From: "'Ben Bednarz'" <BenFB <at> AOL <dot> COM>
Date: 13 may 1997
Subject: Re: Real chess computing

In a message dated 97-05-13 02:52:14 EDT, you write:

<<
      Sorry to disagree, but I think it would be extremely silly.  The top pc
 chess programs play at (weak) Grandmaster level, and Deep Blue plays about
 one class better, at the level of Candidates for the World Championship.
 One class in chess is comparable to one or two ranks in shogi (opinions
 differ on this); if I allow two ranks, that implies that if pc programs play
 shogi at amateur 1 dan level, if they were to run on a specially built shogi
 machine comparable to Deep Blue they would play at Amateur 3 Dan level.
 This in turn means that with years of effort and millions of dollars
 expenditure, IBM (or the Japanese equivalent) could construct a machine that
 could give Habu a good fight -- at Two Piece Handicap!  Of course software
 may be improved in the future, conceptual breakthrus may occur, etc., but
 until a pc program can play at the Amateur 6 dan level (which I would expect
 to take about twenty years, and I am on record as forecasting back around
 1985 that a computer would beat the chess champ in a match in 1995, only two
 years off), no super computer using similar algorithms could hope to defeat
 the Pro Meijin.
  >>
Larry, your comments about computer shogi vs. chess surprises me.  In 1985 or
86, you stopped by Seattle (the Last Exit) while I was living there.  I asked
you about this very question at that time, because it was my opinion that
shogi would be harder to program.  Your answer then was that shogi should be
easier to program.  Did I misunderstand you originally, or did you change
your mind in the intervening years?  You also said then, as you do now, that
Go would be hardest of all.  Ironically, I've never been convinced of that.
 I think it just requires a very different approach than the standard
chess/shogi programming methods.
  One of the speculations that people like to discuss is whether the success
of computer chess could kill the popularity of chess for humans (or, at
least, for professionals).  If shogi and go are harder to program, then we
can imagine a day when chess is mostly relegated to casual games for kids,
while serious players play only shogi & go.  The history of checkers is a
good precedent for this.  Of course, if a computer conquers shogi & go as
well, then we would need to invent a new game with a geater branching level
(say, > 1000).
  Incidentally, drops are not the only reason shogi is harder to program than
chess.  There are fewer long-range pieces and and slightly larger board.
 This means that there are a greater number of variations to reach any given
position, and that it will be harder to filter out these variations for
selective searches.

Ben Bednarz, Salem, OR