Kasparov on Technological Innovation

Here's a summary of a talk Garry Kasparov gave for Palantir Technologies. One interesting remark comes in the context of computer chess, where he wishes that the triumph of chess programming had come from an artificial intelligence breakthrough rather than by brute force. What's interesting is that this echoes the approach taken by his great teacher Mikhail Botvinnik. Botvinnik was not only a world chess champion, but an engineer and programmer whose desire was just what Kasparov wished for: a truly AI-based chess program.

HT: Brian Karen

Information, Please: Chess for i-Junk?

I'm considering getting an iPod Touch and want to know if there is ANY chess program with a halfway decent engine that will save analysis done on it. Years and years ago I had a Pocket PC and it could do it with ease with Pocket Fritz 2, but according to a friend of mine with an iPhone there is no program written for the i-market that lets you do it. (Unbelievable if true.) Does anyone know of such a program? (A further near-requirement is that it can export the saved game and its analysis to a PGN file you can copy to your traditional computer.)

An Interview With Anand, Part 2, And Topalov Interview Excerpts

This part is a little less interesting, but there is a brief discussion of Topalov's strongest "second": Rybka 4 on a computer cluster with 114 cores - and not only that but access to an IBM super-computer capable of running 50 trillion floating point operations per second. (If my quick online research is correct, that's about a thousand times faster than even a really souped-up home system.)

Have a look here, too. After a recap of the first part of the Anand interview, there's a brief interview with Topalov. Kind of amazingly to my mind, he boasts about what he takes to have been his superior preparation against Anand, as if having access to a super-computer reflects favorably on his abilities. He also reiterates his triumphalist story about game 1, as if it wasn't just decided by a one-move blunder which Anand claims was the product of mixing up his moves.

Anyway, Topalov aside, the idea of chess preparation moving to the super-computer stage is slightly nauseating to me. I'm no Luddite and I find the progress of opening theory interesting, but is it really the game we play and are trying to understand when Blue Gene blinks on to tell us at depth 55* that our favorite opening variation loses unless we find 27 only-moves in a row? I guess it's not that bad yet, since Topalov, for all his (alleged) dominance in the openings, (allegedly) better nerves, relative youth and better physical condition still couldn't beat Anand, but how long do we have before machine prep renders the gap between those with access and those without unbridgeable?

* Depth 55 is a made-up figure, but can anyone out there tell us what sorts of depths such a machine would reach in a given time period, using Rybka or Fritz or some other contemporary engine on a desktop computer as a benchmark?

Can We Solve Chess One Day?

That's the title of a guest blog by computer scientist Ken Regan, who also happens to be an IM and a regular commenter on this site. Have a look!

The Role of Computers in Planning Chess Strategy

That's the title of an article by Debra Littlejohn Shinder, a computer professional who happens to be the mother of Hikaru Nakamura's second, Kris Littlejohn. It's an interesting read (one factoid that caught my eye was Nakamura memorizing 500-1000 moves of opening prep before each game, which is a lot, although I suspect he already knew at least a fair amount of it), but I do have two quibbles/additions/clarifications.

First, the author mentions that ChessBase 10 runs 349 euros/almost $500 and that ChessBase Lite is free. Both statements are true, but the best deal by far is to download ChessBase 2009 and buy the activation key. Then, for well under $100, you have ChessBase 10, albeit without a database. As there are ways to buy databases for far, far, far less than $400, you still come out way ahead.

Second, she writes that once Nakamura knows the "colors" in the tournament, his second gets busy doing specific prep for the opponents, looking for novelties, etc. I suspect this is a slight misunderstanding on her part, as this information is only known the day before play starts, when the players draw for lots to receive their pairing numbers. Considering how far in advance she reports on their accumulating data on forthcoming opponents, I doubt they'd wait until the night before the first game to start looking for novelties.

Quibbles aside, it's a good read, and you'll get to see what hardware they use in their prep, too.

HT: Nate Criss