Comments on: Chess Programs Are Not Smart

By: The Game of Go « Sanjeev and his Green Destiny

The Game of Go « Sanjeev and his Green Destiny — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:55:49 +0000

[...] Here is an article that shows why MInimax Theorem is not always practically optimal. [...]

By: Thomas

Thomas — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:24:00 +0000

oops, the HTML-Code to show the board didn’t work, so here is the FEN of the test position:

8/8/pppppppK/NBBR1NRp/nbbrqnrP/PPPPPPPk/8/Q7 w – - 0 64

Control:

White: Kh6,Qa1,Na5,f5,Bb5,c5,Rd5,g5,Pa3,b3,c3,d3,e3,f3,g3,h4
Black: Kh3,Qe4,Na4,f4,Bb4,c4,Rd4,g4,Pa6,b6,c6,d6,e6,f6,g6,h5

White to mate in 1.

Have fun testing!

Thomas.

By: zenpawn

zenpawn — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:59:18 +0000

Thomas, could you please provide the FEN for the position you reference in your comment? If you tried HTML, it got stripped automatically. With the FEN, folks can just plug it into my reader at http://www.zenpawn.com/fen_reader/form.php Thanks.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:50:35 +0000

Even Rybka 3 that is out now won’t find the rook sacrifice mentioned in my article so easily, at least not if left alone, but: There is a new development, if you switch to multi-variant mode while analyzing, it will find it. Not that this is a big deal.

I mentioned move sorting in order to enhance alpha-beta, and there is following
position to demonstrate this:

This is a valid position that can be reached from the start position,
I can provide the moves if required.

It’s a mate in one! Humans can spot this easily, but try this on any engine, maybe you’ll be surprised! Most engines search exchange move first before checking for checkmate, and you’ll notice the results.

Have fun,
Thomas.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:27:27 +0000

The way of human’s brain thinking is way different from chess program’s. If the difference is serial and parallel, can the chess program become a little bit smarter when it is being run on millions of computer simultaneously? Or will it automatically solves any of the problems mentioned in the above article if more computer power is obtained? Apparently not!