Does a team of Chess Grandmasters perform better than an individual?

The Game Room
1

Dr. House seems to need a team to help him with diagnoses. Similarly, could a team of chess grandmasters stand a better chance of beating Deep Blue or Fritz?

Kasparov: “Karpov, investigate B-B4; Fischer, consider the Queen sacrifice!”

Karpov: “B-B4 leads to disaster!”

Fischer: “Queen sacrifice looks good.”

Kasparov: “Okay, Karpov investigates the enemy Rook responses; Fischer, what happens if they try to move the pawn?”

etc.

2

my one bump…

3

Prize matches against computers are played under a time limit. Under a time limit, I can’t imagine that more people would be helfpul; the distraction and waste of time involved in explaining your thinking to another person would overwhelm the small advantage of having an extra mind.

Given unlimited time, I imagine that two really good heads would be better than one.

4

Every top-flight grandmaster runs with an entourage to help him. They help research the opponent, innovate lines, and analyze adjourned games. Does that help?

5

And does adding more people improve the outcome? I suppose access to over a hundred minds could lead to something akin to parallel processing.

6

The Soviets used to do that in tournaments and during match adjournments. Whether it’s better depends on who’s making the final decision.

7

If humans have a weakness it’s the tendency to blunder unexpectedly. Having extra minds helps with blunder-patrol, right?

8

But having Bobby Fischer on your team wouldn’t help:

Kasparov: “Fischer, consider the Queen sacrifice!”
Fischer: “The Queen is Jewish! Sacrifice her! And where are my shoes? You’ve stolen my shoes! The knight is plotting against me.”

9

I have just GOT to see a photo of a chess posse.

Before anyone steals it, “Chess Posse” would indeed be an excellent band name. Dibs.

10

I love the dope

11

I think it’d work if there was one main guy, and he rules as dictator over his grandmastermensch. He can assign them roles of playing out certain possibilities, and he can use them as error detectors. He can always overrule or ignore at will, especially if time matters.

12

Exactly. Otherwise, too many cooks etc.