Author: Robert Henry Durrett
Date: 09:01:13 05/27/02
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On May 20, 2002 at 13:22:19, Robert Hyatt wrote: <snip> >>"It's clear cheating to play with books against humans". >> >>w.b.r. >>Otello > > > > >Let me clarify the argument against that statement: "there is no currently >existing in FIDE or USCF rules that prevent memorization of long seqauences >of opening moves." Never has been, never will be. > <snip> Bob, you may recall from several years ago that I advanced the idea at rgcc that the computers [especially the huge IBM DB monster] have what I felt was an unfair advantage over human opponents. [Of course, this is a matter of ethics and personal preferences/perceptions]. My feeling was based on the possibly invalid assumption that the top GMs do not have the ability to memorize nearly as much as what can be stored in a computer's hard disc. This assumption could be wrong, however. All one has to do is to is watch a professional pianist play a very long piece of classical music from memory to have doubts as to the limitations of humans. I certainly do not know the limits on the memorization ability of Kasparov, for example. In other words, I felt that the almost instantaneous access of the computer to HUGE HUGE HUGE opening/endgame books and game databases put humans at a distinct disadvantage. I suggested that the answer was not to deny the computer it's access to that information, but rather to give the human the same access. But human accessing of databases is orders of magnitude slower than a chess computer's accessing of those same databases. So, the obvious answer is to allow the human to have the assistance of a computerized "librarian" during the course of the computer/human tournament game. Many people would surely object to that. It's simpler to just keep the computers "silent" and out of tournaments. How one would get FIDE or any tournament organizers to go along with that idea is unknown to me. Perhaps it may be more acceptable outside of the big human tournaments. But, from a purely ethical standpoint, trying to equalize the resources of the two opponents seems to me to be the "fair" thing to do. More importantly, it might better serve research objectives for those who are trying to improve chess computers or to better understand what's going on in a GMs mind. Bob D.
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