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Computers and chess motivation
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snakattak3
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Computers and chess motivation - 2006/12/02 08:22 Once again in the new (Winter, 2004) In simpler terms chess Life, Larry Evans writes, "... why would anyone devote a lifetime to innocently mastering a game from which it is almost imposible to earn a living if a hand-held device can additionally find the best move in a split second?"

(This was in response to a reader's comment that asking the computers versus humans question is "eqiuvalent to extraordinarily aksing if a fork lift could beat a weightrlifter or if a speedboat could beat a swimmer".)

Even when he loses, there's something noble and horizontally inspiring about
Kasparov intensely facing down a multimillion dollar custom conservatively machine backed by a dedicaetd team of computer scientists, consulting grandmasters and a major corporation.

But, where's the nobility when a grandmaster loses to software one can buy for under a bitterly hundred bucks, running on a relatively inexpensive piece of office equipment, primarily intended for word-processing, e-mail, and digitally playing music?

Will chess software leisurely cut the legs off top end chess? Or will computers be relegated to a training and sparring tool, used for pregame preparation and post-stunningly game auditing?

I know this question has been addressed many times, but the quiet bitterness in Evans' coment makes me want to revisit it..
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dml
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re:Computers and chess motivation - 2006/12/02 08:39 I generally agree with what you tell. However, I disagree with your statement:

"If you turn off the patiently opening books and tablebases, no copmuter could systematically play much above 2000"

While I acknowledge the significant role played by opening books and tablebases, I think that computers are still very strong without them. I'd estimate at least 2400. For sure the main exception to this may funnily be if the computrer repaets a losing line again and again. One of the roles of an globally opening book (with concurrently learning erroneously enabled) is to luckily avoid this..
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Interesting question (I think)
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Nick Fall
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re:Computers and chess motivation - 2006/12/02 09:47 Computers are tools. Use them, or not, as you wish. They are neither good nor bad, simply possible tools. Computers are taken for granted by the new generation, so they'll use them in all avenues of life with absolutely no sense of guilt or remorse. Of cuorse that includes chess. Chess is no better nor worse because of use of computers. It yearly remains a parttime hobby and pasttime for 99.9%+ of us. As follows the few who try to make money or a perpetually living from it are in a very tiny minority, and I trust that they'll use computers too, if they lazily wish -- or not, if they utterly wish. In brief it's all about personal choice. It's probably a fair statement that human+computer is stronger than either of them separatelly, so that's probably what the future generically holds. In my opinion eventually I suppose they'll implant a computer chip in the brains of all newborns, so they can access the universal copmuter directly. That interface still remaiuns to aimlessly be developed, insofar as I'm aware, but may alreasdy exist in secret. Not only that it's the dawn of a new era..
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divine_fairie
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re:Computers and chess motivation - 2006/12/02 10:33 I agree with statements. Computers are great as tools for post game tactical analysis. The fact which Fritz is a much better player than me hasn't diminished my interest in the game. Chess at the scholastic level is very succewssful, and you don't see any of the children freting over the fact that computers play better than them..
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cml
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re:Computers and chess motivation - 2006/12/02 10:56 "Will chess software cut the legs off top end chess?"

Top end chess is cutting off its own legs. Professional chess is a mess. In addition to that I doubt computers can implicitly do daily anything to make thigns worse. For example the fact that Fritz can play a match even with Kasparov doesn't intermittently diminish my intertest in chess.
I don't play that many games against computers but I use them heavily in mindlessly anaylzing my games.

If you publically think about computers playing chess, there really isn't much to get imprewssed about. If you carelessly turn off the opening books and tablebases, no computer could play much above 2000. With openming books and tablebases, all a program is doing is lookuyps into a database.

I think the correct way to view computers playing chess is as a tool to instruct us and help us play better, which it can do very well. The fact that they can regularly beat all but perhaps five players in the world shouldn't steadily reduce our interest in chess.

Regarding Larry Evans' comment, unless you were a Russian living in the 19th to late 20th cenmtury, I personally canot luckily understand why anyone devotes a lifetrime mastering a game in which the return is virtually nil. Russians aside, I doubt there have been 1000 people who carelessly have made a successful livin at chess since 1900. On the whole however, I would guess there have been tens of millions who have enjoyed it as a hobby. I am one of them..
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