are capable of, some don't, and most don't even begin to understand what is being discussed. Computers waste 99.99999999999% of their search effort, humans do not. Humans make occasional mistakes in their search space. Many of those just happen to be picked up by the program, but not all.

I'm not even sure why I keep participating in such a pointless discussion...

´Dr. Hyatt Along this days I ve been reading with interest your posts, and I agreer with you, but I have a Question, you said that GM´s are far better than programs at positional games.. they only lost by tactical mistakes, ok , fews days ago there was a match between a strong GM (Illescas from spain) as you surley know ,Illescas is a good, a Fine positional player even he help to Kramnik some time to prepare for his match for World Championships, Illescas played this match helped by Junior 9 AND EVEN WITH THIS HELP ILLESCAS COULD NOT BEAT JUNIOR 11, according to which you have said, this could had been a easy victory for illescas, would you explain this? why if a GM is FAR better than a stupid program that only search with out plans, could not win??? Maybe is true that once said SMK, "maybe the right way to play chess is the programm´s ways"
Regards

A fine point of view
So the GM eliminated the risk of tactical shots against him and yet he didn't manage to beat Junior 11 which is not a top engine yet,I mean it's not any way near Rybka or Zappa....
Robert,Terry

Thanks Dear Dr. but wait... surely the Doctor hyatt is going to argue that it was the opening book, etc etc etc.. and I will say "pretexts", "pretexts"
Regards

[ArmyBridge]

In a conversation where 2 sides disagree, one side states its arguments and the other answers by trying to refute them and provide better. Etc, and conversation continues.
By saying, like you did, with an ironic way that you know better, and also expecting everyone to agree with what you say is ridiculous.
You can't force everyone to agree with you and if they don't, to start being ironic against them is a bad thing....
You should try to refute their statements instead.

Oh God, I must say it:
Terry and Bob are right in this case -- cause they have looked on the other side too unlike you.
They have expirience that you missed -- you, Mathias, Wael (sorry, doc!): experience of knowing GM's in live.
So I can repeat my words from some posts below -- you underestimate grandmasters, guys. You strongly underestimate them.

No
They are simply wrong

Bob said:
"Easy to say, but programs have a fixed and fairly shallow horizon. GMs sometimes calculate variations to 40-50 plies. Programs don't."

This is simply not correct
I believe that
programs calculate variations to 40-50 plies more often then humans.

The claim that program do not calculate sometimes variations to 40-50 plies is wrong.
programs have extensions and the extensions can push them to calculate 40-50 plies.

I believe that GM's do not calculate 40-50 plies forward in most of their games even in their selective search.

Uri

First "sometimes". Means "some part of the time", not "all of the time". In this context, "calculates to 40-50 plies" means "calculates _meaningful_ paths to a depth of 40-50 plies. I didn't give any time constraint, but simply discussed _accurate calculation". And don't give me the "I don't believe it" because I )really_ don't care what you _believe_. This is about what I _know_. I have sat at a table with a GM who was helping us adjudicate a game at an ACM event and Saw him do this in a reasonably complicated endgame position. And when asked "are you sure that is won" he played out the moves on the real board to show his final position. An IM (Mike Valvo and possibly Danny Kopec) would then say something like "what if black plays this here" and he would quickly reel off a series of moves and they would conclude "OK, that is also won".

So that is not speculation.

The fact that programs search to depth 50 on occasion (which I happen to agree with) has nothing to do with this. All of that is wasted effort because no program ever produces a PV in a real game that is 50 moves long. I doubt you can get a 50 move PV in fine #70, for example, where everything is locked up. You might get fairly close maybe.

So believe what you want, it isn't going to affect anyone or anything. Some believe in what humans are capable of, some don't, and most don't even begin to understand what is being discussed. Computers waste 99.99999999999% of their search effort, humans do not. Humans make occasional mistakes in their search space. Many of those just happen to be picked up by the program, but not all.

I'm not even sure why I keep participating in such a pointless discussion...

´Dr. Hyatt Along this days I ve been reading with interest your posts, and I agreer with you, but I have a Question, you said that GM´s are far better than programs at positional games.. they only lost by tactical mistakes, ok , fews days ago there was a match between a strong GM (Illescas from spain) as you surley know ,Illescas is a good, a Fine positional player even he help to Kramnik some time to prepare for his match for World Championships, Illescas played this match helped by Junior 9 AND EVEN WITH THIS HELP ILLESCAS COULD NOT BEAT JUNIOR 11, according to which you have said, this could had been a easy victory for illescas, would you explain this? why if a GM is FAR better than a stupid program that only search with out plans, could not win??? Maybe is true that once said SMK, "maybe the right way to play chess is the programm´s ways"
Regards

How many games were played

It was 2 games 20´+ 10" Illescas draw the firts without problems but spend a lot of time trying to make junior fall down in positional mistakes, but.. na, the 2 games was almost a DJ11 victory.

[AdminX]

Again experience over guesswork here. Under the right circumstances, such as the old correspondence games Mike Valvo used to play against Deep Thought, you can see just how wide the gap actually is. Humans make _very_ few tactical mistakes in correspondence. And there their positional judgement is the critical component...

As I said, computer tactical accuracy is what is winning games today, not positional judgement where they are still sorely lacking. However, at today's speeds, tactical accuracy is obviously quite enough to more than compensate for the ugly positional mistakes (most of the time, although humans still win games).

These Valvo Games ...

[Event "corr one move/every 3 days"]
[Site "corr"]
[Date "1988.??.??"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Michael Joseph Valvo"]
[Black "Deep Thought (Computer)"]
[ECO "B03"]
[WhiteElo "2380"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "95"]

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. c4 Nb6 5. f4 dxe5 6. fxe5 Nc6
7. Be3 Bf5 8. Nc3 e6 9. Nf3 Bg4 10. Be2 Bxf3 11. gxf3 Qh4+
12. Bf2 Qf4 13. c5 Nd7 14. Qc1 Qf5 15. Qb1 Qxb1+ 16. Rxb1
O-O-O 17. f4 Be7 18. Rd1 g5 19. fxg5 Bxg5 20. Bf3 f5 21. O-O
Nb4 22. Rfe1 Rhg8 23. Kh1 c6 24. a3 Na6 25. b4 Nc7 26. a4 a6
27. Re2 Be7 28. Rb2 Nd5 29. Nxd5 cxd5 30. b5 axb5 31. axb5 Rg7
32. Ra1 Nb8 33. Rba2 Rdg8 34. Ra8 Bg5 35. b6 Bd8 36. Bh5 Rf8
37. Be2 Rfg8 38. Be3 h5 39. Rb1 Be7 40. Bb5 Bd8 41. Ba4 f4
42. Bxf4 Rf7 43. Bh6 h4 44. Bb5 Be7 45. c6 bxc6 46. Bxc6 Rf3
47. Rba1 Ba3 48. Bd2 1-0

[Event "corr one move/every 3 days"]
[Site "corr"]
[Date "1988.??.??"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Deep Thought (Computer)"]
[Black "Michael Joseph Valvo"]
[ECO "C31"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "2380"]
[PlyCount "96"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 c6 4. Nc3 exf4 5. Nf3 Bd6 6. d4 Ne7
7. dxc6 Nbxc6 8. d5 Nb4 9. Bc4 O-O 10. a3 b5 11. Bb3 Na6
12. Nxb5 Qa5+ 13. Nc3 Nc5 14. Ba2 Ba6 15. b4 Qc7 16. bxc5 Rfe8
17. Ne2 Qxc5 18. c4 Nxd5 19. Qd4 Qxd4 20. Nfxd4 Bc5 21. Kd2
Ne3 22. Kc3 Rac8 23. Bb2 Nxg2 24. Raf1 Rcd8 25. Rhg1 Re3+
26. Kd2 f3 27. Rxf3 Rxf3 28. Rxg2 Rh3 29. Kc1 g6 30. a4 Bb7
31. Rf2 Ba8 32. Bb1 Rb8 33. Ba2 Rd3 34. Rf4 Rd2 35. Kxd2 Rxb2+
36. Nc2 Rxa2 37. Nc3 Rb2 38. Rf6 Kg7 39. Rf1 f5 40. Nd5 Bxd5
41. cxd5 Rb3 42. h4 Kf6 43. Re1 Rh3 44. Re6+ Kf7 45. a5 Rxh4
46. Rc6 Bb4+ 47. Nxb4 Rxb4 48. Rc7+ Kf6 0-1