ColonelCrockett: It is planned to build in a kind of initial randomizer. Actually in the starting stage suggested shown optimal moves are not fixed and often exchanged. So stopping the engine manually could also produce a kind of move distribution. But after the first opponent's moves SMIRF is mostly within a new game line. Playing CRC or Chess960/FRC will generate different games simply by selecting randomly a mostly different starting array.

SMIRF Engine: so it makes a different opening move each time it plays?

WhiteTower: Until now there is not a single move precalculated or stored in SMIRF.

SMIRF Engine: Not even "preferred" opening moves for the first couple of plies? ;)

dokesa: Have you ever tried SMIRF? It has no opening libraries at all. So it must be very easy for you to beat it in CRC. ;-)

Reinhard.

Don't forget that computers are terrible at figuring openings for themselves. That's mostly why they're preprogrammed with book knowledge.

WhiteTower: Is it that important? :)
It is not so important, yet i should have defined what the dot means. Dots or commas are both wrong if we want to follow international standards! Instead just the number as it is or using a single space for each 3 digits from the right is the correct way.......But i write from 4 years old numbers in this way and i guess Walter does the same, so it's not easy to forget it......

Settle petals :)

Walter Montego: In Greece we use periods as thousand separators and commas as decimal points. Is it that important? :)

Pythagoras: Would you please use commas to seperate the thousands? This ain't French you're typing in.

ColonelCrockett: I bet he knew you were going to say that

WhiteTower: I don't care if he has experience in the field of AI. Pythagoras can't predict the future.

Pythagoras: Maybe the reason is the "complete information" attribute that Backgammon carries? (as discussed in the Backgammon board)

Walter Montego: A computer can run 24 hours a day studying each of the 960 positions and just keep getting more and more prepared for the next upcoming tournament.

There is something behind that that is very tricky!
Even if we suppose that we let a computer run and play against another computer FRC games, for even 15 years or 50 and then build an opening repertoire from that games, WE SHOULD NOT IN ANY WAY, CONCLUDE THAT THIS OPENING WE HAVE BUILT, IS A DECENT ONE TO PLAY FRC CHESS!

I had to use bold-capitals in that statement because it's a well known fact. The reason that our book that is based on 50 years or 1.000.000.000 games, is not suitable for a strong FRC opening book? Because it is based on the knowledge of the 2 computers they play and any weaknesses these 2 have will be included in the book! Even if we had 10 different computers with 10 different styles (personalities) for 50 years to play, then again we do nothing at all! Zero! Even if we include book learning (there is such an option now for the record) in the computers.
Again because the positional (mainly) weaknesses would be a major factor for being our opening book bad.
And these weaknesses will be exposed if we allow after 50 years the computer to play against a human GM at FRC........
So to build a good FRC book we need to play by both humans AND computers for a very long time AND successive learning by both of them during the process. This last one is very important........

For example such questions occur very often to Backgammon, where the top playing programs have obtained their enormous strength by playing millions of games against itself. Strangely enough this approach works for Backgammon while at Chess fails miserably......

The procedure is simple:
Program a Backgammon engine with some simple rules of knowledge. This engine would be a complete moron at Backgammon. Let it play 10.000 games against itself. Let it learn from its mistakes and then import the knowledge into a new engine. Let this engine play another 10.000 games and repeat the procedure. After many learning stages and about 60.000 games you will have a very strong Backgammon bot. This doesn't work at Chess!

And i say it is odd to reach their enormous strength by playing games against itself because this procedure would seeminly lead as i said to playing engine that would have many weaknesses in some areas. But it doesn't! Actually it does in some technical plays of Backgammon bots, but it's not so significant to prevent them plat at top level. But at Chess it fails completely!

Walter Montego: Therefore:

- Human chess should be "restricted" to FRC/CRC
- Computer chess should be "restricted" to Chess/Gothic Chess

:) Wouldn't that be sweet?...

Pythagoras: Why do say Reinhard is correct and then agree with me and say computers are playing better or will be playing better than humans? The computers will have all the plans inside them for their own use. Whether or not humans are able to use what computers will learn about FRC is besides the point. The computer will have what it knows to play, and it doesn't have to show anybody what it knows. A computer can run 24 hours a day studying each of the 960 positions and just keep getting more and more prepared for the next upcoming tournament. Someone could have more than one computer to speed the process along too. I agree with you that there's no way humans will be able to have all that knowledge written out like all the books are written on regular Chess. Fischer Random Chess is something that tournaments between humans should use. It'd be very hard for a human to prepare for all 960 openings aside from using general plans, like developing pieces and not leaving things for the taking. The players would be winging it from the start.

ColonelCrockett: Sorry for butting in, but if Pythagoras (formerly known as ChessMaster1000) who has defeated Gothic Vortex and other engines in the recent past, says that it will happen, I'm pretty sure he wasn't shooting his own foot ;) But myself, I keep my reservations about this - so it's up to Pythagoras to answer you obviously!

Pythagoras: so you think that humans will be surpassed by computers at Gothic in the next few years?

Walter Montego: Reinhard was correct!
(Well almost, if he didn't assume that 400 were the years that we developed our Chess opening knowledge. He should say ~100 instead). But correct on what? On his statement that we have to wait around 960·400 years for having the same opening knowledge for all FRC position as we now have for Chess. Because this opening knowledge didn't come from computers but from humans mainly. Of course now that computers play at the same level or above from the very best humans we can learn from their games too. But "can" and "should" is different from "it will" and i mean we CAN learn from their games, so the years that the opening knowledge for all 960 FRC positions will not be 100·960, but less lower, but is any chance that this WILL happen? NO! There are not so much interested people on this to made it possible. So we have to wait for the natural evolution of this which will take the time Reinhard said.
But all these are not important.......

What is important is your wrong statement regarding FRC only:
When the gigs become teras and when understanding how to program these types of games becomes better and more efficiently improved, these games will be just as well mastered as regular Chess is nowadays.

Since now computers have the same strength or more of the top humans at handling Chess positions and since there are no opening books for FRC, the strength of computers at FRC IS the same or above (actually is above because FRC requires more tactics) from the top humans! So computers have already mastered FRC!

About Gothic Chess or CRC i think if there is an inceasing interest in these games, then in 2-3 years AND because these games are highly tactical, computers will be better than humans.......
(Consider this simple example: Gothic Vortex is based on Crafty(An open source engine that is looking with the hubble telescope the very top engines) mainly. And is already a very tough opponent. Consider what will happen if Gothic Chess engines will be based to Fruit or Shredder that are top Chess engines.)

tedbarber: I'm in the process of getting some folks together later today on GC live.

ColonelCrockett:Find someone willing to play an e-mail game. there are a few.

WhiteTower: One way in linear and the other is exponential. From what I've seen of the advance of computers, I'm siding with exponential growth. That's how it's been since the sixties.

I think either point would be hard to prove (as both require a knowledge of the future of technology that I don't think anyone possesses).

Walter Montego: Exactly my line of thought as well. I did think that Reinhard was being a bit too "mathematical" with his assertions, without applying some further factors in the process :)

SMIRF Engine: I find these assertions of it taking lots of years ridiculous! FRC has 960 different opening positions, right? Regular Chess has 1. Three orders of magnitude. I fail to see why a computer couldn't just study all 960 different openings and get prepared for all of them. Is that hard to imagine? When the gigs become teras and when understanding how to program these types of games becomes better and more efficiently improved, these games will be just as well mastered as regular Chess is nowadays. It should certainly happen within ten years at the lastest.

And I'm just talking about the brute force methods. They start making the computer work parallelly or even emulate how people think and add brute force to it and it could be done even faster.

SMIRF Engine: . . . and GC has a long future also, given the fact that most things that people "know" about the game are thwarted by a sacrifice.

WhiteTower: As for Chess960 / FRC there will be necessary 960 * 400 years to have the same opening knowledge extension, supposed the favored starting array will be exchanged all 400 years. For CRC it will last another 25 times longer.

SMIRF Engine: But what if the computing power available today and later will bring the same faults to them that standard chess now has? Or is that a very distant future? :)

Nasmichael: Any well designed improvement could be noticed by detecting an initial witch hunting by traditionalists against it. Regarding that Chess960 (FRC) and 10x8 Chess (CRC, GC) will have a very promising future.

redsales: People can be led to fresh water at anytime. FRC is not known to everyone, but it only takes one good exhibition to reveal the powers of new games. Every new idea is unknown until one good exposure throws some light onto it.

Caissus: 10 minutes and 12 second delay. that makes a difference. I too am having trouble finding gothic opponents.

Kasparov looks very old for his age. Ah, the burdens of genius! I still can't see the logic in anyone sponsoring a relatively unknown game like Gothic Chess, as much as I liked the game itself. I'd love to see either match, moreso the Karpov one, because FRC is closer to their specialties.

Pythagoras: Thank you for that hint!

SMIRF Engine:
Corrected link: Click me!

(You have inserted a dot after html in your link........)

Thad: there seems a great event just about to be created - so I just have read at http://www.gothicchess.com/news.html.

Thad (+ White Tower): Thanks ... I checked the link out first to make sure it went somewhere but not again by clicking on it after i made it ... silly me! (BTW I have fixed it too :)

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2409

WhisperQ: The link is slightly screwed :)

For those who are interested, here is the last of a good series of articles on the best chess players. Links at the bottom go to the previous three articles.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2409

My personal observation is that Fischer was considered world champion for three years, but Morphy was considered world champion until his death 24 years after playing real chess. And one match in 33 years against a player not ranked in the top 100 is hardly considered adequate title defense. I might suggest being less defensive about it considering that only one chess genius shares your views.

[Link added (and later fixed) to reference WQ :]

redsales: Right on.

Anyway, the only way we can get as close as possible to any comparison between them is to make them play each other according to software like ChessMasterSomeThousand, where, I think, chess personalities are programmed... I know, it's not anything conclusive, but I'd like to know what happens :)

Kasparov was deconstructing Fischer's endgames when he was 13...but it's an unfair comparison. Also, FIDE may have been controlled by the Communists...but they were communists in name only, fascists in practice.

Vortex Copper can be downloaded directlty from this link:

http://www.GothicChess.com/vortex.zip

There just has been a live game, where SMIRF's problems to develop pieces' mobility have been shown:

[Event "Live test game 20 min + 15 sec"]
[Site "GC live"]
[Date "2005.11.05"]
[Time "22:21:13"]
[Round "A"]
[White "Gothic Inventor"]
[Black "Smirf Beta"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Annotator "RS"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqckabnr/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/RNB QCKABNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. c4 Nc6 {(11.16) -0.176} 2. Nh3 g6 {(11.14) -0.162} 3. Nc3 Bd4 {(12.01)
-0.262} 4. g4 Nh6 {(11.09) +0.004} 5. e3 Bxc3 {(12.14) +0.170} 6. dxc3 f5
{(12.12) +0.123} 7. Bd5 e6 {(14.00) +0.053} 8. g5 exd5 {(12.01=) +0.898} 9.
gxh6 dxc4 {(12.06) +0.777} 10. hxi7 Axi7 {(13.00) +0.629} 11. e4 h6 {(13.00)
+0.555} 12. exf5 gxf5 {(12.28) +0.178} 13. Cxe8+ Qxe8 {(12.01=) -0.266} 14. Ae2
Ne5 {(11.10) +0.432} 15. O-O Nd3 {(10.34) +0.391} 16. Bf4 d6 {(11.11) +0.469}
17. Qd2 Nxf4 {(12.01=) -0.203} 18. Axf4 O-O {(13.00) +0.078} 19. Rae1 Qd8
{(12.01) -0.037} 20. Ni5 Aj5 {(13.01=) -0.441} 21. Ag6+ Kj8 {(14.00) -0.371}
22. Rhg1 j6 {(13.00) -1.283} 23. Rg3 Qg8 {(12.27) -2.475} 24. Re7 jxi5 {(14.01)
-7.059} 25. Qe2 Ah3+ {(12.00) -41.21} 26. Rxh3 h5 {(03.25) -10.90} 27. Rj3+ Qj5
{(02.00?) -2.664} 28. Rxj5# 1-0

tedbarber: I agree on most but you should not underestimate Kasparov saying him just excellent player.... Kasparov was one of the most dominating Chess-entities ever existed! Yet i think Fischer was at the exact same level of Kasparov showing a comparable genious.....I'll not speak about Capablanca but these 2 (Fis and Kasp) were the most amazing human Chess players this earth has seen.
Now they are both retired, i think the mighty Fruit 2.2.1 should be called their successor...

BuilderQ: I do not intend to continue this arguement Alekine is dead and Fischer is still alive;so it is not the same thing. My opinion is my opinion;and you will not change it. Since Kasparov got his "so=called"championship from Karpov,who never won it over the board because he was never able to win it that way against Fischer;so the Communist that controlled FIDE moved illegally to strip Fischer of a championship that they knew they could not stop him from sucessfully defending against an inferior player. That is why I say Fischer is still CHAMPION. As for Alekine;no dead man ever has any claim to any current championship. This is all I will say on this topic. I never said Kasparov was not an excellant player;just that since he never defeated the real world champion;he has no right to claim the title, Maybe he could have;maybe he couldn't. Unfortunately we probably will never know;since Bobby is now past being able to play like the chess genuis he once was.

a) there is an only time-restricted beta of SMIRF at
http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html
b) you can download a reduced but always working Gothic Vortex Copper via
(a well known web address)
c) a free version of ChessV could be found via
http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessv/
d) a beta of the newcomer Fereshte has been seen at
http://home.ripway.com/2005-10/493246/chess/index.html

tedbarber: Alekhine hasn't been defeated since his death, has he?

BuilderQ: Spassky in 1992. No Alekine died!!

tedbarber: "Since 1975 no one has beaten him for his Championship..." Since 1975, who has he beaten to retain his title? :) Is Alekhine still champion?

Pythagoras: Since 1975 no one has beaten him for his Championship;so I ,for one still consider Fischer World Champion!!!