Are home computers & chess software powerful enough these days that they could beat a grandmaster?

[astro]

About 12 years ago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer))it took a mid sized multi-node parallel linked supercomputer and specially designed software to give Kasparov pause. Is the computer hardware and chess software available to retail consumers powerful enough these days to accomplish this?

[Bijou Drains]

An Intel chip in a PC now has more power than Deep Blue did in 97.

http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-023143.htm#4

The Core 2 quad processor is rated at 49 GFLOPS while Deep Blue was at 11 GFLOPS.

Now a lot depends on the software and how well it can utilize this speed.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Now a lot depends on the software and how well it can utilize this speed.

Deep Blue had a team of programmers continuously tweaking it (before and between games, not during) with the input of several chess masters. IIRC Kasparov objected strongly that Deep Blue had been programmed to beat a single person (Kasparov) and not programmed generically to play anyone.

I doubt off the shelf software even today could beat a top flight grandmaster but it will likely beat most people.

[Shagnasty]

Deep Blue had a team of programmers continuously tweaking it (before and between games, not during) with the input of several chess masters. IIRC Kasparov objected strongly that Deep Blue had been programmed to beat a single person (Kasparov) and not programmed generically to play anyone.

I always thought that they were cheating and he probably did too. A supercomputer combined with a whole team of programmers and chess experts isn't a very fair matchup for anyone but Kasparov still did pretty well despite that.

[Regallag_The_Axe]

Pardon my ignorance, Shagnasty, but how can one cheat at chess? Aside from shouting 'look over there!' and switching some pieces around, of course.

[Captain_Awesome]

Kasparov asserted that a human was involved during the second game, which IBM denied. They did tweak the software between matches, allowing the Deep Blue to avoid a trap in the final game that had worked twice previously. The film Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine suggested that it was likely a publicity stunt involving humans on the computer side, to try and gain stock market value for IBM. The claims haven't been substantiated however, though I'd agree it was done for publicity.

More recent chess computers have focused on software programming, rather than hardware iterations. Deep Fritz which took on the then grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik in 2006, winning 2 drawing 4, used a PC with two Intel Core 2 Duos (8 million iterations per second vs. Deep Blues 200 million/s, but often searching to greater depth for a single move).

[Harry1945]

Pardon my ignorance, Shagnasty, but how can one cheat at chess? Aside from shouting 'look over there!' and switching some pieces around, of course.

Where there are more minds looking at a move and it's results and potential responses, fewer mistakes will be made. I can beat any 6th grader I've ever played, but I can't beat three of them working together.

[Regallag_The_Axe]

Ah, that seems simple enough. Thanks for the info, Captain Awesome and Harry 1945.

[scm1001]

Where there are more minds looking at a move and it's results and potential responses, fewer mistakes will be made. I can beat any 6th grader I've ever played, but I can't beat three of them working together.

I suspect Kasparov could beat an infinite amount of sixth graders at chess, so numbers dont always scale

[Lord Mondegreen]

Pardon my ignorance, Shagnasty, but how can one cheat at chess? Aside from shouting 'look over there!' and switching some pieces around, of course.
The way I interpreted the word "cheat" was that they were cheating at the challenge, not at chess. The challenge was see whether "a computer" could beat "a Grandmaster". As shown in other responses, it's highly questionable as to whether that's what was being tested in the Deep Blue versus Kasparov games.

[Chronos]

Also, in the second match between Kasparov and Deep Blue, IBM set a grueling schedule to tire Kasparov out, since of course the computer doesn't get tired. And on top of that, most chess analysts seem to think that Kasparov was just having a bad week at the time, another thing that doesn't happen to computers.

[Maserschmidt]

These days computer programs frequently beat grandmasters, including 'top-flight' ones, and these are programs you can buy off the shelf (like Fritz or Rybka). I happened to be reading the game score from this match (http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=561) this morning...Fritz trades a couple of wins with (then) World Champion Vladimir Kramnik.

[EdwardLost]

Don't have a cite for this, but I recall hearing on a radio program recently that computers haven't made more progress against grandmasters because the humans have learned to exploit the weaknesses in the way computers play.

[HeyHomie]

I can beat any 6th grader I've ever played...

Do you think you could have beaten Josh Waitzkin at that age? Just curious, not trying to pick a fight or anything. :cool:

[Sunspace]

I doubt off the shelf software even today could beat a top flight grandmaster but it will likely beat most people.I was being beat by a Radio Shack chess computer when I was a kid back in the late seventies! I presume the software has gotten stronger since then.

[Rhythmdvl]

There is a fascinating javascript (I think) chess game on the net that will draw what it's thinking. I don't recall the link, but assume a mention will get someone to link to it.



I'm also seeing a Web site out there: How many 6th graders could you beat...

[DSYoungEsq]

Do you think you could have beaten Josh Waitzkin at that age? Just curious, not trying to pick a fight or anything. :cool:

To say nothing of Bobby Fischer at that age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_the_Century_(chess)). :D :eek:

[badlyburnttoast]

Don't have a cite for this, but I recall hearing on a radio program recently that computers haven't made more progress against grandmasters because the humans have learned to exploit the weaknesses in the way computers play.

It's funny because I read somewhere it's quite the opposite - They don't do computer vs human matches anymore because the computer always wins (or draws) so it's not very interesting for anyone involved.

I'm not saying you're wrong - in fact it seems more likely that people would figure out how to exploit the AI. I'd be curious to learn which is correct.

[Malacandra]

To say nothing of Bobby Fischer at that age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_the_Century_(chess)). :D :eek:

Hey, Capablanca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca#Childhood) at age 5 would probably have wiped the floor with most of us, and that was after learning by watching his dad play (no instructions).

[RaftPeople]

One of the problems with the chess playing games is that they typically use a brute force method of checking a zillion moves and picking the one with the best chance of winning. Not very smart, but powerful.

A more interesting challenge is the game of Go which can't really be tackled in this same way. The computer needs to attempt to find the same patterns the human can see. For this game there is progress being made but there is a long way to go.

[Harry1945]

Do you think you could have beaten Josh Waitzkin at that age? Just curious, not trying to pick a fight or anything. :cool:

Certainly not. Hence the qualifier.

[Maserschmidt]

It's funny because I read somewhere it's quite the opposite - They don't do computer vs human matches anymore because the computer always wins (or draws) so it's not very interesting for anyone involved.

I'm not saying you're wrong - in fact it seems more likely that people would figure out how to exploit the AI. I'd be curious to learn which is correct.

The short answer is that the best programs will beat the best GMs in match play all the time now. When I posted the link to the 2002 Kramnik-Fritz match above (tied at 4-4), I didn't realize Kramnik had actually lost a 2006 rematch 4-2.

This is relatively new...in the late 90's/early 00's results were mixed. Even some lower-level GMs could adopt a very stodgy, slow technique that confused computers; in particular a middling Dutch GM named John van der Wiel perfected that technique and for a while was called the 'computer-killer'.

But the machines won out; what kills GMs now are the refined scoring techniques, the deeper plies (counts of moves forward) due to jumps in processing speed, and the inclusion of endgame databases.

[Chronos]

Did the endgame databases really make a significant difference? It seems to me that, in any scenario that you could fit into a database, the computer's standard tactic of "brute force look ahead a bunch of ply" would already work pretty darned well.

[glowacks]

Did the endgame databases really make a significant difference? It seems to me that, in any scenario that you could fit into a database, the computer's standard tactic of "brute force look ahead a bunch of ply" would already work pretty darned well.

It the database makes it work smarter, not harder. Once your calculation gets a game state matching one in the database, you don't have to think about it any more - you've already determined what will happen if you get there.

I'd like to believe that a large part of the increase in computer playing strength is a better evaluation function, not a deeper search, but the existence of cheap memory and computing has allowed for massive end-game tables and insane numbers of calculations looking for them.

[Whack-a-Mole]

One of the problems with the chess playing games is that they typically use a brute force method of checking a zillion moves and picking the one with the best chance of winning. Not very smart, but powerful.

A more interesting challenge is the game of Go which can't really be tackled in this same way. The computer needs to attempt to find the same patterns the human can see. For this game there is progress being made but there is a long way to go.

For the game of Go there are simply waaaaay too many possible combinations for a computer to brute force easily. Depending on how you look at it the number of possible combinations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_and_mathematics) of a Go game can reach 10360 (or 10700 or more depending how you look at it). That is way, way, way past the total number of atoms in the Universe. Big ass number.

In comparison chess has a far smaller number crunching task (http://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/mathematics-and-chess) for a computer with 2*1046 possible combinations. Still ginormous but nowhere near the Go problem.

Of course computers don't assess the whole possible game at once but rather go move to move looking deeper and deeper. One can see the task for the Go game goes off the rails pretty fast. In chess the problem gets hefty but not near as fast so is doable. Looking 4-5 moves ahead is achievable and makes for a suitably challenging opponent for most people.

[Chronos]

It the database makes it work smarter, not harder. Once your calculation gets a game state matching one in the database, you don't have to think about it any more - you've already determined what will happen if you get there.Ah, wait, I see it now. If you're already in one of the states listed in your endgame database, then you could probably take it from there by brute force, but if you're five moves away from a database position, then you could look ahead five moves to the database position, and jump from there to the end of the game, whereas before you would still fall short.

[scm1001]

One of the problems with the chess playing games is that they typically use a brute force method of checking a zillion moves and picking the one with the best chance of winning. Not very smart, but powerful.

A more interesting challenge is the game of Go which can't really be tackled in this same way. The computer needs to attempt to find the same patterns the human can see. For this game there is progress being made but there is a long way to go.

I wonder how long even go will survive. the best go programs are rated about 1 kyu - I am a reasonable club player at 5 kyu so they will beat me (in practice I find positionally i can still just outplay them, but darn it they always beat me tactically as they can home in on an isolated groups weakness - the fact that there are so many possibilities in go also works against humans too) I reckon in another ten years we will have a computer world go champion -

[Magiver]

Pardon my ignorance, Shagnasty, but how can one cheat at chess? Aside from shouting 'look over there!' and switching some pieces around, of course.
I use to "cheat" in chess by setting traps. I wasn't good enough to beat the better players so I would play what looked like an obviously bad game with a 2nd strategy in the background. It worked until they figured it out and then I got trounced.

In this case the programmers could see such a gambit and adjust the program around it, which means it took a human to see it.