

Chess - A Quandary for the Game in a High-Tech Era - gebe
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/crosswords/chess/chess-borislav-ivanovs-performance-is-scrutinized.html

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jeresig
It's fascinating to read the report by the professor mentioned in the article:
[http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/ACPcover-
an...](http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/ACPcover-and-
report.pdf)

The relevant conclusion: "My model projects that for a 2300 player to achieve
the high computer correspondence shown in the nine tested games, the odds
against are almost a million-to-one. The control data and bases for
comparison, which are wholly factual, show several respects in which the
performance is exceptional even for a 2700-player, and virtually unprecedented
for an untitled player."

A NYT article from last year on his methodology:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/science/a-computer-
program...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/science/a-computer-program-to-
detect-possible-cheating-in-chess.html?ref=science)

and more details on his site:
<http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/>

~~~
gwern
It's quite unlikely, but... 1 in a million doesn't sound so amazing when you
recall how many thousands and maybe millions of games get played over the last
decade, and how people are going to pay the most attention to anyone who wins
a proverbial chess lottery.

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kjhughes
Clearly it's cheating to use computers in pure human chess tournaments or to
use humans in pure computer chess tournaments. However, I'd find the idea of a
hybrid tournament (human+computer vs human+computer) to be fascinating.

Imagine the challenge of excelling in searching the space, evaluating
positions, selecting strategy, etc when it'd be legal to creatively combine
human and computer capabilities in the game.

~~~
tubbzor
This has been the norm since computers could play board games. I read
Blondie24[0] about a year back about 2 guys who build a complicated neural
network for a checkers program which teaches itself to play by playing against
itself and is eventually entered into 'Human' tournaments. It's a really fast
read even if you have no experience in AI.

There is also Deep Blue[1], which is famous for once defeating Garry Kasparov
in a high profile match.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/Blondie24-Playing-Kaufmann-
Artificial-...](http://www.amazon.com/Blondie24-Playing-Kaufmann-Artificial-
Intelligence/dp/1558607838) [1]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_%28chess_computer%29>

~~~
DanBC2
Deep Blue was one computer against one human.

The comment you're replying to is suggesting teams with two members: Computer
A and Human A VS Computer B and Human B.

Thanks for the link to the Blondie24 book!

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tolmark12
This is an excellent analysis of Ivanov's suspect games by FIDE master Valeri
Lilov. His conclusion–there is little doubt Ivanov was cheating. He also
details several low cost plausible methods Ivanov could have used.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Jr0J8SPENjM)

~~~
dfan
Lilov's analysis is good but he is a little quick to jump to conclusions. I
wasn't convinced until I saw Regan's data.

------
js2
I'm a bit confused. It is strongly implied that Ivanov cheated by using
computer assistance. But I don't understand how he would have done this. He is
playing at the same chessboard as another player, correct? How could he have
received assistance unnoticed?

~~~
dmd
How I did it: Moves are transmitted by squeezing the right toes (1 to 8
squeezes for rank, long pause, another 1-8 for file). Computer comes up with
countermove, which is transmitted by vibration pulses in the same encoding
scheme.

~~~
pinko
"How I did it"... that is begging for a story. Got one?

~~~
dmd
Not really; I built a thing, I tried fooling some people with it, but the
trouble with a system like that is it makes you extremely inflexible. If you
make a mistake and get out of sync, you're screwed. And it's really obvious
that _something_ is up, because it takes you suspiciously long to make a move
even when it's blindingly obvious what to do - because you still have to do
the round trip in order to stay in sync.

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jeffem
"One of Ivanov’s losses was in a long game in a closed position (the kind
where computers perform poorly)..."

The top computer engines have been strong in closed positions for many years
now. If this person did cheat, he most likely was selectively using the engine
in this game, or not at all.

There's a reason we don't see computer vs. human matches these days. The
computers are too good. You can beat today's elite grandmasters with a free
engine running on your laptop.

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betterunix
If it is that much of a concern, perhaps we should focus more on games that
remain difficult for computers. Go, Arimaa, and Texas Hold'em (but perhaps not
for much longer) all come to mind.

~~~
martinced
Texas Hold'em, contrarily to chess or Go, is a game of imperfect information.

So psychology comes into play and that is basically impossible to "solve"
unless we have real AI (not anytime soon and the implication would be way
broader than "beating Hold'em").

Fixed-limit Hold'em is easier to play because the decision tree is trivial.
It's still an imperfect information game but the best bots can already beat
some of the best professional players.

But No-Limit Hold'em is another thing entirely: the decision tree is so huge
that it's impossible to bruteforce. Impossible as in: unless a major
scientific discovery we'll never ever be able to bruteforce it (there's not
enough entropy in the know universe to do so).

So we're stuck and waiting for amazing discoveries in the AI field (and
psychology field).

~~~
DanBC2
I'd be interested to see the results of two bots playing against humans.

Bot One just plays the odds.

Bot Two just plays the odd, but has a small chance of bluffing - it has a poor
hand but plays as if it has a great hand.

I'd be interested to see the results after several thousand hands. And if
people could tell the bots apart from people.

This is, obviously, nothing like AI. But sometimes trivial tricks are
powerful. Look at the early discussions about ELIZA for an example.

I don't play poker, but my friend tells me that it's fun to play in
tournaments because it's not just odds. You get people who have terrible poker
faces, who are easy to read. That same friend also plays (and makes a little
bit of money) from online poker. I have no idea how the psychology works
there.

~~~
heyitsnick
So here is poker theory in a very, very brief nutshell.

One way to play is to (attempt to) play game theoretically, or more commonly
(and less rigerously defined) "balanced". Your entire actions are defined in
such that your opponent, even if they knew your strategy, could not exploit
your decisions. Bets have the "perfect mix" (defined by pot size, but also
other factors) of value hands to bluffs, so that your opponent is indifferent
to calling down/rebluffing. This is what you called "not playing the odds"
but, contrary to popular belief, involves bluffing (lots of it!), lots of
aggression, and in general may look kinda crazy.

The second way is exploitative poker. This is the more common "not playing the
odds" type poker, where you play in a way that maximally extracts value,
because you think your opponent is not bluffing enough/betting too big with
his range, folding too much, etc. The "too much" is basically "deviating from
the correct GTO play". However, to exploit this, you yourself now need to
deviate from optimal play, thus opening yourself to exploitation.

There is still a debate between which is "better." Obviously exploitive will,
at least in theory, lead to higher winrates, but runs the risk of yourself
being exploited. If your "read" is wrong, you could be losing. By playing GTO,
you assure you never lose (except your share of the rake), and money naturally
flows to you through opponents just basically exploiting themselves.

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pk2200
You can replay Ivanov's games (halfway down the page):

<http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8751>

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nsxwolf
As a chess outsider, this sentence gave me pause until I noticed the
capitalization:

"Though he was Black, Ivanov achieved a slight edge after 11 moves"

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martinced
It's sad that an article targeted at people playing a smart game forces you to
use a Java applet to replay moves : (

Hint: smart people disable Java applets nowadays ; )

~~~
pavs
Its easier to embed dozens of java applets that are freely available then to
write a custom solution just for one small moderately interesting article.

~~~
dougk16
True, but nytimes has proven they have some HTML5 chops
([http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-
fall/#/?part=tunne...](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-
fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek)), and JavaScript-based chess viewers are readily
available (<http://code.google.com/p/pgn4web/>). Considering the recent Java
scare, I think it's reasonable to be mildly surprised by them using applets.
I'm starting to be surprised even when I see Flash these days, much less
applets.

