CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Re : Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

It seems to me that Kevin is correct.

The Windsor chess teachers/ club organizers seem to have done an amazing job of junior development in the city - it is likely one of the foremost cities in Canada in terms of chess growth.

You haven't seen anything yet. The interest is picking up and we are finding extremely supportive parents, grandparents and kids who genuinely love to play the game. It is so noticeable that there are two other groups who will be offering chess lessons in the city. Kumon in Tecumseh will offer Saturday classes taught by John Coleman and Herb Alice who helps me with the Beginner/Intermediate Thursday and Advanced Friday classes. Istvan and Zoltan Kiraly have also been instrumental in the surge through their individual coaching and also their help in the classes and the various training events that they and John Coleman have put on for the kids.

The other group that will be putting on lessons is Mad Science which also teaches science in the schools. They had quite a few people sign up for their chess classes which will be starting in early 2013.

And they have developed junior/ chess junior parents desiring to play in major national and provincial tournaments - a good chess junior with a good result DOES often interest the media, especially where you have made prior contacts with them.

I think the Windsor situation is not duplicated very many other places in Canada at the moment. Not that there aren't good junior programs elsewhere, but they are not as highly visible, and do not match the growth numbers.

Bob A

We are not as visible as I would like us to be. We suffered a big temporary blow recently when the John Coleman windsorchess.ca website went down. Its all back up at windsorchess.com but it is going to take a bit of time for the google searches to come back up at the right site given the history that the old site had.

When I explain what we are up to and what we hope to accomplish, and what we have accomplished, parents and kids get pretty excited about it.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Re : Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

Would that be because the editor is aware that chess is apparently flourishing in Windsor?

Junior chess is flourishing in Windsor. It seems to be flourishing in Detroit as well. I played in a tournament where three of my opponents were 13 or under last weekend. One of the children was one of ours, Lily Zhou who will represent Canada at her second WYCC at the grand old age of 10. The tournament director gave us a choice to change the pairings since she is one of the kids from our Friday class. Lily didn't want the pairings to change because she wanted to play a strong player.

Given that two of my opponents were rated 2172 (a Canadian boy aged 13 living in Michigan now) and 2054 (a 13 year old girl) it gave me a feeling that we aren't helping these Windsor kids reach their full potential, yet. This despite the fact that many of them are making fantastic progress both in terms of the quality of their games and also in terms of rating progress.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

Does this mean you have "binders full of women"? :D:D

I was listening to a fellow on TV the other evening who claimed to have that. I think he was looking for ones to post, or should that be to give posts. Is there any way to make this sound good? :o

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

I think your doing drawings of the waitresses who want them, and giving them to them, is a nice gesture. As is volunteering to help out the CFC. Congratulations.

Bob A

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

Does this mean you have "binders full of women"? :D:D

I've kept just the first two drawings, for now. The others I gave to the young waitresses, after they had requested being drawn (when shown my initial two drawings).

The last drawing I did after one of the waitresses asked me where her drawing was, following my presenting one to another of the ladies. I replied that she hadn't requested a drawing of herself, after which she said she felt she shouldn't have to ask.

Earlier, one of the waitresses in fact requested not to be drawn.

So far I've done such drawings for free, and like my free work on behalf of the CFC, I worry a bit about any potential flak I might receive, besides enjoying any thanks. :)

[Paul Bonham]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

As an/another off-topic aside that might be curious to some, I can relate that I myself have occasionally vivid memories of people, words or events that were from long ago in my past. Like some people are gifted with being suddenly able to speak language(s) they never actually learnt, or having a photographic memory.

Within the last couple of months I've also developed something of a knack for pencil drawings of people done at home, from just my memory of them, even though I'm not very artistic afaik. I did a couple of such drawings of someone I haven't seen for ten years, to start with, and some other people who knew her from then recognized her instantly from the drawing (though some people disagreed it was clearly her).

Later I did pencil drawings of several young waitresses I know at the RA Fieldhouse Bar and Grill, in Ottawa, again from memory, though within days after last seeing them.

Did I mention I've only drawn women, from memory, so far? :)

Does this mean you have "binders full of women"? :D:D

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

...
Possibly the crux, intuitively, is: computers have a perfect perception of the 'boards' they move on, as well as opening theory and tablebases they look up. Human minds are far less perfect in this regard, and that's part of what's expected of human chessplayers (though one objecter mentioned people with photographic memories, to which I replied ethically they might not play chess, and in any case would likely make more money doing something else).
...

To be fair, at the time that I (provocatively?!) posited that computers 'cheat', on the old chesstalk message board that got replaced, I at one point noted that I was by no means sure of the merits of my arguments. Nevertheless many chesstalkers could see things my way at the time, judging by my ensuing poll on the subject.

In regards to having a photographic memory, that advantage just by itself (in being able to memorize books and books) might not ensure chess mastery. When I lived in Brampton in the 1970s-80s, the top player in the club was initially a 1800-2000 strength player, who supposedly had a photographic memory (I have no clear idea how ethical he was, though he did take delight in claiming a win on time whenever he played speed chess with people).

As I, an improving player, played often in relatively nearby Toronto events, and also studied all kinds of books (not so much opening ones in the early years), I eventually became a master, and the only one at my local non-CFC oriented Brampton chess club. I still played at this club, to hone my skills at converting won positions, if nothing else. The games were often of such low quality that I eventually threw out almost all the scores (sorry, Hugh :().

Anyway, this player with the alleged photographic memory evidently did not make that much use of it, in regard to chess. He had a narrow repertoire, playing the objectively fairly innocuous Colle setup with White, virtually regardless of what Black played, and he loved to play trappy double king pawn lines as Black. He had a repeat customer, who at least twice, once a year apart, fell for the trap 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4?! 4.Nxe5 (better 4.Nxd4) 4...Qg5 5.Nxf7 Qxg2 6.Rf1 Qxe4+ 7.Be2 Nf3 mate (evidently the 'customer' didn't have a photographic memory as well).

Eventually, I thought about how it might be best to neutralize the Colle. Without memorizing the theory, I knew of the game that Colle himself lost to Capablanca involving a Queen's Indian setup, designed to take advantage of the predictability of the Colle setup (to be fair, ECO in modern times rates that game as having an unclear position at one point). So, I won at least once using a Queen's Indian setup against this man.

Later on, it occured to me that a Leningrad Dutch setup would be even more effective against someone insisting on a Colle setup, as Black gets in ...f5 and eventually ...e5 before White plays e3-e4 (i.e. spending a tempo moving his e-pawn a second time) [edit: White can get in e3-e4 before ..e5 if he really insists, but evidently I had something in mind against that]. I anticipated this plan all based on chess understanding, rather than memorizing any possible variations (other than making the basic initial developing moves of the Leningrad Dutch setup regardless).

The Leningrad Dutch setup indeed worked quite effectively against this fellow, as he was soon floundering, before the middlegame had gone very far. I eventually won in a one-sided affair. Afterwards, I saw my opponent, the man with the supposed photographic memory, off in a corner of the room, looking intently at his scoresheet for several seconds. Then ... he crumpled it up, and threw it in the garbage. :)

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

...
one objecter mentioned people with photographic memories, to which I replied ethically they might not play chess, and in any case would likely make more money doing something else
...

As an/another off-topic aside that might be curious to some, I can relate that I myself have occasionally vivid memories of people, words or events that were from long ago in my past. Like some people are gifted with being suddenly able to speak language(s) they never actually learnt, or having a photographic memory.

Within the last couple of months I've also developed something of a knack for pencil drawings of people done at home, from just my memory of them, even though I'm not very artistic afaik. I did a couple of such drawings of someone I haven't seen for ten years, to start with, and some other people who knew her from then recognized her instantly from the drawing (though some people disagreed it was clearly her).

Later I did pencil drawings of several young waitresses I know at the RA Fieldhouse Bar and Grill, in Ottawa, again from memory, though within days after last seeing them.

Did I mention I've only drawn women, from memory, so far? :)

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

In case you were wondering Paul, I am definitely sure you argued that computers didn't cheat, years ago on chesstalk [edit: the old chesstalk message board that got replaced]. Now I recall there were one or two others who agreed with you too, perhaps not in the same way.

Possibly the crux, intuitively, is: computers have a perfect perception of the 'boards' they move on, as well as opening theory and tablebases they look up. Human minds are far less perfect in this regard, and that's part of what's expected of human chessplayers (though one objecter mentioned people with photographic memories, to which I replied ethically they might not play chess, and in any case would likely make more money doing something else).

In any case, I suppose I could take another poll...

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

You don't need to add extra pieces and pawns, as interesting as that might be. Just change the board to 10 x 10 and place the 32 existing chess pieces on the inner 8 x 8 set of squares. Thus all rules are the same, including en passant and castling, only the area that is played within becomes new and larger. Knights would obviously become weaker in such a variant, and Bishops stronger, so that Bishop / Knight exchange would occur less.

It's an interesting issue how to make the relative strength of bishops and knights (or other new types of 'minor' pieces) in any chess variant. Standard chess very slightly favours bishops over knights in the starting position, in most modern theorists' eyes, I would think.

In hexagonal chess, a variant that failed to gain popularity afaik, knights were given as worth a full pawn more than bishops (there were three bishops: one for grey, light or dark hex cells). You couldn't deliver mate with just two bishops against a king in that variant, but stalemate was worth 3/4 of a point, I seem to recall.

After owning a hexagonal chess set for decades, and finding no one to play with for ages (not even my Oriental games club buddies here in Ottawa), I chucked it out. Back in the late 70s/early 80s some wargamers at Carleton U in Ottawa briefly played the game (wargamers like almost any game with hex cells) and one of them thought it was an attacking chess variant, but I found it came down to endgame play quite often, as queens often came into contact early on at least in my games. I once overheard FM Doug Bailey comment that he thought it was a stupid variant.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Re : Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

In the defence of chess (or checkers!) players, I would like to remind chesstalkers that on the old chesstalk message board, years ago I posited that computers in effect cheat when they play chess, by looking at more than one board at a time, moving the pieces, looking up opening theory or using tablebases, all of which is prohibited for human players.

This is preposterous. It's the first time I've seen such an argument. Computers only look at more than one board at a time, move pieces, and look up opening theory in their "minds". They don't physically set up tables, move pieces, or explore opening theory.

Humans are also capable of doing these things in their minds. This ends all arguments as to whether computers are "cheating". Again, preposterous.

The human mind and the computer mind are obviously structurally and functionally different. Right now, the computer mind is superior at chess because, even though it cannot reason and think, it can calculate much much much faster than the human mind. But keep in mind, the calculations themselves and the methods of doing them are set by human programmers, many of whom are average chess players. If you tell those humans that they can only create software that uses a human-brain-like paradigm, i.e. a neural net, then things change dramatically. The programs become much "dumber" in that they must be trained and they take very long to advance even to rudimentary level. Their training is just like the human brain needing to be trained (with rare human exceptions, where certain prodigies seem to already have the necessary training "built in" even at a very young age, which leads into very philosophical avenues of discussion).

What does this all mean? It speaks to chess itself. It says that chess is a game that is solvable by brute force calculation. Most of us already know that and also know that the brute force search tree is inimaginably large. But not infinite.

If we already know this about chess, then we already know that chess can be solved by computers. Thus the actual solving of chess will change nothing. Just like the fact the speed of light is the fastest way to travel 100 yards doesn't stop us from holding 100-yard dash events at the Olympics. We don't actually think humans might surpass the speed of light via running.

Another point: humans create the computers and the software that drives them. A computer chess program that is the strongest chess player in the world is indicative of the human progress in one particular domain which happens to be chess -- even if the program is a product of a collection of humans rather than one individual human.

The solving of chess by computers is thus really the solving of chess by humans.

I submit that parallel to solving chess by brute force calculation (which would be interesting, to see if chess is indeed a draw by brute force), we should also see if we can produce neural net programs that can (with sufficient training) surpass human brain capabilities at chess. Only then can we say that we have surpassed the incredible capabilities of the human brain, and not by mere brute force calculations, but by actual computer software ARCHITECTURE that mimics the brain. In other words, we could then say that we have created a BETTER BRAIN that can learn and solve not only chess, but any data- and calculation-centered domain.

Just as there can be different human brains, there can be different computer neural nets. And just as one human brain could conceivably respond differently to different trainings (i.e. "upbringings"), one computer neural net could do the same. Thus you can have infinite computer neural nets each responding to infinite trainings. This gives hints into a near or distant future: computer robotics that learn, and can be "brought up" by humans and compared to other computer robotics with different neural nets and different upbringings.

Finally, it has to be brought up again: what about these human prodigies that seem to have so much of the usual "training" already built into their brains? Mozart composed classical music from the age of 5.

This begs the question: can we marry computer neural net architecture with already-built-in "training", thus bypassing to some extent the "learning" phase of neural net programs?

The thing is that we humans would benefit by being able to set up many boards and actually move pieces on each board to physically see with our physical eyes different variations, whereas computers would have no such limitation. They don't need to physically see or hear anything. They just deal with 1's and 0's at (currently) GHz speed. Thus this marriage of architecture and training is really a marriage of architecture with brute force techniques that chess might help teach. Accordingly, we should be able to someday create computer brains that learn at incredible speed.

This is all getting very philosophical, i.e. "could we create God?". Well, I haven't even brought up that we humans can create chess variants, which no computer program, brute force or neural net, could do. So even given a neural net computer that can master chess, we're still eons away from creating God, if you believe in such a concept (which I do).

So I'll stop there and end with this bottom line on Kevin's post:

Computers do not "cheat" at chess. They visualize just like we do, except differently. They store their visualizations in their memory, just like we do except differently. Visualization and use of memory is not cheating.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

Interestingly, modern International Checkers/Draughts is played on a 10x10 board. There are evidently many tournaments worldwide (and millions of people still play all sorts of checkers variants, say online, including the old 8x8 checkers).

I suspect checkers moved to 10x10 in serious events more because 8x8 opening theory has been played out, and people were drawing lots for choice of opening, rather than 8x8 checkers being solved.

If chess is ever deemed to be played out, there may be plenty of 10x10 checkers boards available worldwide by then, and then two new type(s) of piece(s) and two pawns might be added to both the White and Black coloured pieces of 10x10 chess sets, in order to make it the new standard chess at that time (say 100+ years from now!?).

You don't need to add extra pieces and pawns, as interesting as that might be. Just change the board to 10 x 10 and place the 32 existing chess pieces on the inner 8 x 8 set of squares. Thus all rules are the same, including en passant and castling, only the area that is played within becomes new and larger. Knights would obviously become weaker in such a variant, and Bishops stronger, so that Bishop / Knight exchange would occur less.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

TCN is already in contact with the inventor of a chess variant on a 10x10 board with 2 extra pieces, for each side. We expect an article on it in the near future.

Bob , TCN Editor

I wonder what the extra pieces move like in his variant. S-chess (sp?), which Bruce Harper of B.C. was promoting (I think) is played on an 8x8 board, but has two extra pieces that can be added as the game unfolds, I seem to recall (not sure).

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

TCN is already in contact with the inventor of a chess variant on a 10x10 board with 2 extra pieces, for each side. We expect an article on it in the near future.

Bob , TCN Editor

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest -What Is The Future Of Chess?

Interestingly, modern International Checkers/Draughts is played on a 10x10 board. There are evidently many tournaments worldwide (and millions of people still play all sorts of checkers variants, say online, including the old 8x8 checkers).

I suspect checkers moved to 10x10 in serious events more because 8x8 opening theory has been played out, and people were drawing lots for choice of opening, rather than 8x8 checkers being solved.

If chess is ever deemed to be played out, there may be plenty of 10x10 checkers boards available worldwide by then, and then two new type(s) of piece(s) and two pawns might be added to both the White and Black coloured pieces of 10x10 chess sets, in order to make it the new standard chess at that time (say 100+ years from now!?).