Re: computer-go: perfect play

[Amol Dharmadhikari <dharam2@xxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> >        >In chess you can go beyond that. It has happened that Kasparov had
> >    prepared games up to 30 moves deep.
> >        >He's not doing that on his own. He has a whole team to do it with him.
> > 
> >    Does that say anything about Kasparov's strength? <snip>
> >    ---------
> > 
> > Actually, Vincent is right (for a change  :-) Teams of grandmasters do
> > work with the very best players,  especially the world champion.  They
> > try to find what  is call "TN's" or  "theoretical novelties", holes or
> > missing analysis in current theory.  Also, they can go very deep, even
> > into the endgame as Vincent says.
> 
> I didn't say he isn't right, but that it wasn't a good argument for showing off with Kasparov's strength!
> 
> Doing some lateral thinking, it seems that humans tend to play more like GoDevil (or ChessDevil), because we are preparing especially for the opponent, trying to find his or hers weak spots and so on... :-)
> 
> /Vlad
> 

So is there anything wrong in playing like a GoDevil? We should not
neglect the human aspects of the problem. After all like anything else in
life, a game is a clash of personalities as much as brains. And having
the self control and tenacity to go through a gruelling 24-game match has
more to do with personality than brains.

Also it is not like humans are taking help of their seconds during the
game; how they prepare before the game is nobody's concern as long as
they play fair over the board. For that matter, Bobby Fisher never had
any seconds except for the world championship(when he had one second,
Will Lombardy as against the team of 10+ seconds which Spassky had), and
still he whipped Spassky 12.5-8.5 which goes on to prove that having a
team of people to help you does not necessarily translate into improved
performance. 

Top GMs have seconds not just to help in calculations but to practice
against; to help them avoid obvious mistakes during game adjournments.

Also preparing subjectively(i.e. for a particular opponent based on his
strengths and weaknesses) is more of a "short-cut" to win the game. The
longer and more difficult way would be to find the objectively best move
in any given position.....but we humans are lazy ;-)

Amol