Humans are better at positional chess, Corr. chess proves it

[mwyoung]

The link is working for me.

Here is the link again

http://www.minet.uni-jena.de/fakultaet/ ... Talke.html

or google "3-Hirn experiments"

[Don]

Don, I have a question for you.

Miguel A. Ballicora, Ronald de Man and others theory is if I understand corrrectly is you can get a list of candidate moves say put Stockfish on pv=2,or 4. And from this list the humans pick the best move from a human point of view. This make the whole team stronger by 200 elo. In theory the stockfish team + human(s) are now stronger then Houdini 3.

There are many ways to do this and don't vouch for each one, but what I'm saying is that one man and one machine working together will produce much better chess than either by themselves. I'm assuming that the human has access to a flexible GUI that let's him experiment and there are no constraints, the human can use the program in any way he see's fit.

I agree, because I have done it. But why is this proof if a player uses rocking analysis to find better moves then a program could own its own show proof. That human have better positional knowledge then the computer alone has.

I'm not supplying a "proof" of anything, only an opinion. You cannot "prove" that a computer has better positional understanding because it's all an illusion anyway and subject to interpretation. Like I say you cannot prove that someone is "ugly", at best you can only get a consensus of opinion.

I am not familiar with the "rocking analysis", I have never heard that expression before. But you make it sound like a brainless thing when in fact it's not. It's based on a very sophisticated combination of reasoning ability and judgement. A human can perform this operation quite skillfully but a computer cannot (yet), otherwise the computer should select all it's moves this way and be it's own partner.

This has nothing to do with a persons better positional skills, they are just getting the most of the chess program by using the rocking analysis technique. The human operator will force the program to look deeper into a position by rocking the moves forward and back from a starting position in search of better deeper moves and filling up the hash tables. Then by trail and error extend out promising lines to reach a better conclusion about the position then the computers could by its own devices.

Yes, this works well for the human and computer team, but has nothing to do with human players superior positional skills.

I disagree with that because a human with poor judgement can still mess this up. A stronger player will be more effective with this technique than you or I.

This is in fact a very good way to combine the strengths of both human and computer and of course a weaker human has less strengths to combine.

[syzygy]

Read the game analysis:

I stopped at "unaided".

Now how about the real argument:

- do you agree or disagree that a human master using H3 (and sufficiently adept at it) would beat H3 at (very) long time controls, i.e. that the combination is stronger?
- if you agree, what is your explanation for it? Surely not that the human master's tactical contribution makes the difference?

Why is this the real argument and not a real match that was played with detailed game analysis showing computers beating a CC master at CC.

Because I haven't seen anyone argue that unaided mortal humans (i.e. humans who do not have the tactical abilities of a computer) would be stronger than the strongest computers at long time control. In any event, I am not going to take that position.

Or why using rocking analysis to force the program to look deeper into positions to find better moves, gives credit to the human for finding the moves because he used rocking analysis. And in theory used it to beat a version of the same program that was left to its on devices.

Ok, so we have some agreement that humans using rocking analysis can come up with better moves than the engine left to its own devices. So the hybrid is stronger than the engine, at sufficiently long time controls.

Now why is that? Your answer:

Yes, but this is not due to the great positional knowledge of the player, it has more to do the player analyzing and looking at alternative lines with the computer. This is just a skill one uses to get the most out of the computer engine. I have used this myself, It is called rocking analysis. And I can find better lines using this tactic then the engine may find left to its own devices.

It is "just a skill"? What kind of skill? Not a tactical skill.

Is it just a mindless computer skill? Then a programmer could easily write a script that would do it, thereby creating an engine (script + H3) that is stronger than the original engine. That would be interesting...

Btw, I am not saying that the human has "great" positional knowledge. But he has easily more positional knowledge than the computer when you take out the calculation part.

[mwyoung]

Don, I have a question for you.

Miguel A. Ballicora, Ronald de Man and others theory is if I understand corrrectly is you can get a list of candidate moves say put Stockfish on pv=2,or 4. And from this list the humans pick the best move from a human point of view. This make the whole team stronger by 200 elo. In theory the stockfish team + human(s) are now stronger then Houdini 3.

There are many ways to do this and don't vouch for each one, but what I'm saying is that one man and one machine working together will produce much better chess than either by themselves. I'm assuming that the human has access to a flexible GUI that let's him experiment and there are no constraints, the human can use the program in any way he see's fit.

I agree, because I have done it. But why is this proof if a player uses rocking analysis to find better moves then a program could own its own show proof. That human have better positional knowledge then the computer alone has.

I'm not supplying a "proof" of anything, only an opinion. You cannot "prove" that a computer has better positional understanding because it's all an illusion anyway and subject to interpretation. Like I say you cannot prove that someone is "ugly", at best you can only get a consensus of opinion.

I am not familiar with the "rocking analysis", I have never heard that expression before. But you make it sound like a brainless thing when in fact it's not. It's based on a very sophisticated combination of reasoning ability and judgement. A human can perform this operation quite skillfully but a computer cannot (yet), otherwise the computer should select all it's moves this way and be it's own partner.

This has nothing to do with a persons better positional skills, they are just getting the most of the chess program by using the rocking analysis technique. The human operator will force the program to look deeper into a position by rocking the moves forward and back from a starting position in search of better deeper moves and filling up the hash tables. Then by trail and error extend out promising lines to reach a better conclusion about the position then the computers could by its own devices.

Yes, this works well for the human and computer team, but has nothing to do with human players superior positional skills.

I disagree with that because a human with poor judgement can still mess this up. A stronger player will be more effective with this technique than you or I.

This is in fact a very good way to combine the strengths of both human and computer and of course a weaker human has less strengths to combine.

To me this is mindless, I can do this very fast and skillfully with a computer. And this is how most, and I would say all human and computer teams work.

This is what the are saying is proof that humans are still better then computers at positional chess, because a human and computer team is stronger then the computer alone. And the human player can add nothing to the team tactically, so it must be the humans superior positional skill alone that is making the human + computer team stronger... and this is pure BS.

Maybe I am down playing my own positional skills, but it does not take great positional skills to do this. I clearly know my positional skills are inferior to chess programs. Even though together we can find stronger moves as a team.

[beram]

Don, I have a question for you.

Miguel A. Ballicora, Ronald de Man and others theory is if I understand corrrectly is you can get a list of candidate moves say put Stockfish on pv=2,or 4. And from this list the humans pick the best move from a human point of view. This make the whole team stronger by 200 elo. In theory the stockfish team + human(s) are now stronger then Houdini 3.

There are many ways to do this and don't vouch for each one, but what I'm saying is that one man and one machine working together will produce much better chess than either by themselves. I'm assuming that the human has access to a flexible GUI that let's him experiment and there are no constraints, the human can use the program in any way he see's fit.

I agree, because I have done it. But why is this proof if a player uses rocking analysis to find better moves then a program could own its own show proof. That human have better positional knowledge then the computer alone has.

I'm not supplying a "proof" of anything, only an opinion. You cannot "prove" that a computer has better positional understanding because it's all an illusion anyway and subject to interpretation. Like I say you cannot prove that someone is "ugly", at best you can only get a consensus of opinion.

I am not familiar with the "rocking analysis", I have never heard that expression before. But you make it sound like a brainless thing when in fact it's not. It's based on a very sophisticated combination of reasoning ability and judgement. A human can perform this operation quite skillfully but a computer cannot (yet), otherwise the computer should select all it's moves this way and be it's own partner.

This has nothing to do with a persons better positional skills, they are just getting the most of the chess program by using the rocking analysis technique. The human operator will force the program to look deeper into a position by rocking the moves forward and back from a starting position in search of better deeper moves and filling up the hash tables. Then by trail and error extend out promising lines to reach a better conclusion about the position then the computers could by its own devices.

Yes, this works well for the human and computer team, but has nothing to do with human players superior positional skills.

I disagree with that because a human with poor judgement can still mess this up. A stronger player will be more effective with this technique than you or I.

This is in fact a very good way to combine the strengths of both human and computer and of course a weaker human has less strengths to combine.

Arno Nickel, a top ranked correspondence chessplayer, won 2 games in 2005 against Hydra in a 3 games correspondence chessmatch which lasted 6 months http://amici.iccf.com/issues/issue_05/i ... hydra.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Nickel
He was assisted by Fritz and other chessprograms, so a kind of superdreihirn so to speak.
One of the games he won, was with an endgame "blunder" by Hydra, which any topprogram now will not make anymore.
It would be challenging and interesting though, to see Arno Nickel give it a try once more against Houdini 3 on a 16 core cluster.

grts Bram

[syzygy]

Maybe I am down playing my own positional skills, but it does not take great positional skills to do this. I clearly know my positional skills are inferior to chess programs. Even though together we can find stronger moves as a team.

They are probably not inferior if the computer uses a 1-ply search.

I can agree that computers are better positionally if what you mean by that is that their search effectively enhances their rudimentary evaluation to the point that they recognize subtle positional aspects from the point of view of a human chess player. But that is of course just adding tactics from the point of view of the computer.

The way computers play chess is just completely different from the way humans play. If you could come up with a definition of "positional chess" that is independent from the process at which a particular entity arrives at a move, then I will not contest that computers are better positionally in that particular sense.

[Don]

Don, I have a question for you.

Miguel A. Ballicora, Ronald de Man and others theory is if I understand corrrectly is you can get a list of candidate moves say put Stockfish on pv=2,or 4. And from this list the humans pick the best move from a human point of view. This make the whole team stronger by 200 elo. In theory the stockfish team + human(s) are now stronger then Houdini 3.

There are many ways to do this and don't vouch for each one, but what I'm saying is that one man and one machine working together will produce much better chess than either by themselves. I'm assuming that the human has access to a flexible GUI that let's him experiment and there are no constraints, the human can use the program in any way he see's fit.

I agree, because I have done it. But why is this proof if a player uses rocking analysis to find better moves then a program could own its own show proof. That human have better positional knowledge then the computer alone has.

I'm not supplying a "proof" of anything, only an opinion. You cannot "prove" that a computer has better positional understanding because it's all an illusion anyway and subject to interpretation. Like I say you cannot prove that someone is "ugly", at best you can only get a consensus of opinion.

I am not familiar with the "rocking analysis", I have never heard that expression before. But you make it sound like a brainless thing when in fact it's not. It's based on a very sophisticated combination of reasoning ability and judgement. A human can perform this operation quite skillfully but a computer cannot (yet), otherwise the computer should select all it's moves this way and be it's own partner.

This has nothing to do with a persons better positional skills, they are just getting the most of the chess program by using the rocking analysis technique. The human operator will force the program to look deeper into a position by rocking the moves forward and back from a starting position in search of better deeper moves and filling up the hash tables. Then by trail and error extend out promising lines to reach a better conclusion about the position then the computers could by its own devices.

Yes, this works well for the human and computer team, but has nothing to do with human players superior positional skills.

I disagree with that because a human with poor judgement can still mess this up. A stronger player will be more effective with this technique than you or I.

This is in fact a very good way to combine the strengths of both human and computer and of course a weaker human has less strengths to combine.

To me this is mindless, I can do this very fast and skillfully with a computer. And this is how most, and I would say all human and computer teams work.

This is what the are saying is proof that humans are still better then computers at positional chess, because a human and computer team is stronger then the computer alone.

I don't know who is saying this is proof, but it's not me. I believe it's obvious that computers outplay computers (and not just tactically) but I never offered up any sort of proof, nor do I have one.

I don't really understand where you are going with all of this but take care that you don't make assumptions about what someone else said or believes. I cannot tell you how many times it's happened to me on this forum where people try to play volleyball with me, they first try to define my position (the setup) and then refute it (the smash or spike.)

I really have very little to say other than that I believe computers play better positional chess than humans. This is the perfect subject for a heated debate since "positional play" is such an abstract hard to define concept.

I do have a comment on the issue about how mindless the computer assisted analysis procedure is. If it were mindless, we would simply automated the task with computers, right? And a Grandmaster could not get any better results than you could. Your comment on this reveals that you do not appreciate the subtleties of computer assisted analysis.

And the human player can add nothing to the team tactically, so it must be the humans superior positional skill alone that is making the human + computer team stronger... and this is pure BS.

Maybe I am down playing my own positional skills, but it does not take great positional skills to do this. I clearly know my positional skills are inferior to chess programs. Even though together we can find stronger moves as a team.

[mwyoung]

Maybe I am down playing my own positional skills, but it does not take great positional skills to do this. I clearly know my positional skills are inferior to chess programs. Even though together we can find stronger moves as a team.

They are probably not inferior if the computer uses a 1-ply search.

But you forget my theory that tactics and positional play are one in the same. So by adding search depth to the program you are adding positional knowledge.

We are just not going to agree on this...

But I hope you vote in the 3-hirn test so we can get some data if this works today vs Houdini 3.

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 10&t=46156

[EroSennin]

I think rybka 3 or something like that lost a 2 game correspondence match against a human plus a weak fritz.

[syzygy]

Maybe I am down playing my own positional skills, but it does not take great positional skills to do this. I clearly know my positional skills are inferior to chess programs. Even though together we can find stronger moves as a team.

They are probably not inferior if the computer uses a 1-ply search.

But you forget my theory that tactics and positional play are one in the same. So by adding search depth to the program you are adding positional knowledge.

We are just not going to agree on this...

If you define them as one and the same, then our disagreeement vanishes.