Do you think Rybka would have won Cours this year if it was

Date: 03 Feb 2009 17:58:12
From: SAT W-7
Subject: Do you think Rybka would have won Cours this year if it was

I think it would have because it never gets tired and after round 5 or 6
i belive the humans would be getting mentally tired ..

I wish a computer would play in a high ranking human tournament like
that just to see what happens.....

Date: 08 Feb 2009 10:41:23
From: help bot
Subject: Re: Do you think Rybka would have won Cours this year if it was

On Feb 5, 12:52=A0am, Sanny <[email protected] > wrote:

> > I think it would have because it never gets tired and after round 5 or =
6
> > i belive the humans would be getting mentally tired ..
> > =A0I wish a computer would play in a high ranking human tournament like
> > that just to see what happens.....

> Ofcourse Rybka is 3000+ rated while other players are lower than
> 2800+.

The "3000+" is from a different pool of players,
but judging from the quality of play and the fact
that Rybka routinely offers odds to grandmasters
these days, it seems to be quite appropriate.

One reader wrote in to point out that one of those
"most brilliant" style games between high-ranking
human players contained an oversight... er, or if
you will, a horrific blunder. It seems there arose
a position in which oodles of "free" material had
been on offer, but declined by the game's eventual
winner on account of a series of spite checks
which led to nothing.

This is the sort of thing which almost never
happens to a program like Rybka; she easily
calculates and sorts the spite-checking displays
from the dangerous attacks. She is also more
accurate in both defense and attack, and never
tires (as already noted above).

In addition, Rybka has at her disposal an
openings database crafted by an expert in the
field, and the endgame tablebases. Yet even
without the latter, I've noticed that on my old,
slow machine Rybka can often reach depths of
thirty plies in no time flat, in many endings. By
contrast, one of the most famous endgame
errors of all time was but a few plies deep-- a
simple triangulation.

So then, would Rybka have won the tourney?
My only doubts rest with the question of how
many rounds are involved. Just as Mr. Fischer
feared he might not win the U.S. Championship
if it were not long enough for him to recover
after a weak start, I wonder if there are a
sufficient number of rounds for Rybka's vast
superiority to manifest itself without fail-- even
with many opponents who are deliberately
striving to take half the point... as one might
say, without a real, no holds barred contest.

Of course, the egomaniacs -- those who
cannot handle the prospect of finishing out of
first place -- might refuse to participate, were
Rybka allowed to compete. And what about
the contempt factor? Would Rybka's handler
be allowed to tweak it up and down, to and fro,
on a whim? Is it fairest to set contempt to
zero, come what may; or should humans be
despised and spat upon by their vast superior,
as the mere patzers they are?

In any case, the prospect of winning, now
that Mr. Kasparov is out of the way, is one of
the main attractions of this event. Put Rybka
in and that prospect evaporates. She might
also snatch up any "brilliancy" prizes on offer,
if determined in a somewhat objective manner.

No, I say leave the computers out of it; they
can have their day in specially-arranged
tournaments where humans compete not in
a mixed field (was that politically correct?),
but against other humans who are all playing
a variety of top chess engines and not each
other. The winner would be the player who
scores the most points against these cruel
machines, and there could be seperate
categories for brilliancies by humans, and
brilliancies by computers (by which is
meant unusually-brilliant brilliancies).

-- help bot

Date: 04 Feb 2009 21:52:47
From: Sanny
Subject: Re: Do you think Rybka would have won Cours this year if it was

On Feb 4, 6:58=A0am, [email protected] (SAT W-7) wrote:
> I think it would have because it never gets tired and after round 5 or 6
> i belive the humans would be getting mentally tired ..
>
> =A0I wish a computer would play in a high ranking human tournament like
> that just to see what happens.....

Ofcourse Rybka is 3000+ rated while other players are lower than
2800+.

Bye
Sanny

Play Chess at: http://www.GetClub.com/Chess.html

Date: 06 Feb 2009 21:03:19
From: SAT W-7
Subject: Re: Do you think Rybka would have won Cours this year if it was

I would still find it interesting if it was in the contest....