Man Or Machine
A four game match between Grandmaster Larry Christiansen, current U. S. Champion, and Chessmaster 9000 was played at The Internet Chess Club September 28th and 29th. Two games each day. Larry defeated CM9000 in the first game with the Black Pieces giving the program a lesson in Rook and Pawn endings. Chessmaster came roaring back in game two winning in 61 moves. Larry allowed an open position that, even though Queens were off the board, played into the strength of the computer. In the third game Larry after making a brilliant Rook sacrifice missed the best followup and drifted into a lost position. This game is one you will enjoy playing through. Qh1+ rather than f3 is probably winning, but f2 was the losing move in my opinion. The fourth and final game resulted in a draw assuring Chessmaster 9000 of the win. The final score was 2.5 to 1.5.
Click here to play through the games or here to download as a pgn formatted text file.
GM Larry Christiansen - Bio
Grandmaster Larry Christiansen was born June 27, 1956 in Riverside, California. A fine swimmer and water polo player, he learned chess by watching the older kids play at his swimming club when he was all of nine years old. Together with his brother Jim, Larry spent countless hours playing checkers and chess which led to a love of the game that paid off when he became a grandmaster by winning the Malaga tournament in Spain in 1977. He thus became one of the few players in the history of chess to skip right over the lesser international master title.Larry later promoted chess for Church's Fried Chicken by touring the U.S. from coast to coast giving exhibitions before moving to Germany in the 1980's to play the European circuit and participate in the German club league, or Bundesliga, in which he was a regular all-star. Christiansen was U.S. co-Champion in 1980 and 1983 and has represented the United States eight times in the bi-annual chess Olympiad events as a player.
At the 1998 and 2000 Olympiad, Larry was non-playing captain of the U.S. team. The team brought home the silver medal, narrowly missing the gold at the '98 Elista event. Larry is currently living with his patent agent wife Natasha in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Still an active player, Larry can frequently be found on the Internet playing and teaching chess on the World Chess Network.
Considered one of the greatest attacking players in the history of American chess, Larry's latest achievement is the publication of his book Storming the Barricades and his victory in the 2002 U. S. Championship.
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Comments
I've always wondered about computerized chess. I mean, I know IBM keeps making machines that play chess better and better.
But Chessmaster 9000. From someone on the outside looking in, I would find it hard to believe that it would offer much competition to someone who is championship calibre; mostly because I can walk into EB and buy it off the shelf. Is it really that powerful and I'm just underestimating it, or is this just a fluke win to be attributed to a temporary loss of concentration or something?
I'm fascinated by people versus computers when it comes to chess, and you seem to be very knowledgeable on the chess end of it..
Posted by: Vinny | September 28, 2002 11:46 PM
Vinny, Chess playing programs have improved tremendously over the years and now most of them beat all but the very best players, as you may know the IBM computer beat Gary Kasparov in a match. The commercial programs running on PC's are not that strong but even they have been successful against Grandmasters. The program Larry is currently playing in running on a Dell 2.6 Ghz computer. It is no fluke. The players have a better strategic sense of the game, but the computers with the new powerful processors are able to calculate so many moves ahead that it compensates for the difference in knowledge. All of the commercial programs now have different levels of play to make the games interesting for humans. Some will even adjust their play to match yours. The way they do that is to reduce the number of moves they look ahead to just a few ply. One ply is the move by only one player two ply would be I move you respond. The computers in their tournament mode are searching 14-16 ply in even the most complicated positions. During the ending phase of play they search 40 or 50 ply. I think Larry will probably win this match. The computer played poorly in the first game. As I mentioned in my comment to the second game Larry allowed a position computers excel at and then made a couple of slight errors the computer capably exploited. The position was one where calculation of variations is at a premium. If he plays in a more positional style in the final two games his chances are excellent. Interestingly Chessmaster 9000 is not the strongest available commercial program there are several others that are better Fritz 7.0, Hiarcs 8.0 for example. The Hiarc program is recognized for playing the most human style. The Hiarc's program recently defeated Grandmaster Boris Gulko a Russian who immigrated to the United States in the 70's and who is still considered one of the strongest players in the United States today. So there you have it more information than you probably wanted, but if you want to know more or have any further questions please let me know.
Posted by: Norm | September 29, 2002 12:37 AM