GM says Rybka & Fritz weaker than best GMs in classical

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

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.

IGM Alexander Kotov claimed in one position he looked 50 moves ahead, 100 plies!

You underestimate GM's, you underestimate them greatly.

Anybody can look 8 plies ahead and claim to look 500.

Aha,claiming is easy,getting your butt kicked by a top chess engine is even easier

[S.Taylor]

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.

IGM Alexander Kotov claimed in one position he looked 50 moves ahead, 100 plies!

You underestimate GM's, you underestimate them greatly.

You can claim an awful number of moves ahead, by having end-game knowledge, or by estimating/positional knowledge/understanding. I don't think Kotov ever calculated 100 ply's ahead in thick dense middle-game cross-fire positions.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

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.

IGM Alexander Kotov claimed in one position he looked 50 moves ahead, 100 plies!

You underestimate GM's, you underestimate them greatly.

You can claim an awful number of moves ahead, by having end-game knowledge, or by estimating/positional knowledge/understanding. I don't think Kotov ever calculated 100 ply's ahead in thick dense middle-game cross-fire positions.

Well said Shimon,well said....

[bob]

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.

[gerold]

I don't know about 1 second per move, but there is clear evidence that human gm performance does not degrade much at short time controls (at least it degrades much less than you would expect). See Burns (2004) psychological science, chess and speed of processing.

Eg., that article concludes that 81% of chess skill is accounted for by how players performed with less than %5 of the normal time available. It looks like chess performance has more to do with quick pattern recognition processes than time consuming, deep search.


Here is another interesting quote

Gobet and Simon (1996) used ratings
to analyze nine simultaneous exhibition matches played by Gary
Kasparov against teams of four to eight weaker players. Because he
played each team member simultaneously, Kasparov had much less
time available than did each of his opponents. Gobet and Simon found
that Kasparov’s median rating based on his performance in these
matches was 2646, whereas his regular tournament rating at that time
was 2750. They stated, ‘‘In view of the slight extent to which lack of
time lowered the quality of Kasparov’s play in the simultaneous
matches, we conclude that memory and access to memory through the
recognition of cues is the predominant basis for his skill’’ (p. 54; but
see Lassiter, 2000, and Gobet & Simon’s, 2000b, response).

I agree with you on these points of rapid pattern recognition.
This is one of the keys to success in the game of chess.
In one minute game player has not much time for calculation.
Some good players can remember entire games and diff.
jmoves in that game. A gm has to use all the tools of chess.
Long term planning an attack and short term pattern analyzing
with one look at the board. Recognnition of a weak point in any
point in the game and taking advange of it.
So both thinking of the one move at a time and long term planning
will win you games.

Not to mention knowing most main opening and end games.

Best to you,

Gerold.

P.S. while playing some very strong players and they take
1 hour to make a move i wonder what is going on in their
head. I think it may just be a mind game they are playing

[Terry McCracken]

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.

IGM Alexander Kotov claimed in one position he looked 50 moves ahead, 100 plies!

You underestimate GM's, you underestimate them greatly.

Anybody can look 8 plies ahead and claim to look 500.

Well I saw the analysis and in 20 min. he looked 50 moves ahead in his head while looking at a diagram!!! A middlegame position no less! Fischer could do this as well!


So can Kasparov! There are others as well.

As I said you underestimate Great Players!

[Matthias Gemuh]

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?

I think you are overseeing something here.
Today and back in the 1960's and 1970's, correspondence chess is/was played by analysing variations on a visible board. It is clear that using such a visible variation board, humans can "think" very deep.

The "greatest games" books don't need to be trashed. Many moves in such books were the result of a good guess between 2 or 3 options.
Such guesses sometimes fail, and that is why most GM games are of less quality than "greatest games".

Matthias.

[Terry McCracken]

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.

IGM Alexander Kotov claimed in one position he looked 50 moves ahead, 100 plies!

You underestimate GM's, you underestimate them greatly.

You can claim an awful number of moves ahead, by having end-game knowledge, or by estimating/positional knowledge/understanding. I don't think Kotov ever calculated 100 ply's ahead in thick dense middle-game cross-fire positions.

I'd say ask him, but he's dead!

[Matthias Gemuh]

Well I saw the analysis and in 20 min. he looked 50 moves ahead in his head while looking at a diagram!!! A middlegame position no less! Fischer could do this as well!


So can Kasparov! There are others as well.

Today's engines look far less than 50 moves ahead.
A human chess game statistically lasts 41 moves.
A human able to look 50 moves ahead, though he may occasionally lose a game, should clearly win all matches against top engines. Right

Are they doing it ?

Matthias.

[Terry McCracken]

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.