4 ms·

> Kasparov had concluded that the counterintuitive play must be a sign of superior intelligence. He had never considered that it was simply a bug. I think

by hasenj 14y ago

> Kasparov had concluded that the counterintuitive play must be a sign of superior intelligence. He had never considered that it was simply a bug. I think this says quite a bit about chess as a game. That a top player can't recognize a bad move near the final stage of the game. In contrast, the game of Go is rich with examples where one player makes a bad move and the opponent takes advantage of it; and I'm talking about top players; not amateurs. Following the opponent and/or always responding to his moves is considered a typical sign of a weak player. One of the things you learn as you get better is to never assume that the last move of your opponent is necessarily a good move. Imagining that your opponent has a threat you haven't yet figured out is one of the bad habits that weak players must get rid of before they can become stronger.

pessimist 14y ago
I'm not aware of the move in question, but you are overinterpreting wildly. Of course top chess players recognize obviously bad moves. In this case though Kasparov was trying to defeat Deep Blue with an anti-computer style, he had a particular model in mind for how the computer would play and when it didnt, he thought it meant that the computer was more far-sighted than it actually was.
- hasenj 14y ago
  > Of course top chess players recognize obviously bad moves. I'm not talking about obviously bad moves. I'm not trying to imply that Kasparov is a bad player either. But why did he conclude the computer has seen a very complicated sequence that Kasparov himself can't even begin to see? It's because of the nature of the game. Remember, we're talking about a completely random move here ..
  - schme 14y ago
    So what you're saying is that, because Kasparov assumed the move was anticipated further than he could see, chess's "nature" is inferior to go, because in go–you implỵ–this wouldn't have happened. Please be more clear with what you're saying.
  - natep 14y ago
    No, according to this theory, it is because Deep Blue has a completely alien mind, and of the nigh-impossible to count ways in which that alien mind could work, it behaved in one of the many ways that Kasparov failed to consider. Now, it might about the game if complete randomness is a valid strategy in Go.
  - kenjackson 14y ago
    But why did he conclude the computer has seen a very complicated sequence that Kasparov himself can't even begin to see? The reason is rather obvious, IMO. Kasparov assumed, with good reason, that a computer is not likely to make tactical mistake. Especially in an end game the computer can see x moves deep perfectly. Computers historically are far weaker strategically -- doing things like creating good pawn structures. So when Kasparov saw a move that appeared to be a tactical flaw his first belief wasn't, "Oh, must be a bug in the program, that was a random move." He thought, "There's an attack vector here I'm not familiar with." It would be like sitting with John Carmack in a coding session and suddenly he deletes a function that seems like it would be useful to you. Your first thought would be, "Oh, John must have realized this function isn't useful. He's smarter than me. I just don't know the whole story." You likely won't think, "Must be a bug in John's brain that on occassion he will randomly delete a function."
    - drbawb 14y ago
      The imagery of pair programming with Carmack was just too rich. Thank you for the laughs, mate.
VMG 14y ago
It makes chess more interesting in my opinion
nchlswu 14y ago
this may be a bit pedantic, but does it really say much about /chess/ itself as a game, or the chess ...culture?
Ygg2 14y ago
No, it doesn't. What this episode tells us is that humans often have frequent false positives, when it comes to pattern matching. This is common in most animal, and is the part how we perceive the world. Our limbic, fast-acting system works like this, when it spots a pattern that matches some kind of known "threat" reacts to it quickly. This kind of pattern matching is flawed as evolution has optimized for numerous false positives over false negatives (e.g. the one time you mistake a bear for a tree is deadlier than when you confuse a rock with a poisonous snake). This kind of input is bad in cases where false negative are as bad as false positives. This somewhat flawed system, supplies our rational system with said bad input. In other words, garbage in, garbage out. This would have happened regardless of game, as long as one opponent is human and under some pressure, he would make a faulty guess and make the same mistake. This happens in a variety of games, from Chess to Starcraft to Street Fighter. As long as game has some pattern matching, it will be affected. So I'm pretty sure it applies to Go as well. When you move up the ladder in a game, you start understanding how opponent mind functions and you make certain optimizations. You don't want to mentally exert yourself in all matches so you pick up a routine, that doesn't task the brain much and use it to weed out the lesser opponents. From time to time someone will use a totally different pattern which is when you mentally turn yourself on and start analyzing their moves, to figure out their next move. The presumptions your mind makes can often be exploited by a totally new/random enemy which screws up your evaluation model. This explains why people new to game have that "begginer's luck" effect. They can't value moves right, so they use a completely foreign way to play. For example in Street Fighter you expect your opponent to attack you with his far range fireball, which are that character's best weapon, so your prepare to block, but instead the newbie mashes button and starts throwing you around like a ragdoll. Of course good players will spot the newbie and change their play accordingly, however it might take some time for that. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/the-invincible-and-the-beast.html http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/the-invincible-and-the-beast.... http://www.sirlin.net/articles/yomi-layer-3-knowing-the-mind-of-the-opponent.html http://www.sirlin.net/articles/yomi-layer-3-knowing-the-mind...
- hasenj 14y ago
  > No, it doesn't. What this episode tells us is that humans often have frequent false positives, when it comes to pattern matching. This is common in most animal, and is the part how we perceive the world. Yes but you must put this in context: we're talking about a professional here. For example, a lot of people don't succeed at diet and exercise: they somehow give up or lose motivation. You can find all sorts of biological roots that explain this behavior, but it's not appropriate to apply this same reasoning to a top professional athlete. In "Go", assuming that your opponent can see something that you can't see is one of the bad habits that gets beaten out of you as you become stronger (and if it doesn't, you'll continue to be a weak player). It seems that this doesn't happen for chess players.
anthonyb 14y ago
It wasn't imagined - check cube13's link for a good example of where this happened in a previous game: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583135

by hasenj 14y ago

pessimist 14y ago

I'm not aware of the move in question, but you are overinterpreting wildly. Of course top chess players recognize obviously bad moves. In this case though Kasparov was trying to defeat Deep Blue with an anti-computer style, he had a particular model in mind for how the computer would play and when it didnt, he thought it meant that the computer was more far-sighted than it actually was.

hasenj 14y ago
> Of course top chess players recognize obviously bad moves. I'm not talking about obviously bad moves. I'm not trying to imply that Kasparov is a bad player either. But why did he conclude the computer has seen a very complicated sequence that Kasparov himself can't even begin to see? It's because of the nature of the game. Remember, we're talking about a completely random move here ..
- schme 14y ago
  So what you're saying is that, because Kasparov assumed the move was anticipated further than he could see, chess's "nature" is inferior to go, because in go–you implỵ–this wouldn't have happened. Please be more clear with what you're saying.
- natep 14y ago
  No, according to this theory, it is because Deep Blue has a completely alien mind, and of the nigh-impossible to count ways in which that alien mind could work, it behaved in one of the many ways that Kasparov failed to consider. Now, it might about the game if complete randomness is a valid strategy in Go.
- kenjackson 14y ago
  But why did he conclude the computer has seen a very complicated sequence that Kasparov himself can't even begin to see? The reason is rather obvious, IMO. Kasparov assumed, with good reason, that a computer is not likely to make tactical mistake. Especially in an end game the computer can see x moves deep perfectly. Computers historically are far weaker strategically -- doing things like creating good pawn structures. So when Kasparov saw a move that appeared to be a tactical flaw his first belief wasn't, "Oh, must be a bug in the program, that was a random move." He thought, "There's an attack vector here I'm not familiar with." It would be like sitting with John Carmack in a coding session and suddenly he deletes a function that seems like it would be useful to you. Your first thought would be, "Oh, John must have realized this function isn't useful. He's smarter than me. I just don't know the whole story." You likely won't think, "Must be a bug in John's brain that on occassion he will randomly delete a function."
  - drbawb 14y ago
    The imagery of pair programming with Carmack was just too rich. Thank you for the laughs, mate.

VMG 14y ago

It makes chess more interesting in my opinion

nchlswu 14y ago

this may be a bit pedantic, but does it really say much about /chess/ itself as a game, or the chess ...culture?

Ygg2 14y ago

No, it doesn't. What this episode tells us is that humans often have frequent false positives, when it comes to pattern matching. This is common in most animal, and is the part how we perceive the world. Our limbic, fast-acting system works like this, when it spots a pattern that matches some kind of known "threat" reacts to it quickly. This kind of pattern matching is flawed as evolution has optimized for numerous false positives over false negatives (e.g. the one time you mistake a bear for a tree is deadlier than when you confuse a rock with a poisonous snake). This kind of input is bad in cases where false negative are as bad as false positives. This somewhat flawed system, supplies our rational system with said bad input. In other words, garbage in, garbage out. This would have happened regardless of game, as long as one opponent is human and under some pressure, he would make a faulty guess and make the same mistake. This happens in a variety of games, from Chess to Starcraft to Street Fighter. As long as game has some pattern matching, it will be affected. So I'm pretty sure it applies to Go as well. When you move up the ladder in a game, you start understanding how opponent mind functions and you make certain optimizations. You don't want to mentally exert yourself in all matches so you pick up a routine, that doesn't task the brain much and use it to weed out the lesser opponents. From time to time someone will use a totally different pattern which is when you mentally turn yourself on and start analyzing their moves, to figure out their next move. The presumptions your mind makes can often be exploited by a totally new/random enemy which screws up your evaluation model. This explains why people new to game have that "begginer's luck" effect. They can't value moves right, so they use a completely foreign way to play. For example in Street Fighter you expect your opponent to attack you with his far range fireball, which are that character's best weapon, so your prepare to block, but instead the newbie mashes button and starts throwing you around like a ragdoll. Of course good players will spot the newbie and change their play accordingly, however it might take some time for that. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/the-invincible-and-the-beast.html http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/the-invincible-and-the-beast.... http://www.sirlin.net/articles/yomi-layer-3-knowing-the-mind-of-the-opponent.html http://www.sirlin.net/articles/yomi-layer-3-knowing-the-mind...

hasenj 14y ago
> No, it doesn't. What this episode tells us is that humans often have frequent false positives, when it comes to pattern matching. This is common in most animal, and is the part how we perceive the world. Yes but you must put this in context: we're talking about a professional here. For example, a lot of people don't succeed at diet and exercise: they somehow give up or lose motivation. You can find all sorts of biological roots that explain this behavior, but it's not appropriate to apply this same reasoning to a top professional athlete. In "Go", assuming that your opponent can see something that you can't see is one of the bad habits that gets beaten out of you as you become stronger (and if it doesn't, you'll continue to be a weak player). It seems that this doesn't happen for chess players.

anthonyb 14y ago

It wasn't imagined - check cube13's link for a good example of where this happened in a previous game: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583135