Martin Brown wrote:
Bateman wrote:
I'm not much given to conspiracy theories in general but I still dont
think that Kasparov is just exhibiting sour grapes though.

I think he has two fairly legitimate complaints:

1. The IBM team were still tinkering with the software between games
during the match. Game 1 was unrepresentative and revealed some bugs in
the King protection arithemtic weighting.

So what? Kasparov was allowed to study chess and improve his play in the
light of earlier games in the match so why shouldn't IBM be allowed to do
the same?


2. There was no chance for Kasparov to prepare for the match by studying
the play of Deep Blue against a representative sample of other GM's.

This is true and unfortunate but what was IBM supposed to do about it?
Should they have been made to pay other grandmasters for their time to
play matches against the computer? It's not feasible for them to give
Kasparov a `copy' of Deep Blue to experiment with because the machine was
very expensive and there was only one of them, anyway.


I don't think the IBM team cheated at all.

I agree.


I would really like to see Kasparov play Hydra while he is still strong
and before the Hydra becomes invincible. This new machine does have
enough of a track record now that normal match preparation is possible.

That would be a very interesting match, yes. I doubt it will happen,
though.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Addictive Dish (TM): it's like a fine
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ ceramic dish but you can never put
it down!

snipped x-posts and delurk

On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Vasileios Zografos wrote:

And lets not forget Kasparov's quote: "Even if they were assisted by the
devil, that would probably be covered by the rules"

I read _Behind_Deep_Blue_ about a year ago, and I don't specifically
remember this quote (it may not be in the book). But I do remember the
book talking about how they were trying to arrange a rematch, but Kasparov
kept coming up with ever more ludicrous demands for the contract. IBM did
the best to meet them, but at some point they gave up. Then Kasparov
publicly stated that IBM would not play him in a rematch.

I think the book even mentioned some of the rules that were negotiated
into the contract for their initial match. Strange stuff like, Kasparov
gets a private restroom, and no one was allowed to be in the hallway
leading to it when he was going to/from. And IIRC, something about
specific fresh fruit that was to be in his prep room. There were others
that were equally amusing/puzzling, but I can't recall any of them.

Note that I did not see the movie in question. My opinion is based solely
on the book. But after reading the book, I definately came away with the
impression that Kasparov was a few pieces short of a full set, and did not
take very well to losing.

Just my $0.02, I don't really care since I'll never play the guy.
lurk

Bateman wrote:
That's right, It's a long time since I played through the game. The
perpetual check wasn't outside D.B.'S search horizon either. And
anyway, all computer chess programs will always selectively search a
sequence of checks, so even if the draw was 15-20 ply deep (not outside
D.B.'s brute force) most computers will find it. That's the
significance of bd4, axb5 doesn't allow the perpetual, bd4 does.

The sequence of checks has a silent move inbetween.

--
GCP

"Bateman" writes:

No you dont recall correctly. The move was bd4. It was not a move a
computer would have chosen for the simple reason that it allowed
Kasparov to draw with a perpetual check. Kasparov overlooked this
forced draw at the time, but Deep Blue must have been aware of it. Deep
Blue isn't programmed to make moves which Negatively affect it's
evaluation, but at the time it played bd4 DB already had itself better,
so why would it have played a move it would have seen as creating a
0.00 evaluation? When Fischer accused the Soviets of rigging the
candidates tournaments everyone said he was whining too. Why do you
refer to Kasparov as brilliant in the past tense? Is he past it now? Do
you think he'd be a sucker for your Kings Indian down the club? Dont
tell me, you beat him already, right?

Um, do you realise how deep it would have needed to search to find the
perpetual from that move?

Andrew

"LSD" wrote in message
.. .
I watch this movie tonight, sort of, while I was working on something.

I found it interesting..and was shocked to hear Kasparov say he was
cheated.

Anyone got strong (or better still, informed) opinions about this. Did
the Deep Blue team cheat and have grandmasters available to kill off
errant candidate moves for DB when Kasparov got tricky, or is Kasparov a
whiner who needs to make excuses when he loses?

Personally I like Kasparov (he will make a good politician), and I dislike
cheaters...but I can't believe those computer scientists would cheat.
of course they would cheat - if they found the way. That's business!!

David Richerby wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

1. The IBM team were still tinkering with the software between games
during the match. Game 1 was unrepresentative and revealed some bugs in
the King protection arithemtic weighting.

So what? Kasparov was allowed to study chess and improve his play in the
light of earlier games in the match so why shouldn't IBM be allowed to do
the same?

A cynic might argue that the first game was a deliberate hustle.

2. There was no chance for Kasparov to prepare for the match by studying
the play of Deep Blue against a representative sample of other GM's.

This is true and unfortunate but what was IBM supposed to do about it?
Should they have been made to pay other grandmasters for their time to
play matches against the computer? It's not feasible for them to give
Kasparov a `copy' of Deep Blue to experiment with because the machine was
very expensive and there was only one of them, anyway.

I don't have a solution. But I think it was an important factor in the
match. It is a great shame they turned DeepBlue into a museum piece
afterwards. Its match win was in the end an anti-climax.

I would really like to see Kasparov play Hydra while he is still strong
and before the Hydra becomes invincible. This new machine does have
enough of a track record now that normal match preparation is possible.

That would be a very interesting match, yes. I doubt it will happen,
though.

Sooner or later there will be a strongest human vs Hydra match. They had
better not leave it too long though if they want to win or even draw.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Adam Maloney wrote:
On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Vasileios Zografos wrote:
And lets not forget Kasparov's quote: "Even if they were assisted by the
devil, that would probably be covered by the rules"

I read _Behind_Deep_Blue_ about a year ago, and I don't specifically
remember this quote (it may not be in the book).

That quote isn't from the book. It's in the Chessbase article

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2461

Kasparov is commenting on rumours that he was assisting the team that won
a tournament for teams of people and computers working together.


I think the book even mentioned some of the rules that were negotiated
into the contract for their initial match. Strange stuff like, Kasparov
gets a private restroom, and no one was allowed to be in the hallway
leading to it when he was going to/from. And IIRC, something about
specific fresh fruit that was to be in his prep room. There were others
that were equally amusing/puzzling, but I can't recall any of them.

That's not especially bizarre. Kasparov is operating under time
constraints so he doesn't want to have to wait while somebody else uses
the facilities and doesn't want anyone to break his concentration by
saying hello when he's on the way there. If he wants fruit to be
provided, it seems reasonable to specify what fruit if there are some
kinds of fruit he likes and some he doesn't.

Apparently, for the 1993 championship match, Short and Kasparov were given
forms to fill in saying what they wanted in their break rooms. Short
wrote something like, ``Black coffee, any kind of sandwiches apart from
ham, and massage from Madonna.''


Dave.

--
David Richerby Erotic Homicidal Puzzle (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like an intriguing conundrum but it
wants to kill you and it's genuinely
erotic!

Martin Brown wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
2. There was no chance for Kasparov to prepare for the match by
studying the play of Deep Blue against a representative sample of
other GM's.

This is true and unfortunate but what was IBM supposed to do about it?
[...]

I don't have a solution.

Sorry -- didn't mean to imply that you should have come up with a
solution. :-)


But I think it was an important factor in the match.

I think it was reasonably important, yes.


It is a great shame they turned DeepBlue into a museum piece afterwards.

I'm not sure there's much else they could have done with it. A computer
that can beat the best player in the world isn't really all that useful,
when you think about it. It's proved its point so there's not much else
for it to do. Also, as the film makes clear, it was a pretty expensive
piece of hardware that was only on loan from the ``we make computers'' bit
of IBM to the research division. Once the research division had finished
with it, the standard parts (i.e., the computer into which the special
hardware was plugged) went back to the hardware division and was sold to a
customer like any other computer. It ended up doing the accounts for a
major US company, as I recall.


Dave.


--
David Richerby Simple Addictive Game (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a family board game but you
can never put it down and it has no
moving parts!

David Richerby wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

David Richerby wrote:

It is a great shame they turned DeepBlue into a museum piece afterwards.

I'm not sure there's much else they could have done with it. A computer
that can beat the best player in the world isn't really all that useful,

Although a single dedicated chess board in a decent workstation would
still have made a pretty good sparring partner for Kasparov.

Regards,
Martin Brown

[ Crosspost trimmed as I've been meaning to do for a while... ]

Martin Brown wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
It is a great shame they turned DeepBlue into a museum piece
afterwards.

I'm not sure there's much else they could have done with it. A
computer that can beat the best player in the world isn't really all
that useful,

Although a single dedicated chess board in a decent workstation would
still have made a pretty good sparring partner for Kasparov.

True but that would have been a whole separate development project,
because the point of Deep Blue was that the architecture of the host
computer allowed many of these boards to be harnessed in parallel. With
sales of at most a few thousand, this wouldn't be economically viable.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Addictive Spoon (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ piece of cutlery but you can never
put it down!