Friday, November 24, 2006

Kramnik vs Deep Fritz: my prediction

The first game between Kramnik and Deep Fritz begins tomorrow 9AM NY time. The official site is here. Whoever gets above 3 points first wins.

My prediction: the next two weeks will show, once and for all, that all humans, not just chess mortals like us, have been left in the dust. I predict 3.5 points for Fritz, 1.5 points for for Kramnik in the match. Kramnik will lose two and tie three, giving Fritz the win after five games. It won't need to go to the six alloted games, and humans will never give computers a real fight again.

(Note the above was modified from my original prediction as I didn't realize the deal was that whoever gets above 3.0 first wins).

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

If he is allowed to go to the toilet I suspect only draws:)

11/24/2006 08:53:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You give Kramnik too much credit. I seriously doubt he will be able to pull a draw against the computer.

Look for this to be the final nail in the coffin of human chess.

It is the time of The Rise of the Machines. . .

11/25/2006 08:24:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

BTW,

You need to fix your template. You've got an unmatched bold tag. It's screwing up my RSS feed :)

11/25/2006 08:26:00 PM  
Blogger Blue Devil Knight said...

Jim: hmmm, no idea where that tag is.

He drew as white today. Pretty impressive, really. The rules are making it a little easier (e.g., he gets to see Fritz's opening book until Fritz goes off book, he gets to call a draw once the endgame database says its a theoretical draw (when in practice it is very hard to pull off a draw sometimes against perfect play))

11/25/2006 11:16:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Eric,

I hadn't read the rules, but if that's what they are, then I'd say the Fritz guys got screwed. The whole point of play is precision - that's why the machines are better in the first place, although I looked at the game today and I have no argument against it being a draw - it clearly was.

On the other hand, letting Kramnik see the opening book is just crazy.

11/26/2006 01:59:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, if you go into the template and look for the "Confessions of a chess novice" you'll find the errant tag.

11/26/2006 02:00:00 AM  
Blogger Blue Devil Knight said...

That's the break tag (br) which makes my title look symmetric. 'br' is an 'empty' tag (i.e., there are no closing tags for it, i.e., (/br) is not defined). I tried changing it and it's just ugly.

11/26/2006 10:07:00 AM  
Blogger Blue Devil Knight said...

Good point, Chessplayer: if you are right about Hydra being so much better than Fritz, then you have an excellent case.

I forgot to mention that Kramnik, as part of the deal, was given the Deep Fritz program in October to play at his leisure. Hence, he was free to fight it out with the program he would be playing. Again, heavily stacking the deck into his favor. The fact that he could still only get a draw as white is very telling.

11/26/2006 10:58:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What is this, you are quite unfair towards Kramnik. He has played excellently (forget the blunder) and Fritz was in real trouble in games 1 (which it should have lost) and 2.

12/04/2006 12:11:00 PM  
Blogger Blue Devil Knight said...

Ronny: this is just a prediction, and it looks like I'll be off by half a point. Seems like a pretty good prediction: no wins by Kramnik.

I was wrong in that I thought he would lose two games.

I agree that Kramnik has played great against this handicapped computer program.

12/04/2006 12:46:00 PM  

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