
Ask HN: Have Chess Programs Become Even Better These Days? - ekianjo
There was a lot of media coverage when Big Blue from IBM had beaten Kasparov, but what is the state of Chess programs these days with Deep Learning and the latest tools of the trade? Have they improved significantly so that no human can every hope to compete, even the best chess champions ? Is there any hard data available recently ?
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jcr
Your best bet is to learn about the Elo Rating System [1], and then about the
strength of human players throughout history [2]. Keep in mind that "Elo
Rating" is imperfect, particularly in historical context, but it's still a
reasonably solid measurement.

Next up, learn about computer chess, past and present. The main computer chess
wikipedia article [3] is a good place to start. Finally, start looking at
current computer chess competitions [4] and the programs being used. Whether
the claimed "Elo Ratings" of computer chess programs are realistic, is another
matter. Suffice to say, many of the current programs can beat most human
players.

When Magnus Carlsen became the current (human) chess champion in 2014 (FIDE
Elo:2882), I recall reading how uses computer chess programs for practice.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_player...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_chess)

[4]
[http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/](http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/)

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Lordarminius
Avid Chess Player here.

Chess programs are way beyond what they were whe Deep Blue defeated Kasparov
in 1997. No living Grandmaster could hope to defeat a top-notch chess program
today - hence the trend towards computer vs computer matches.

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firebones
Makes me wonder if the next frontier of chess is to figure out a reliable way
to have computers play at each particular level authentically rather than
making random mistakes. For instance, establish a particular ELO against
humans, then play computer versus computer enough with various deficiencies
introduced (worse opening book, worse calculation or scoring) until you
establish a desired level.

Could Google's deep learning approach they used for Go be turned against chess
to beat existing programs? Or is there something about chess that, despite the
smaller search space, makes it less amenable to the Google approach?

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aaron695
You'll find a phone using open source software can beat any human who's ever
existed.

[edit] Interestingly I can't find someone actually willing to say it from
evidence. Interesting in-denial from the chess world.

