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Re: Trophies for lower rated section
With all due respect Hugh (and congrats on your 50 years in chess, your contributions and dedication are amazing).... I wasn't addressing what the U1600 player thinks of himself or herself. I was addressing the fact that you labeled ALL the lower-class section players as mediocre and not worthy of any reward in any event.
But all the world's GMs were U1600 at one time.
You are making my point for me. Mediocrity is relative. And relative to the top 50 or so computer engines, all the human players are mediocre. An engine would never make an outright blunder as you describe above.
But it doesn't even take a blunder. Carlsen could make his very best moves against Houdini and still lose decisively by an accumulation of tiny advantages. Does that make Carlsen mediocre? Yes, in relative terms. And yet we reward him and call him World Champion, not bothering to insert the word "Human".
Where this comes into focus is when we think about the future, where very likely human brainpower will be enhanced by microprocessors. Imagine a future where every human had the power of the latest Houdini in his or her brain. What would become of chess then? Every game becomes Houdini versus Houdini.
Chess ultimately devolves into brute force calculationf (bfc). We have proven that ultimate success at chess in terms of winning is a matter of bfc and ONLY bfc. Neither human creativity nor human psychology nor human strategic planning can conquer that in the realm of chess. In fact, the only time human versus human chess becomes really interesting is when creativity / psychology is used by one of the humans to try and subvert the human opponent's limited bfc. No computer engine would do this in chess, but humans will (rarely). And because chess has relatively short time controls, this can work against a human opponent.
But in other realms -- specifically non-deterministic ones -- humans do much better. For example, there is a very strong poker program that came out of the University of Alberta, but it will NEVER dominate human opponents the way Houdini does at chess. The best this poker algorithm could do would be to approach human-like results, which would mean to win 1 large tournament out of say 20 or 30. And maybe to finish in the top 10 say 33% of the time.
My point in all this is to show that mediocrity at chess is not even worth talking about. ALL HUMANS ARE MEDIOCRE AT CHESS. Whenever I see Wayne Komer providing some input here about some latest whiz kid at chess, I shrug my shoulders because it's so meaningless in the overall context. Good for the kid, I hope s/he enjoys the ride, but s/he isn't going to defeat Houdini in a match, ever. Well, maybe if Houdini is running on a Commodore 64! :D
Don't use mediocrity as an argument to not reward somebody at chess. But I'm actually struggling with this, because rewarding people, especially young people, at chess can make them take it more seriously. And for someone with a brain that is still developing and is showing signs of brilliancy, there is so much that is more important than chess to get involved in in a serious way. Biology, psychics, computer science, mathematics.... so much!
Here I've made all these points, and now I'm actually thinking that whatever gets young people out of serious chess -- as a career that is -- is to be preferred. So let's not reward the lower classes.
Originally posted by Hugh Brodie
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But all the world's GMs were U1600 at one time.
Originally posted by Hugh Brodie
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But it doesn't even take a blunder. Carlsen could make his very best moves against Houdini and still lose decisively by an accumulation of tiny advantages. Does that make Carlsen mediocre? Yes, in relative terms. And yet we reward him and call him World Champion, not bothering to insert the word "Human".
Where this comes into focus is when we think about the future, where very likely human brainpower will be enhanced by microprocessors. Imagine a future where every human had the power of the latest Houdini in his or her brain. What would become of chess then? Every game becomes Houdini versus Houdini.
Chess ultimately devolves into brute force calculationf (bfc). We have proven that ultimate success at chess in terms of winning is a matter of bfc and ONLY bfc. Neither human creativity nor human psychology nor human strategic planning can conquer that in the realm of chess. In fact, the only time human versus human chess becomes really interesting is when creativity / psychology is used by one of the humans to try and subvert the human opponent's limited bfc. No computer engine would do this in chess, but humans will (rarely). And because chess has relatively short time controls, this can work against a human opponent.
But in other realms -- specifically non-deterministic ones -- humans do much better. For example, there is a very strong poker program that came out of the University of Alberta, but it will NEVER dominate human opponents the way Houdini does at chess. The best this poker algorithm could do would be to approach human-like results, which would mean to win 1 large tournament out of say 20 or 30. And maybe to finish in the top 10 say 33% of the time.
My point in all this is to show that mediocrity at chess is not even worth talking about. ALL HUMANS ARE MEDIOCRE AT CHESS. Whenever I see Wayne Komer providing some input here about some latest whiz kid at chess, I shrug my shoulders because it's so meaningless in the overall context. Good for the kid, I hope s/he enjoys the ride, but s/he isn't going to defeat Houdini in a match, ever. Well, maybe if Houdini is running on a Commodore 64! :D
Don't use mediocrity as an argument to not reward somebody at chess. But I'm actually struggling with this, because rewarding people, especially young people, at chess can make them take it more seriously. And for someone with a brain that is still developing and is showing signs of brilliancy, there is so much that is more important than chess to get involved in in a serious way. Biology, psychics, computer science, mathematics.... so much!
Here I've made all these points, and now I'm actually thinking that whatever gets young people out of serious chess -- as a career that is -- is to be preferred. So let's not reward the lower classes.
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