4 ms·

The Chess Master and the Computer (by Garry Kasparov)

mark_h 17y ago
The most interesting part of this for me was at the very end, where he mentions a trend of chess masters taking up poker instead; has anyone else heard of this? It isn't really explained, except in association with the earlier paragraph comparing the complete-information, brute-force-able game of chess to a game which involves probabilities, bluffing, etc. This obviously makes it a more interesting problem these days for researchers, but it's the first I've heard of it being a human trend too. Unless, of course, it's just about the money, which is also hinted at.
- rms 17y ago
  There was a trend of top-level Magic: The Gathering players taking up poker, it shouldn't be surprising that has extended to chess.
- ca98am79 17y ago
  Yes, many tournament chess players have turned to poker because it is another great competitive game, but can make you a lot more money. Ylon Schwartz is a Fide rated chess master and made $3,763,515 by coming in 4th in the 2008 World Series of Poker. He would not be able to make a living from chess.
  - ca98am79 17y ago
    Here's a blog post I wrote about it, which includes a video with Ylon talking about chess and poker: http://www.uglychart.com/2008/11/03/ylon-schwartz-poker-player-and-fide-master/ http://www.uglychart.com/2008/11/03/ylon-schwartz-poker-play...
mindblink 17y ago
The fascinating part for me is toward the end of the article where he talked about the 2005 Playchess.com competition, in which teams of humans are free to use computers to compete in Chess. To everyone's surprise, a team of amateurs with 3 cheap computer won against both stand-alone computers and Grandmasters with state-of-the art computers. His take away message: "Weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process". I see this trend going on in AI for the long time, where the best use of development goes to augmenting human intelligence rather than supplanting it.

The most interesting part of this for me was at the very end, where he mentions a trend of chess masters taking up poker instead; has anyone else heard of this? It isn't really explained, except in association with the earlier paragraph comparing the complete-information, brute-force-able game of chess to a game which involves probabilities, bluffing, etc. This obviously makes it a more interesting problem these days for researchers, but it's the first I've heard of it being a human trend too. Unless, of course, it's just about the money, which is also hinted at.

rms 17y ago
There was a trend of top-level Magic: The Gathering players taking up poker, it shouldn't be surprising that has extended to chess.
ca98am79 17y ago
Yes, many tournament chess players have turned to poker because it is another great competitive game, but can make you a lot more money. Ylon Schwartz is a Fide rated chess master and made $3,763,515 by coming in 4th in the 2008 World Series of Poker. He would not be able to make a living from chess.
- ca98am79 17y ago
  Here's a blog post I wrote about it, which includes a video with Ylon talking about chess and poker: http://www.uglychart.com/2008/11/03/ylon-schwartz-poker-player-and-fide-master/ http://www.uglychart.com/2008/11/03/ylon-schwartz-poker-play...

mindblink 17y ago

The fascinating part for me is toward the end of the article where he talked about the 2005 Playchess.com competition, in which teams of humans are free to use computers to compete in Chess. To everyone's surprise, a team of amateurs with 3 cheap computer won against both stand-alone computers and Grandmasters with state-of-the art computers. His take away message: "Weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process". I see this trend going on in AI for the long time, where the best use of development goes to augmenting human intelligence rather than supplanting it.