20 Years Later, Humans Still No Match For Computers

[whereagles]

I'm not sure computers are supposed to "tell" us anything... it's more the other way around: the strategic principles that guide their eval functions are based on human knowledge.

Even new eval things like king tropism (bonuses to evals from attacking squares near the enemy king) or open files (penalize opening files when with spatial advantage) that lead to ELO increase come from human intuition, not from anything the computer "told" us.

One could perhaps breakdown the evals of an engine's principal variation and see what composes those. Then we could perhaps see whether this or that factor is preponderant and elaborate a human principle. Example: if many games are won with high evals coming from king tropism, maybe this can be translated into "have your pieces attack squares near the enemy king, even if not directly a check". This is something we sort of already know from very early, but you get the point.

[reflectionofpower]

In the old times chess play was considered as a kind of Art but now it is only a branch of sport to gain money.

I disagree with you a little on this angle. Back in "the old times chess play" players pretty much made peanuts and fought to make more money in parallel with other sports at that time. We fast forward to today and top GM's can make a very good living at present and at the same time their games are fulled with artistic overtones.

Look at all these triple digit million dollar contracts in various sports and I think we can all agree that when Jordan does a fancy move under the basket for a point or when Brady throws a nice pass (Yes, I am a Patriots fan) or when Djokovic drills a winner down the line it does look really good and they are getting paid for it. if you're going to be good at something at least get some coin for it.

[corres]

[quote="reflectionofpower"]
Back in "the old times chess play" players pretty much made peanuts and fought to make more money in parallel with other sports at that time..[/quote]
This fight was typical in the time of Bobby Fischer.
But in the rally old times the majority of the leading chess players were a person of independent means.
In the socialist era the income of a leading chess players was about the same as a well payed worker.
Nowadays the huge prizes can be owed to the TV promotions and the supporters with a lot of extra money.

[Uri]

I'm not so good at chess despite spending years trying to figure out the game.

But from my own experience I can definitely tell that computers still have major weaknesses.

Chess engines don't understand chess strategy so well and they can't plan so well as humans can.

True chess engines are good at certain tactics and combinations but there is still a lot of tactics that they don't see.

[Tony P.]

In the old times chess play was considered as a kind of Art but now it is only a branch of sport to gain money.

You've made me laugh! Natalia Pogonina estimated in 2010 that only the top 100 players in the world were earning more than $50K a year from chess-related activities.

[corres]

[quote="Tony P."][quote="corres"]In the old times chess play was considered as a kind of Art but now it is only a branch of sport [b]to gain money.[/b][/quote]

You've made me laugh! Natalia Pogonina [url=https://www.chess.com/article/view/maki ... y-in-chess]estimated[/url] in 2010 that only the top 100 players in the world were earning more than $50K a year from chess-related activities.
[/quote]

I talked about chess players like Bobby Fischer, Kasparov, Polgar sisters and so on...
Chess is not a well salable sport as football, tennis, Forma 1, for e.g.
The income of leading chess players is insured by the chess fans with lot of extra money and no by the advertisements.

[reflectionofpower]

I'm not so good at chess despite spending years trying to figure out the game.

But from my own experience I can definitely tell that computers still have major weaknesses.

Chess engines don't understand chess strategy so well and they can't plan so well as humans can.

True chess engines are good at certain tactics and combinations but there is still a lot of tactics that they don't see.

Major weaknesses?? The best GM's in the world couldn't beat the strongest programs out there. If they have such a weakness then they should be able to exploit it.

"still a lot of tactics that they don't see."???

We're not talking about 20 years ago we're talking about 2017. In tactics they are unparalleled.

[corres]

[quote="reflectionofpower"][quote="Uri"]I'm not so good at chess despite spending years trying to figure out the game.

But from my own experience I can definitely tell that computers still have major weaknesses.

Chess engines don't understand chess strategy so well and they can't plan so well as humans can.

True chess engines are good at certain tactics and combinations but there is still a lot of tactics that they don't see.[/quote]

Major weaknesses?? The best GM's in the world couldn't beat the strongest programs out there. If they have such a weakness then they should be able to exploit it.

"still a lot of tactics that they don't see."???

We're not talking about 20 years ago we're talking about 2017. In tactics they are unparalleled.
[/quote]

Chess programs know about chess a very few things but what they know they know them very fast and untiring.
I think that what peoples mean to be "strategy of chess" it is only a compulsion of making category because of barriers of human thinking about a very complex problem like chess playing. Basically chess is a tactical game. This is the main reason of the success of chess engines.

[reflectionofpower]

I'm not so good at chess despite spending years trying to figure out the game.

But from my own experience I can definitely tell that computers still have major weaknesses.

Chess engines don't understand chess strategy so well and they can't plan so well as humans can.

True chess engines are good at certain tactics and combinations but there is still a lot of tactics that they don't see.

Major weaknesses?? The best GM's in the world couldn't beat the strongest programs out there. If they have such a weakness then they should be able to exploit it.

"still a lot of tactics that they don't see."???

We're not talking about 20 years ago we're talking about 2017. In tactics they are unparalleled.

Chess programs know about chess a very few things but what they know they know them very fast and untiring.
I think that what peoples mean to be "strategy of chess" it is only a compulsion of making category because of barriers of human thinking about a very complex problem like chess playing. Basically chess is a tactical game. This is the main reason of the success of chess engines.

correct