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Kasparov King No More 200

Posted by timothy from the can-kramnik-handle-deepest-blue? dept.
soccerdad writes: "After 15 years as world champion, Garry Kasparov has been beaten by Vladimir Kramnik. Kasparov is generally acknowledged as the greatest chess player of all time, but he was unable to beat Kramnik in the 16-game match. Kramnik won twice as white. Kasparov needed to win the final two games to come out 8-8 (which would have retained the title). However, he agreed to a draw in the 39th move of game 15, giving the championship to Kramnik. For detailed match information, check out FT.com Match Centre."
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Kasparov King No More More

Kasparov King No More

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  • Kasparov is acknowledged to be the greatest human player ever. I believe he had a problem when he played Deep Blue... IBM has subsequently adopted Linux... imagine a Beowulf cluster of Deep Blues ;)
  • It was Kasparov vs. IBMs' SP2 that inspired me to take a position managing a SP2. I hope that he's had as rewarding an experience as I have had.
  • Anyone see it? I think the name was "Searching for Bobby Fischer" You would never think they could make an interesting movie about playing chess but it was actually really cool.
  • Great, more fodder for big blue. I wonder if they'll have it put Kramnik to the test. Also, has Kasparov beaten Kramnik before in a tournament? Or have they just never faced eachother before so maybe Kramnik was the underground best player all along.

  • What's next (Score:3)

    by Pandora's Vox ( 231969 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @06:28PM (#653839) Homepage Journal
    Of course, now we must see if this Vladimir Kramnik fellow can beat Deep Blue...

  • Last I checked, Kasparov was beaten a while back by a computer.

  • I saw this story on ABC News today... (Score:3)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @06:29PM (#653841) Homepage Journal
    It was sad. :( I saw Kasparov getting frustrated in this one move. I heard that he was having personal problems with his life. ABC News.com [go.com] has the full story and the video (not sure if it is the same one on TV) as well.

  • Greatest of all time? (Score:5)

    by brianvan ( 42539 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @06:30PM (#653842)
    Let's see:

    Kasparov was beaten by a computer...

    then he was beaten by a human...

    How would he fare against infinite monkeys?

    Or better yet, if Kasparov was so good, imagine... a Beowulf cluster of him...

    Or... if Kasparov linked to a commercial library, would RMS approve?

    (doh)
  • My question is has anyone done anything to increase the variety of chess like create more formalistic rules to things like star trek's creation of 3d chess or the like. I havn't seen too much of that out there.
  • see subject
  • that nerds (ie: news for nerds) like Chess... Are there no nerds in this modern age of social and digital revolution that like the extreme sports? Why are we still contained to such sports as Chess, Backgammon, and the like? Why haven't 'nerds' invented their own game, much like societies 'dating game' that is highly exclusive and highly competitive? Oh well, just my rant against society.
  • How would he fare against infinite monkeys?

    He would beat an infinite number of them.
  • Indentially, I believe I saw an article two or three months ago talking about the Star Trek 3D chess. I think someone actually created the boards. I know the rules are outlined w/in the many Trekkie dictionaries (suprisingly). Personally, I'd like to see the Klingon sort of games. I mean, what guy wouldn't love to be given a really sharp weapon and be told to maim and mutilate the opponent in the name of sport? Footbal - fah.. It's for sissies who want pads >=)
  • Let's all play CALVINBALL!!
  • Kramnik vs Tyson.

    Bra and panty match
  • Q3Arena Unreal Tournament Need I continue...
  • Kasparov lost most likely due to some problems that didn't let him concentrate and prepare fully for the game, but he is still so far ahead, that I am pretty sure he will return very soon. He is natural genius supported with extremly hard work, sometimes I really wonder how much work he put in his preparations. He is the kind of strategic mastermind that none of US generals would like to face in battle :)
  • Hear hear! I'm up for a game of that. I forgot about that. I think Calvinball, of all activities, would be the quintessential geek sport. Of course, it would require some coordination, and that goes against the stereotype, so even more so.
  • I used to play when I was younger. My father taught me the game, and I honed my skils in high school (some of my opponents were very good: one of them was the provincial champ for several years running). I got half-decent at it, but never exceptional.

    Recent I had the pleasure of losing (as funny as that might sound) to a fellow I met in an "Einstein's Bagels": I had seen him play another once, and play several games out of an openings book, and he was willing to engage me in a game. Note: I hadn't played seriously in at least 20 years.

    While I lost (Well, I resigned. The one redeeming fact was that I realized it was over earlier than most), it was a lot of fun.

    - RSH
  • Nothing looks weaker than offering the draw when you need the win...

    This isn't meant to be flamebait, btw...

  • Nintendo Joystick?!? (Score:4)

    by Mdog ( 25508 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @06:42PM (#653855) Homepage
    Representing this story with the Nintendo Joystick is just WRONG :)

  • deep blue (Score:3)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <`nomadicworld' `at' `gmail.com'> on Thursday November 02, 2000 @06:43PM (#653856) Homepage
    In regards to the computer comments, I don't think it's a big deal that he was beaten by a computer; it's just a matter of raw computational power, like being beaten in the 100 meter dash by a car. It's too his credit that he could give it a good run for it's money; GNUchess trounces me quite easily.
    --
  • No its worst for me, since I'm a US citizen, and have to put up with whoever the US voter-trolls elect.
  • Service Pack 2. Finally, proof that Windows can confuse even the greatest minds in the world.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Prior to this, they'd met 23 times in tournament play, each winning three and drawing 17. To say that Kasparov is no longer #1 is a bit rash; he'll rise again.
  • Ummm, nerds do like chess. I think the stereotype is at least as valid as nerds like computers, nerds like science, nerds like anime, nerds like sci-fi or any of the other topics covered here. Or at the very least, chess likers are nerds.

    Besides, whats not to like? Its deep, thoughtful, strategic. You can play for fun, or really get into it and play competitively.
  • I am almost certain that they have played before (Kramnik is generally considered one of the top players in the world, and the top players tend to end up in a lot of the same tournaments), although I am not sure whether Kramnik has ever won. It is, however, likely. What is important here is not that Kasparov lost a game, a somewhat common occurence, but that he lost the match, which is much more important.

    - Ryan Gabbard
  • ... running GNUchess
  • I think it's important to note your comment:
    Or at the very least, chess likers are nerds.

    We need to learn that while chess likers may be nerds, that doesn't necessarily mean nerds are chess likers. That was the basis of my comment, because you don't see Slashdot covering articles on say, extreme sports (unless of course someone developed some new kayak which had a Linux-powered GPS system in it or was called "The Penguin" ;-)

    Of course, hoping for diversity on Slashdot may be like hoping for the Slashcode to be written in ASP (Not that I hope such a horrid fate upon it, mind you). I was just sharing my two cents

  • That was a good movie, but it was about Joshua Waitzkin, what does that have to do with this?

  • OK, I understand... (Score:3)

    by djrogers ( 153854 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @07:06PM (#653866)
    That chess holds interest for many people much smarter than myself, but did you guys read the link? This statement is just too funny...


    this is Malcolm Pein at the London Chess Center - getting my breathe back after all the excitement - thanks for joining me today


    And this -

    There'll be dancing in the streets of Tuapse tonight!


    Umm... Please dear god, as long as I love - never let me see a bunch of chess fans 'dancing' for any reason...
  • the king is dead, long live the king!
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • Electronics--err, computers--err, silicon can't hold titles just yet...

  • More Backround Information (Score:5)

    by MathJMendl ( 144298 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @07:08PM (#653869) Homepage
    In case anyone wanted more information about the backround behind this, The New York Times Online has an informative article about it here [nytimes.com] (free reg. req.). It turns out that Vladimir Kramnik, the winner of this match, was taken on as a student at the age of 11 by Mr. Kasparov at his elite chess school in Moscow. I still think that Kasparov is the best player out there right now, though. He may have lost this one championship match but being the champion for 15 years allows for a few mistakes. Still, I think that it was very impressive that Kramnik was able to defeat him, where no one else had been.
  • I would not completely write off humanity yet. While Kasparov might have been the strongest among _humans_ he is perhaps not the best human to play against a machine. That has to do with style. Kasparov excels when it comes to calculation, but even he cannot compare to a computer. Vladimir Kramnik on the other hand, has a positional style that is much more effective against computers. I.e intuition and knowledge might still be able to beat raw computional power.
  • Yeah, that movie really captured the essense of the game and portrayed it in a dramatic, telling way. I really liked it.
  • I'm curious: How do the best open source programs fair against the deep blue's of the world? How do they stack up on equal hardware against commercially available programs?
  • Currently, there are three recognized chess world champions. Kramnik is the newest one. Karpov is also a world champion in that he was the FIDE champ but was never ousted. His claim is being tested in the courts currently though. Khalifman was the winner of the FIDE knockout tournament a year ago I believe which makes him a world champion. The next knockout tournament should be coming up soon.

    Whether Deep Blue is a world champion only depends on if you think a computer can be or not. Considering it has been disassembled though, I think the computer has forfeited the title. ;)

  • The psychic beaming signals to Korchnoi was not sitting in the front row but rather, was with the Soviet Army as they took his family hostage during that match.

  • Greatest? (Score:5)

    by craw ( 6958 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @07:31PM (#653877) Homepage
    Perhaps, but Kasparov has some pretty good competition for that title: Morphy, Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine. For his time, Paul Morphy was great and he had a very major impact on chess. Jose Capablanca was noted for his brilliant attacks. Alexander Alkehine was a long time champ noted for his defense and tactics, who surplanted Capablanca as world champion. And finally, Emanuel Lasker was a long time champ (and also a mathematican).

    The title of greatest does not always go to the latest great player. IMHO, one must also keep in mind the historical perspective. I view greatest as someone that had a major impact on his/her field, and one that set a relative standard that must be met.

  • For those not in the know, here's [nytimes.com] the link to the partners trick that requires no registration.

    I do recommend reading the article though if you are not a die hard well versed chess watcher, it has some interesting history about the players.

  • "The old order changeth heralding in the new." The very thing we techies survive on and dream of.

  • ROFL! (Score:1)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    Mod that up!

    I just tell everyone that aliens have stolen his brain...

    Man, that's funny...
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • maybe i'm wrong, but didn't bobby fisher regularly dispatch kasparov at the world championships? on the other hand i watched a lot of kasparov's play over the last ten years. when he goes on the attack it is over, man!
  • Only in the US do football players wear pads :-). But then, leave it to the US to call a game where the ball is primarily handled with the hands football.

    As for the sharp-weapon sports, I think that went the way of the Romans. It'll be back sometime though. This society thrives on depictions of such things, how far away is the real thing? (If you're a major carnage fan, note that I'm merely observing the status quo)

    .sig fried
  • Be aware that Deep Blue was designed to specifically beat one person: Kasparov. The makers of Deep Blue studied every game Kasparov had on record.
  • How about, you vote for who you think will do the best job running this country and stop pushing your politics on everyone else?

    I see enough advertisement, Thank You

    Jeremy

  • Hmmn.. well perl scripts definately require more motion than chess... I think Chess is less active.. hehe, :)

  • In regards to the computer comments, I don't think it's a big deal that he was beaten by a computer; it's just a matter of raw computational power, like being beaten in the 100 meter dash by a car.

    Well said. While people regard chess as one of the best challenges of intelligence and mental agility, it turns out that brute force and a few *relatively* simple heuristics are all that's needed to play at world-class standard. More to the point, the techniques that are used for computers to play chess well have been of little use for other artificial-intelligence problems.

  • Despite being an NDP supporter, I can assure you: the NDP will not get elected. They never have, and they may never at all.

  • Fischer never played Kasparov. Spassky was Fischer's nemesis.

  • Several years ago, Kasparov said publicly that it would it most likely be Kramnik who eventually dethroned him.

  • To say that Kasparov is no longer #1 is a bit rash; he'll rise again.

    I doubt it. He is not that young anymore and cannot handle the psychological stress of a chess tournament as well as he could 10 years ago. He himself said in a recent interview that he thought that he'd be able to stay on top for maybe another 4-5 years tops. Looks like he overestimated his abilities.
  • No, the hostage thing happened before the match. The psychic was sitting front row for the match. Korchnoi complained and asked the organizers to move him out of psychic range. Chess players are, of course, world class lunatics. The incidence of madness and just plain wonky behaviour in world class players is astonishing.

    Morphy, Steinitz, Alekhine, Fischer were all world champions and all quite insane. And that's just off the top of my head; the list is considerably longer.

    Hardly surprising since it takes a special kind of reclusive personality to spend a lifetime pushing wooden pieces on a well defined board, using well defined rules, to the exclusion of life's random slings, arrows and rare triumphs. Wait a minute, that sounds a lot like programmers.
  • What I do know about is that Mr Polgar (father of the three chess playing Polgar sisters, of whom Judit is the best) has been experimenting with variants of chess, including different dimensions of the board.

    I have no idea how these variants play though, so I can't tell you anything about those.

  • Kasparov not world champ (Score:5)

    by cancerward ( 103910 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @08:12PM (#653893) Journal
    When I wrote this slashdot article [slashdot.org] I called Kasparov the "de jure" world champion and the "world's highest rated player".

    Kasparov hasn't been the official FIDE [fide.com] world chess federation champion since 1993, when he broke with FIDE to play against the legitimate challenger Nigel Short. [mark-weeks.com]

    Karpov regained the FIDE title in a 1993 match [mark-weeks.com] and lost it by not playing in the 1999 FIDE world championship. [about.com] This matter is currently under legal dispute. [gzdaily.com]

    Kasparov did not play his legitimate challenger, Alexei Shirov, [chessbase.com] and attempted to set up a "championship" match with another leading player, Viswanathan Anand [ishipress.com] of India before hand-picking Kramnik as his challenger here.

    However Kramnik is number 3 on the FIDE rating list [fide.com] and so was a worthy challenger, just not the man who deserved the match, Shirov.

  • Or, you could just put the following lines in your ~/.netscape/cookies file:

    .nytimes.com TRUE / FALSE 1283716482 NYT-S 0UBi4bbR6N1iqAvTLGx6eiDjrqy/J.yzmc8RyW15qSTcsaa8It .2/BlXTrpbBkjinVpUHzj4Hbicw0
    .nytimes.com TRUE / FALSE 976132482 RDB C8020170610000555301065A6319270101010000000002

    Don't have a ~/.netscape/cookies file? Go to hell, don't tell me about it.

  • He may have lost this one championship match but being the champion for 15 years allows for a few mistakes.

    The problem is that this wasn't just a "few mistakes". He wasn't able to get a clear advantage in ANY of the 15 games that they played togher, lost 2 of them and nearly a lost a few more. Kramnik didn't just win, he dominated the board in almost every game. I don't think that this was just a random fluke. Kasparov clearly is losing/lost his edge and getting it back at his age would be incredibly difficult.
  • Something I forgot to mention was that Shirov beat Kramnik, a very difficult task, for the right to play Kasparov! See the Shirov link above.

    So some people on the chess newsgroup [chess.misc] are saying Shirov's the world champion now! :-)

  • It is sad... (Score:3)

    by Schwarzchild ( 225794 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @08:20PM (#653897)
    but not unexpected. He may be the greatest chess player of all time but I don't think he could maintain that level of playing forever. People seem to become less able to perform intellectual feats as they get older. Kasparov beat Karpov when Karpov was 34. Kasparov is about 37 now. He's getting close to that age where one is no longer so sharp. Here's a good article on aging from Feed [feedmag.com].

  • I have a *Star Trek* 3D Chess set... (Score:5)

    by Sir_Winston ( 107378 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @08:26PM (#653898)
    I got it for Christmas many years ago, when I was still into tournament chess. Not that I was a great tournament player--I could never break a 1600 rating, which if you know about tournament chess isn't a very good rating at all--but I enjoyed it a lot. Of course, I was about 13 at the time, and unless you're a prodigy you're not going to be great at chess that young; so that might be a good excuse to use for my poor rating. :-)

    Anyway, the set I got for Christmas and still have was, I think, made by The Franklin Mint as an authorized *Star Trek* item. It was very attractive, made from clear and blue glass, with gold-plated pieces. It came with some detailed and cumbersome rules. We played it a few times, but it proved rather uninteresting compared to real chess.

    See, the reality is that chess doesn't need to be "improved." It can't be "improved," and more variety would be a detriment instead of an improvement. As it stands, chess is complicated enough that you'll probably never play the same game twice in your life, even if you play in tournaments every week. I've known plenty of people with Master and International Grand Master ratings who've been playing chess their whole lives and are never bored with it. It's just not repetitious; there's practically infinite variety.

    There are so many practical and useful variations just of the opening moves, that chess is incredibly interesting and never truly mastered. Tournament players usually have two or three openings that they use most of the time and study extensively, but they'll try new things whenever they feel like it or when an opponent's unusual strategies force them into something different.

    Chess also has such a rich history and wonderful traditions that it could never be replaced by anything new. There have been many, many, many variations on chess created in the last century; the reason you've never heard of them is that chess players view them as a curiosity and distraction, but not as anything useful. After all, regular chess is complicated enough for people to devote their whole lives learning about it and still not master it; things like four-player chess, three-dimensional chess, etc., just distract from those studies.

    One of my favorite things about chess is its history--dating back a thousand years in the Middle East for early variations, modern chess was codified in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and in the nineteenth century it became the first real international sport. Most people today don't consider it a sport, but before the modern Olymics, before baseball and basketball and football and soccer were even invented, there was a structure in place for the best international players to compete with one another.

    One of my favorite bits of chess lore is of one of the greatest players of all time, a very rough-and-tumble English gentleman. In the 19th century the world chess championship was set distinctly apart from the rest of the chess world; the title holder could see fit to accept or decline any challengers to his title, as he saw fit, and if the challenge was accepted the champion could decide the time and place. Unlike the timed matches common today, championship matches in the 19th century could last for days or weeks, with the players working for ten to eighteen hours straight before breaking for the night, even having their meals at the board. It's been a long time since I heard this story, so some of the details may be lacking, but on the whole it's a fairly accurate account...So anyway, this particular Englishman decided that the championship match would be held...in his favorite pub, during the busiest time of the evening when people would be laughing and singing and getting ever more drunk around them. The challenger arrives, and takes his seat across from the vaunted champion, a man who he's been warned is very, very intimidating, with an intensely jovial Falstaffian presence. They make some small talk, and the challenger notices the empty glasses in front of the champ. The champ calls the serving girl over and orders another, and the challenger orders a drink as well. They get the board and pieces set up, and they're settling in for a long night when the serving girl brings their drinks. The champion, seizing the opportunity to further intimidate this challenger who's awed in the presence of the storied world champ, grabs both drinks from the serving girl's tray and drinks them both voraciously, slams the glasses down, and proclaims in chess-speak: "You left your drink *en pris*, so I took it *en passant*!" The challenger was so intimidated that he resigned immediately.

    Now, who would want to mess with a sport so ancient, noble, and complex, as chess?

  • Actually, I think Kasparov realized that he couldn't win and if didn't draw, Kramnik might very well beat him.
  • I'll know I'll be holding my breath for Death Race 2000. :)

  • >After 15 years it is finally over. This is very
    >depressing.

    Why is it depressing? It is widely regarded
    in some chess circles that the Kasparov-Karpov
    matches where bogus and fixed from the outset.
    If this is true (Boris Spassky and Victor
    Korchnoi are convinced of it, and besides,
    Russian players are well known for sandbagging
    and pre-arranging their games when it suits them),
    combined with all the political bullshit between
    FIDE and Kasparov's GMA, yadda yadda... then, can
    you really say it has been a great 15+ years for
    the chess world?

    Besides, it wasn't exactly a surprise
    that Kramnik defeated Kasparov. People were
    speculating on the inevitability of this
    long, long ago.

    Kramnik is a fantastic player in every
    respect. And he's now the Champ.
    Good for him. As Jamella says in D2, Hail
    to you, Champion.

    Another thing: a +2-0 win result in such a
    high caliber match isn't just a marginal
    victory for Kramnik. It's a decisive
    performance.

    >But I think he only lost because of
    >his personal problems.

    Kasparov lost because Kramnik is an awesome
    player. For all we know, Kramnik may
    have been facing some of his own personal
    problems during the match.

  • I think you have to be Russian with a K. Though, is Khaliman?

    I certainly don't have any chess talent...

  • I waited all night in the rain just to get my stupid Sony SP2, and there's no good games for it yet!

  • Re:the greatest human player (Score:3)

    by angry old man ( 211217 ) on Thursday November 02, 2000 @08:53PM (#653909)
    Bagh, Kasporav is a young whippersnapper that deserved to get beat by that computing machine.

    Back in my day, everyone knew who the real chess champion was. Capablanca was he! Capablanca didn't study fancy schmancy hyper-modern openings. He just say down and beat anyone he played, for 8 full years, he didn't lose a game! Until some young mathematician whippersnapper named Reti came along and hosed him with that fancy schmancy hyper-modern hogwash.

    I may be an angry old man who rambles too much, but you need to understand that real chess players use the King's gambit and occupy hte center with their pieces.

    Thank you, I need to go to bed.

  • So now there are two main claimants to the title of World Chess Champion: Kramnik and Alexander Khalifman, who won the FIDE championship knockout tournament in Las Vegas last year. Bobby Fischer is out there somewhere calling himself World Champion, but he's stated he would only play Fischer Random chess from now on, so he's out of the picture. He's also a raving lunatic paranoid antisemite.

    Many people consider Khalifman the "real" champion, because his title is sanctioned by FIDE, the world chess federation. Others think the FIDE Championship has been devalued since they went to a single-tournament championship. Its detractors call it "speed chess," and not without justification. I get the sense that most people still think Kasparov is the most legitimate champion, mainly because he keeps showing himself to be the best player in the world.It's rather shocking to see Garry lose -- it just doesn't happen. Until now.

    I'd really like to see Kramnik play Khalifman for the Undisputed Championship of the World. It's like boxing. Of course, FIDE has these knockout championship tournaments every year, so Kramnik would probably be unable to play a match before the new FIDE champ is determined. Most people don't give Khalifman that much of a chance to repeat because he's considered a fairly middlin' grandmaster, rather than one of the elite. The older system, a three year cycle of grueling matches, always selected players who had proven convincingly they are the two best players in the world (the champ didn't have to go through the cycle. He just waited for the candidates' match winner.). The new knockout system seems to make chance a much greater factor, and Khalifman's victory seems to support that theory.


    ChuckleBug

  • >Morphy and Steinitz died in institutions.

    Morphy died in his bathtub, shortly after
    coming home from a walk, apparently from apoplexy
    caused by the water being too cold.

    IIRC, Steinitz spent some time in a looney-bin.
    It is also rumoured that von Bardeleben ended
    his days in the nut-house, but I don't think
    anyone really knows what happened to him.

    >Fischer (a half jew) wouldnt take the subway
    >because it was full of jews and women. That was
    >before he was world champion. He became steadily
    >worse after that.

    Fischer specialized in the paranoia department.

    >Alekhine thought he was related
    >to the Russian Czars. He would also get drunk
    >and piss on stage during his matches.

    I'll have to look into that one.

    >Many chess players at the master level and above
    >that I've had the opportunity to relate at some
    >level with were, well, off somehow :-) I realize
    >its not exactly pc to say so but fuck it, that's
    >the impression that survived.

    Players at the lower levels, below the rarified
    stratosphere of the world-class, super-GM, and
    GM, tend to be far stranger than any of the
    "classic" cases mentioned above. But you don't
    hear much about them and you won't realize this
    until you start hanging around with them.
    The most remarkable ones are those that sacrifice
    their entire lives to chess, yet are not such
    good players. I've known players in the 1600-2100
    range who gave up their carreers and all other
    facets of their lives in order to play chess
    full time. Those types are rare, but you
    will find them at your local chess club if you
    hang around long enough. If you recall the
    movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer", there was
    one really good part that stood out over the
    general mediocrity: a very minor character who
    was an obsessed, babbling kook that gave up
    his law career (iirc) for chess, and he wasn't
    even any good. That was a really meaningful
    moment, because I've met people exactly like
    that guy. Other than that, the film mostly
    sucked.
  • Kasparov is a chess player, not a salesman. As such, the important thing is that he is good at chess, not that he has a "perfect people personality". At that level of chess, you need a strong ego to survive. World chess champions are infamous for their personality and psychological quirks.
  • That's why (just a little OT here) the game of GO is such an excellent model for computational game theory. I lost the bookmark, but I've read a great paper once on why chess was relatively easy to program, but CompSci's spend a good amount of time working on good GO implementations. One reason is that any single moment in chess can be summed up (in general) by a point count of pieces on the board, or in other words, used in part of a branching equation. Piece count is irrelevant for GO, and the game state at any moment is hard to summarize in any sort of neat numerical way: the shifting "influences" on the board don't translate very well.

    This isn't to say there aren't GO programs out there, the GnuGO is pretty good. It's just a very difficult problem to solve, which hasn't received as much attention from the computational set...

  • My confession (Score:5)

    by sebol ( 112743 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @12:17AM (#653945) Homepage
    Last time (2 years ago)

    I join yahoo.com 's games & play chess.
    & then i choose somebody & play with him.

    what i do is, run xboard ppl versus computer.
    Then copy his step, as my step on my xboard.
    Then what xboard run, i copy as my step agaisnt
    people at yahoo.

    I win :)
    hahahahaha

    p/s: I'm using dual CPU 200Mhz pentium PRO.
  • Kramnik used to be a student of Kasparovs, so they have undoubtedly played quite a few matches :)
    Official games :
    Since their first clash in 1993, Kasparov and Kramnik have met 23 times in serious tournament play in games played at classical time limits. The score stands at three wins apiece with 17 draws. The full story game list is here. [braingames.net]
    ;

  • Khalifman is world champion (Score:4)

    by stuart_farnan ( 75498 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @01:11AM (#653954)
    There is an established international federation that deals with the ratings, and runs the international tournatments, FIDE. The FIDE world championship is a big tournament, no mumber 1 contender stuff, anyone can play. It starts with local tournaments, then tournaments like the british championships, then on to a zonal tournament and interzonal tournaments. Eventually you are at the knockout stage and most non GMs are out already. Finally they battle there way down till one is left - he then plays the current champion. In short, the FIDE world championship is a monster of a competition and anyone who wins this is a very worthy champion.

    The current FIDE world champion is Alexander Khalifman, who won in Las Vegas last year. Kasparov did not play as he has set up his own chess organisation (the name escapes me, PCA or something) a few years back whilst have huge disagreements with FIDE. Basically a lot of other top GMs followed Kasparov to this new organisation with the promise of more money, less FIDE bullshit etc.(leaving Khalifman who is a good player, but not the best in the world) as world champion.

    My view is that if there is a problem with the main organisational body, fix it, dont just ignore it and form your own body to satisfy the control freak inside you. The situation is akin to Michael Jonson saying he does not like the Olympic Committee and so running the "Michael Johnson Olympics", where he chooses his opponents, and indeed chooses the number 2 contender rather than the number 1 contender to race against.

    In any case, he is almost certainly the strongest player of all time, and I would not be surprised if he won "Gary Kasparov's World Championship" back next time. As for the real world champion, who knows.

  • Not only that but... (Score:4)

    by codemonkey_uk ( 105775 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @01:33AM (#653957) Homepage
    Vladimir Kramnik was Kasparov advisor in many previouse matches, including the one against Deep Blue, and therfore had a unique, and powerfull insite into the mind of the Champion.

    It may be that Kramnik beat Kasparov, but can/could (have) Kramnik beat all of Kasparov's previouse oponents?

    If Kasparov does not retire, there is a good chance that he will be champion again. Even if Kramnik is never defeated by Kasparov, others might beat him, and Kasparov might beat them.

    As has been said, Kramnik had a unique advantage.

    Thad

  • Re:game theory: Go (Score:5)

    by heikkile ( 111814 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @02:01AM (#653958)
    There are a few good reasons why Go is computationally so much harder than chess:

    1) There are many more possible moves in every position. Something like 300 (vs 30 in chess).

    2) A game of Go lasts much longer than a game of chess, typically around 300 moves (150 ply).

    3) There is no simple way to estimate the value of a given position. It needs to be analyzed carefully. Some pieces may be an asset (alive) or a liability (dead). Sizes of loosely defined territories are hard to estimate. All this depends on the configurations the pieces can achieve.

    4) There is no clearly defined winning position (checkmate). Instead you need to secure more territory than your opponent.

    5) The game consists of several almost independent battles which anyway affect each other.

    6) It is all a matter of balance: Greed vs security; actual territory vs potential; possibilities of future gains... All these are difficult to define so that a program understands them.

    So, the huge branching factor and expensive evaluation makes the game hard for computers, while humans are strong in isolating local fights, balancing things, and keeping a strategical overview.

    GnuGo is one of the stronger programs, and I can beat it with maximum handicap. I am just a middle-level club player (5 kyu). I do not expect go programs to beat me within the next 5 years, maybe 10.

  • There have been many, many, many variations on chess created in the last century; the reason you've never heard of them is that chess players view them as a curiosity and distraction, but not as anything useful.

    No, the reason you've never heard about them is you haven't been listening. First of all, chess itself is a variant. Likely the original "chess" was what we now call Chaturanga [chessvariants.com], which dates back to 7th century India. This evolved, as variants continually cropped and died out, but occasionally replaced chess itself. Soon Chaturanga became Shatranj [chessvariants.com], and so on. Rules were changed or added, one by one. Pawns became able to move two spaces instead of one on their first move. En passant was introduced. Castling began as well. The Indian pieces were replaced with European medieval figure representations. And so forth.

    But it doesn't stop at historical variants... there are literally thousands of chess variants played regularly around the world. You can find many in the wonderful book The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants [amazon.co.uk] or on The Chess Variant Pages [chessvariants.com]. Many variants can be played online at chess servers like The Free Internet Chess Server [freechess.org] (telnet freechess.org 5000), The Middle East Wild Internet Server (telnet chess.mds.mdh.se 5555), The Internet Chess Club [chessclub.com], etc.

    Chess Variants I have played and enjoy:
    Standard, Blitz, Lightning, Quantum, Hourglass, Bughouse, 3 Board Bughouse, 4 Board Bughouse, 5 Board Bughouse, Aerial Bughouse, Crazyhouse, Suicide, Atomic, Wild 5, Wild 10, Kriegspiel, Progressive, Magnetic, Fairy Tale, Alice, Fischer Random, Random, Thai, Shogi, Xiangqi, 3 Player Chess, 4 Player Chess, Cylindrical, Infinite, Capablanca's, Mutation, Absorption, Inverse Capture, Rifle, Kamikaze, Extinction, Take-All, Rotation, Marseillais, Stealth, Hostage, Insane, Ultima and Command.

    Many of these variants were created by world class chess players to add another dimension to the game. For example, Fischer Random was invented by Bobby Fischer to eliminate opennings from the game. Capablanca created Capablanca's Chess. The list goes on and on.

    My all time favorite chess variant is bughouse, wherein you have two boards side by side and a partner who plays the opposite color from you... you pass your partner the pieces you capture and he does likewise, then as your move you may place one of these pieces on the board instead of playing a normal move with the pieces already on the board. It is a very social game and is much more fun than chess itself.

    Check out my webpage for more information on variants, chess servers, and other chess stuff: http://www.cs.rit.edu/~cem9314/chess/. [rit.edu]

  • Yep. The many draws in this game also support your statement. It isn`t likt Kasparov was slaughtered here.. they`re both on quite the same frequency. I expect him to return or at least play a pretty prominent role in world chess championship tournaments.

    And in some strange way, his defeat might not feel like a defeat at all, now that his own apprentice has rightfully clamed the throne.

    It`s a nice way to be defeated.
  • I don't think that this was just a random fluke. Kasparov clearly is losing/lost his edge and getting it back at his age would be incredibly difficult.
    Whoa, is chess like football or boxing or something? Are guys over the hill in their mid thirties? Dude is only 37. That's not even mid-life crisis age. He could have kids and completely change his outlook on life over the next twenty years. I think it's a bit early to write him off.
  • This rather proves my point, actually. Modern chess, as I pointed out, took about a thousand years to develop into the highly evolved game it is. Moves were altered over time, and unnecessary pieces whittled out of the game. The board itself has been changed and rechanged time and again.

    The end result of a thousand years of the game's "natural evolution" is a game that's practically perfect in its beauty. It's so deceptively simple--there aren't many different kinds of pieces; there's a board with a simple layout; the rules are very straight-forward. Yet, despite the appearance of simplicity, it's an extremely hard game to master. This I think makes it much more charming and beautiful than certain other games which come from the East, which have too many pieces and too-complex rules to be the international sport which chess is.

    As I said, there are many variations of chess--but almost all of which which are still being played have been invented in this century. None of the variations which have emerged since chess was codified into its modern form between two and four centuries ago (depending on who you read) have lasted long.The variations you mentioned, like Bughouse, were invented for entertainment value and a change of pace, not at all as real games in and of themselves. Some of the other variations you mentioned were invented as teaching aids, to help new players learn chess in an interesting way. In fact, a standard practice among many of the best chess coaches is to start players out with nothing but the king and a few pawns, so that they can learn the endgame--the part where most players lose their hold on the game--first, and then work backwards to learning the opening moves, which are somewhat less important.

    We played Bughouse occasionally between matches; it's common to see people playing it in the break room. Same goes for lightning chess, with just a minute on the clock to make as many moves as possible and try to have the most points on the board when the clock goes off. But these things are just distractions, played for fun during the breaks in real tournament chess. Like masturbation, they're fun, but just not as fulfilling as mastering the real thing. ;-)

  • Those players were all wonderful, but if I were going to put players in Kasparov's league, I would include Botvinnik and Fischer first.

    Rich...

  • Re:Greatest of all time? (Score:3)

    by dilip ( 211779 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @05:11AM (#653974)
    I actually take issue with your first comment. Kasparov was denied a fair chance against Deep Blue the second time around.

    The first time that IBM challenged him they provided him with the transcripts of DB's chess matches to date. Kasparov was able to study the patterns of the machine just like he would have been able to for a human opponent.

    Kasparov was denied access to the transcripts of the new DB, because IBM realized that in doing so they were increasing their odds of victory. So the new DB had an advantage, it knew every match that Kasparov had played, and he was fighting blind.

    IBM even refused to enter the machine in a tournament, as they knew that by the time it reached the finals against Kasparov he would have seen too much and it would have been a fair match.

  • Of course I was only joking... but I knew about that, and I know that Kasparov whined a lot about that. Generally, it wasn't quite fair at all. Then again, it was an accomplishment for the computer to be able to beat him like that... considering that chess can't be "solved" (apparently all the atoms in the universe working as a computer can't solve chess, or something like that).
  • I still don't understand why we hear on and on about the hardware, when the real victor was the code -- anyone know who the programmers were on the Big Blue vs. Kasparov project?

    They were the real heroes, not some chunks of silicon...
  • Hahahaha... I get a kick out of stereotyping contradictions - I think that's the best part of being a nerd in disguise(tm).

    I skateboard, snowboard, dj, rave and hang out with a shady assortment of friends...

    ...as well as study physics, work at an astrophysics institute, play chess, and persue most things 'geeky'.

    The best part is usually when you're faced with a new professor and the guy figures you're going to be one of the students that doesn't come to class all term and you end up getting one of the top marks in his class! hahahaha...

    If someone is too concerned with what others think of them then in my opinion they have too much time on their hands...

  • In the elimination matches for the '72 world championship, Fischer beat Taimanov 6-0, Larsen 6-0, and Petrossian 6 1/2-2 1/2. Playing black, he won routinely. No one else has dominated like this.
  • Got to disagree with you there.

    This was a brute force game tree algorithm, so I'd give more credit to the specialized hardware than software.

    If a program could beat Kasparov without this sort of exhaustive evaluation, THEN I'd be impressed.
  • is too serious to be entertaining, and too frivolous to be taken seriously.

    It is also the greatest waste of human intelligence found outside the advertising industry.

    (From Martin Gardiner's "Dr Matrix")
  • But the jokes on you, since you didn't beat them, xboard did. (Actually whoever developed xboard did). Really, all you showed was a willingness to let the other person play the computer using your computer instead of theirs for the opponent, wasting your time but not theirs (they came for a game of Chess, they got a game of Chess).

    You lose. :)
    hahahahaha

    PS: Why you felt the need to advertise your modest hardware is a mystery to me.
  • Deep Blue fooled nobody. IBM fooled Kasparov. They had a large team of programmers and grandmasters build a machine and prepare it to play one player. This player was not allowed any benefit of viewing previous matches his opponent had played.

    Only one side could possibly go into this match with a game plan.

    In my opinion, Kasparov's biggest mistake was not making his demands for transcripts of games before the match began. The DB team had thousands of his games use in preparation.

    Just as in boxing, the champ picks the venue, number of rounds...etc. Kasparov did a poor job. This happened because Kasparov's claim to being champ was tenous. IBM could have just as well gone with the FIDE champ Karpov, and run their commercials calling him the world champion. IBM definitely had the leverage going into this and played the situation quite well.

  • Mathematicians don't face the timed stress to perform that tournament chess players do.

    And, its not so much that skills deteriorate, but the drive to stay on top wanes. There is a whole lot of studying that goes on. Opponents moves, new changes in opening theory. As well as the development of your own novelties to be used in tournaments. It is the ability to constantly be advancing on all of those fronts that deteriorates.

  • Sure he may have behaved poorly. But how much of his other behaviour has ever been reported? How much is reported about him at all other than "Kasparov wins".

    IBM was pretty slick in all of this. First, they were going to keep building a computer until they beat him. The did on the second attempt. Do they allow a rematch? No, the dismantle it and run off. This computer they built was designed and prepared to beat only Kasparov. Garry was not allowed to ever see a previous game played by Deep Blue, while DB had thousands of his games for preparation. If IBM didn't get the terms they wanted, they could have scheduled the match with Karpov, the FIDE champion.

    He was beaten by gamesmanship well before he lost on the chessboard. There is no way you can learn all about your oppoenent in the course of a 6 game match.

  • This is perhaps redundant, but I want to put the Deep Blue better than Kasparov debate into perspective. Deep Blue analyzes millions of moves per second, Kasparov meanwhile analyzes a very small fraction of that figure. The fact that a human player can beat Deep Blue even some of the time tells us more about the human mind than it does about the state of the art of computer science. Gumshoe
  • And "real" games aren't the least bit redundant? How many times do you need to slide down a snake or climb a ladder until it becomes boring? How many times must I Pass Go and collect $200 before I want to implode my own head? And don't even get me started on Sorry!

    And what's a more laughable obsession? Playing computer games, or being so obsessed with making fun of people who play video games that you actually go far out of your own way to do so?

    J
  • I'm just saying it's poor form to give up any chance of winning the match just to avoid possibly losing it 6-10 as opposed to 6.5-9.5

    I don't know the chess etiquette, but in Go it would be poor form to keep fighting if the loss seemed to be inevitable. You'd be seen as wasting the other guy's time, and hoping for a silly mistake - not a polite thing to imply... In Go one should resign in such a position. Of course there are (practically) no draws in Go, so offering a draw (in one - deciding - game might be equivalent to resigning...)

  • It is ridiculous to suggest that because something is old it is better than other things which are newer. The fact that modern chess evolved over many, many years shows that many "variants" have over time merged with normal chess. The only reason chess is evolving slower now than it did before is that the rules of chess are written down a lot of places and chess organizations have been setup, which make the rules into dogma and stagnate the evolution. Were these two things absent, chess would still be evolving as it did before. So this slow-down in evolution is not indicative of chess reaching some peak perfect state, but rather of the barriers man has constrained the idea of chess to.

    Yes, variations were invented for entertainment value. So was chess! That's the point of the game: entertainment. So if variants are more entertaining than chess, what makes chess so superior to these variants that you would dismiss them without even giving them a thought? Do you think chess is somehow more advanced: a science or an art? The strategy in many variants is much more complex than chess, the moves are more beautiful and precise. Variants help your chess... most Bughouse, Crazyhouse, Suicide, and Wild 5 players I know saw their chess game improve significantly because of tactics and strategy they picked up while playing these variants... but to say that because something helps you learn it is only a teaching aid and nothing in its own right is preposterous. Bughouse, Lightning, and so forth are real games in themselves. I know many people who go to USCF tournaments only to play skittles Bughouse, Blitz, and Lightning in the back rooms... they are games in and of themselves. On the internet you see many people who have played from 30,000 to 100,000 Lightning games online... this is far more games than any person in existence ever played of Standard chess. Do you honestly think any GM has played 100,000 long games of chess in his lifetime?

    The AISE and BCVS are national chess variant organizations that play rated chess variants like Progressive and Losing Chess. People take these games very seriously. Go online on chess servers like FICS and MEWIS and USCL and ICC, and look around. You will see lots of people playing variants, and you will see cultures built around these variants. There are people who base their lives around Bughouse, Suicide, Wild 5, etc., just as some people base their lives around chess.

    I dare you to walk into a room full of Lightning players or Bughouse players and tell them what they are playing isn't a real game--tell them they are masturbating. You thinking chess is a real game and variants aren't is the equivalent of white people telling African Americans that they aren't real people... it is both moronic and offensive.

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