Kasparov comments on Kramnik’s claims
In February 1996 Garry Kasparov beat the computer Deep Blue in Philidalphia.
Deep Blue ran on an IBM SP/2 server with 25 special micro-channel cards, each
of which had eight special chess processors. These did all of the brute calculations,
allowing the system to generate and evaluate a cool 100 million positions per
second. Deep Blue was six hundred times faster than the fastest microcomputer
programs – at least with regard to positions per second (at the time Fritz
running on a 150 MHz Pentium was searching at 170,000 nodes per second). Kasparov
won the match with 4-2 points.
Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue, New York 1997
A little over a year later IBM organised a revenge match in New York. The chess
chips, designed by Feng-hsiung Hsu and a team of IBM scientists, had been improved,
chess knowledge added and the speed increased to about 200 million positions
per second. It was now closer to 1000 times faster than Fritz. With the whole
world looking on and under fairly controversial circumstances Kasparov lost
the match 2.5-3.5 (bringing the total score to 6.5-5.5 in favour of the world
champion – why do we tend to forget that).
After the NY match Deep Blue was quickly dismantled. Kasparov's demand for
a final shoot-out were rejected and the machine that had achieved the great
milestone in artificial intelligence never played another game of chess. All
we have to evaluate the strength of Deep Blue II are the six games it played
against Kasparov.
Part two. In October this year world champion Vladimir Kramnik (who won the
title from Kasparov in December 2000) will play a spectacular Man vs Machine
match in Bahrain against the strongest PC program in the world, Deep Fritz 7.
The hardware will be the latest eight-processor SMP system, which will allow
Fritz to search at a speed of about three million positions per second. That
is considerably less than Deep Blue I or II, but on the other hand Fritz is
state-of-the-art software with highly refined search and evaluation algorithms.
One of the preconditions of the Bahrain match is that Kramnik would be allowed
to practise against the final version of the program for at least a month before
the match (Kasparov by contrast had no access to Deep Blue or its games). Since
Fritz is generally available and can be bought
on a CD, Kramnik has been able to study it in great detail already. He described
his impressions in a widely-read
interview on this site. His main impression: "Fritz is clearly stronger
than Deep Blue, whatever the hardware."
Now Garry Kasparov has replied to Kramnik's opinions. In an interview on the
Kasparov
Chess web site the world's number one player is adamant in his rejection
of Kramnik's central thesis. Here's what Kasparov has to say. The questions
were asked by Alex Finkel.
Q: In his interview, Kramnik says that "the fact that
an even weaker program managed to beat Kasparov tells us that the match in Bahrain
will be a hard challenge for me". How would you compare the strength of
Deep Blue and Fritz 7 and what do you think of Fritz 7’s chances to win
the match?
Kasparov: I think the comparison between Deep Blue and Fritz 7 is simply
out of place, to put it mildly. On the one hand you have a top chess computer
specially developed and designed for the match in the secret laboratories of
IBM by the best specialists in the world, while Fritz 7 is just a chess program,
a very strong and successful one, but still a chess program which could be purchased
by anyone anywhere in the world! Only this difference is enough to decide this
argument in Deep Blue’s favor. Concerning the match itself, if it’s
going to be held under the conditions I know about (Kramnik gets the Fritz 7
version he is going to compete with in advance in order to prepare for the match,
etc), I must say that any other result than a convincing win by Kramnik will
be simply unacceptable by me!
Q: In that case how would you comment on Kramnik’s statement
that if he loses people might believe that chess computers are superior to human
beings?
Kasparov: I think there is no need to comment on this one! It’s
quite clear that this statement is just a promotional trick to draw attention
to the match and to make the result more significant than it is in reality,
while Kramnik’s win is actually pre-decided...
Q: Kramnik says that in almost every position Fritz 7 (run on a 600Mhz notebook)
was suggesting objectively better variations than Deep Blue and its play is
as versatile as that of a human being?
Kasparov: This is at least unverifiable. I don’t think we have
an opportunity to compare it now, because Deep Blue no longer exists. About
the versatility of Fritz 7 I may just say one thing -- it’s simply incapable
of playing like a human being! It’s true that in positions with 6 or 7
pieces left its play is exceptionally strong, but to conclude that it plays
like a human is just an overstatement.
Q: Kramnik also says that it was a mistake for you to play without
preparation against an opponent you knew nothing about and that Deep Blue’s
performance didn’t impress him that much. What do you say?
Kasparov: I absolutely agree that to play without preparation wasn’t
a very wise decision! However, I must say that its (Deep Blue’s) play in
some of the games was just close to perfection (especially in games 2-5), even
though I played not so badly back then! (For those who doubt it, take a look
at Kasparov’s results back in 1997!)
Q: So do you think Kramnik is going to win the match?
Kasparov: No doubt about that!
