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Classic Games (Games) Idle

World Chess Champion Faces American Challenger, Grueling First Game, and Woody Harrelson (chess.com) 62

"It's the biggest chess event of the year as World Champion Magnus Carlsen will try to defend his title against the American challenger Fabiano Caruana," reports Chess.com -- which is webcasting game two right now (7 a.m. PST, 3 p.m. London/GMT).

After seven grueling hours and 115 moves on Friday, the first game of their 12-game competition ended in a draw -- though challenger Caruana acknowledged that "I was quite fortunate to end up with a draw... I was outplayed after the opening... I think I was clearly losing, for a long time I was losing." This was not the most pleasant experience to defend this extremely long game with white. I think I was quite fortunate to end up with a draw... There was definitely a lot of nerves. It is a very different feeling playing the first game of a world championship match.... Normally with white you shouldn't be too happy with a draw, but considering my position I am very happy. I am relieved to have escaped."
Slate reports Caruana has spent $50,000 on chess coaching just in 2018 in hopes of claiming the 1 million euro prize. Ironically, the match's "ceremonial starter", actor Woody Harrelson, bungled Caruana's first move by knocking over his king -- and then by moving the wrong pawn. "Caruana was ready to accept the mistake and continue with the match before officials gave Harrelson a third chance and he finally moved the correct piece."

Defending champion Magnus Carlsen later admitted that "I couldn't quite find the knockout before the time trouble.... I tried to find a way to exchange in order to play for a win, but I couldn't find it. Then I just moved around hoping to force a blunder, but I didn't succeed."
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World Chess Champion Faces American Challenger, Grueling First Game, and Woody Harrelson

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  • by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Saturday November 10, 2018 @10:26AM (#57621890) Homepage

    showing Pacman next to a top chess story is insulting.

    • by ffkom ( 3519199 )
      Why is it insulting? Computers learned to play chess better than humans before they became able to play Pacman better than humans.
      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Because us chess players are intellectually superior to petty, child like video games, and deserve stories about our love to be highlighted with iconography that illustrates the illustrious position that chess holds over all other forms of game.

      • learned

        So you've never a programming class.

        • by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @12:23PM (#57622172)

          learned

          So you've never a programming class.

          You are right - I never attended programming classes, such were not existent at the time when I started programming, we had to get our knowledge from spec sheets and a few existing books.

          But I did attend to English lessons in school, where I learned that sentences should contain verbs.

          • ut I did attend to English lessons in school, where I learned that sentences should contain verbs.

            Sometimes, but not always. Just as there can be inferred subjects from the larger context, verbs can be inferred.

            • by Calydor ( 739835 )

              As long as you can put in "taught", "taken", and "nuked" and the sentence would keep making sense, then no, the verb can't just be inferred.

              You accidentally an entire word.

              • Oh yeah, that's not an example of a sentence where it was proper. (Although the omitted verb is clearly "taught", "taken" or "attended", which are synonymous with this usage.)

  • by Misagon ( 1135 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @10:38AM (#57621922)

    Someone please tell Woody Harrelson that chess is not like bowling.
    You are not supposed to knock over your king ...

    • The king knock over as a first move was intentional as a joke. But, for an attempted joke, the knock over of the king was just badly done. Rushed, no build up n his motion. Not what I would expect from a famous comedic actor.

      The second wrong move was a mistake.

    • Someone please tell Woody Harrelson that chess is not like bowling.

      He's about 1400 strength, so he's better at chess than the vast majority of slashdotters.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      hold on a minute my husband just informed me of some very important news about Bill Cosby. it was his character Cliff Huxtable that played chess! not Cosby. So maybe hes not such a great pick

      Plus he'd need really long hands to make his move from inside a prison cell. Then again...

    • the guy doesnt even play chess.

      Yes he does [chessgames.com]. Why do you think he doesn't?

  • by john83 ( 923470 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @12:01PM (#57622094)
    Carlsen is a remarkable player. He's been the top rated player since 2010, mostly by a margin comparable to Kasparov at his peak, and he's been World Champion since 2013. Carlsen's recent form hasn't been quite to his usual standards, and Caruana has matched that dip with gains of his own. In terms of elo rating, the statistical ranking used in chess, they're currently neck and neck. This means that an outright match victory (it's best of 12 games) would probably make Caruana not just World Champion but also the world #1 ranked player for the first time. At 27 and 26 years old respectively, they could be duking it out for a long time to come - pro chess players can retain almost all of their peak strength well into their 40s.
    • by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @12:33PM (#57622216)

      At 27 and 26 years old respectively, they could be duking it out for a long time to come - pro chess players can retain almost all of their peak strength well into their 40s.

      Yes, but how boring would that be? I mean, those are two Mr. Nice Guys just playing chess. Where is the drama of a Bobby Fisher vs. Boris Spassky match in that? The crowd prefers weird cranks battling for the title!

      • Yes, but how boring would that be?

        Only to people who don't really care about chess, I'd think.

      • Where is the drama of a Bobby Fisher vs. Boris Spassky match in that?

        1972. Half of people were ever too young or not yet even born to appreciate the match.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Who designed their clothes? What color were their phones? Any crazy hair styles?

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @12:17PM (#57622144)

    Remember how the world champ of Go was obliterated by the "alien" neural network based AI? How do you think it would work out if we applied the same training concepts to chess? I know Deep Blue was new and amazing but I feel like we have advanced to the point where Deep Blue could get destroyed by a completely unconventional approach through neural network AI. I want to see that. I want to see human players completely obliterated and left dumbfounded.

    • Go ahead: http://play.lczero.org/ [lczero.org]

      Start with easy mode (computer looks at 1 node before playing a move). If all 4 modes are too easy, download the binary yourself, and play on GPU.

    • Deep Blue is ancient history. You can download and run chess programs on your cell phone that would obliterate Deep Blue 100 times out of 100, and of course, do the same to any human player.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Seems like you missed Google's AlphaZero.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      They did just that with AlphaZero [wikipedia.org]. It taught itself chess from first principles by playing against itself, and within a single day improved so much it was stronger than humans and all other chess programs. One grandmaster said it was like playing against a superior alien species.

    • Remember how the world champ of Go was obliterated by the "alien" neural network based AI? How do you think it would work out if we applied the same training concepts to chess? I know Deep Blue was new and amazing but I feel like we have advanced to the point where Deep Blue could get destroyed by a completely unconventional approach through neural network AI. I want to see that. I want to see human players completely obliterated and left dumbfounded.

      The rules of Go are far simpler than the rules of Chess, but Go requires a lot more thought. So Go suits using a neural net better than Chess.

      I can beat most social Chess players with out any real effort, but in draughts (I think it is called checkers in Trumpistan) I have to work much harder, as in Chess I can just glance at the board for a few seconds to make what appears to be a reasonable move. I have watched people playing Go, but it looks like a lot of hard work, but I've never played the game.

      Chess

      • The rules of Go are far simpler than the rules of Chess, but Go requires a lot more thought. So Go suits using a neural net better than Chess.

        Both games can be done by neural net. The biggest difference is that chess can also be done very well with a brute search, whereas Go can't. This means that the bar for chess is much higher.

  • using noscript I can see all the sites you need enable to watch, by the time I saw reached facebook I was in the verge of bailing, FB put me over the edge. If it was a simple video stream I would be watching in now
  • Rated at 2800+, the top human players are much weaker than top engines; Stockfish is approx 3500. And neural net engines, notably Lc0 ("Leela") are a recent spectacular arrival, set to challenge the dominance of alpha/beta search ones. Leela, inspired by the Alpha Zero approach, is already in the top 4. (Komodo and Houdini are the other two, both AB). No human stands a chance against any of them. Skynet?

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