Dink Heckler wrote on 01/08/08 at 13:07:12:


As far as the role of engines today, my answer was purely practical.  Engines haven't killed correspondence chess.  I'm sure managing engines better helps one's game, but we are not yet at the level where a patzer can beat a gm -- which is the example from freestyle chess that keeps being bandied about.

In ten years, or twenty years perhaps computers will begin to kill correspondence chess, the same way I might claim they've killed "freestyle blitz chess".  But the point is, it hasn't happened yet.  Those who play correspondence chess recognize this and I think that is the reason for a lot of people talking past each other in the thread.  It's easy to "guess" that computers play a larger role than they do if your only experience is, say, watching real-time analysis of a GM game.

Quote:


Who's to say whether a club player could beat an FM at corr without computers?  Actually, it happened all the time.  At some point one just accepts that ratings reflect the game they are measuring nothing more; the same has been said about opening preparation killing chess.  It's just not true.

Corr chess isn't just about who has the faster computer.  Not yet, anyway.

I don't see any reason to lock the thread, but I do think that it will soon die of its own accord.

GMTonyKosten wrote on 01/08/08 at 19:59:12:


Ohh I dunno. Compared to New 1...e5! book by Mikhail Marin! this thread is merely in the embryonic stages.

Perhaps this thread deserves to be left to peter out on its own, similiar to some of the other memorable classics on this forum. Alternatively a fitting epitaph could be something along the lines of Bill O'Riley's favorite refrain: You have now reached the no spin zone, where the buck stops here. 

Toppy

Dink Heckler wrote on 01/08/08 at 13:07:12:


The problem with Freestyle is the limited time, as you end up spending so much time looking at lines with your computer that you don't have enough left to really think about the position properly yourself! The guy with the fastest computers tends to win these days (most everyone uses the same version of Rybka anyway) In fact, no chess skill might be an advantage as then you don't get distracted by little things like the formation of the pieces on the board ...!!

Incidentally, this thread is getting rather long and there surely can't be much more to say? Shall I close it?

TopNotch wrote on 01/08/08 at 03:56:42:


You're correct, however the difference the time control makes is immense and can't really be overstated.

5 sec/move << 1 min/move < 3 min/move <<< 3 days/move 

in terms of playing strength, say, unassisted.  Adding in a computer just makes the gap between minutes per move and days per move more extreme, and shrinks the others.

Many of the points that you are making (e.g. this isn't really chess because it doesn't distinguish well between players with different amounts of chess knowledge), which may be valid for freestyle chess at a quick time control, don't really apply when one has a week per move.  I can't think of any more good ways to explain why, but maybe someone else will chime in.

Scholar wrote on 01/08/08 at 03:15:01:


You made some interesting points, but the reason why I see little difference between Freestyle and CC is that in both forms one is allowed unlimited use of any and all resources during actual play, with the only difference being the time control set. Am I wrong in thinking this?

TopNotch wrote on 01/08/08 at 01:54:48:


Well, I think that there is a huge difference between the two -- freestyle and CC.  A top engine by itself will defeat almost any grandmaster in a match at standard time controls, let alone the g/60 or whatever chessbase's freestyle tournament was played at.

I am fairly certain that even the best engines, unassisted, would consistently lose to a corr gm -- actually, they would often lose to a corr player of a much lower standard.

One can make the same argument at a lower level: two amateur players playing freestyle chess would probably do best to always follow the computer's advice in a g/60 time control.  This is not even remotely true at the reflection times typical for correspondence chess.

In twenty years, your statement may be correct, TopNotch, but right now the best engines are not exceptional at corr play, and thinking of corr play and freestyle as being very similar is going to lead you astray.

JudgeDeath wrote on 01/07/08 at 13:56:14:


The Fisher Random debate has come up before on this forum, and the prevailing view was that this form of the game only minimised the impact of Opening theory. All the other typical components of chess mastery remains the same, and in any case, Fisher Random only postpones the inevitable development of  Opening theory, which is more or less simply the codified collection of the most frequently used moves in master praxis.

One of my favorite syllogisms, at least I think it qualifies as one, goes something like this: Major premise: Cows eat grass. Minor premise: People eat cows. Conclusion: Therefore people eat grass. 

Syllogistic arguments always seem impressive on their face, but sometimes when analysed a bit deeper the conclusions often prove absurdly simplistic, as DH so aptly illustrated.   

TN      

Dink Heckler wrote on 01/07/08 at 11:03:09:


I was reluctant to get drawn back into this discussion, since my feeling is that after 8 pages, everyone's said what they wanted to say, but as a courtesy, I'll clarify my position in this regard.

My original comment, which you misquoted, was in respect of the two social players who won a Freestyle competition utilising their superior computing skills, database managment etc (by their own admission). My comment was that they are clearly good at something, but equally clearly that something isn't chess. You seem not to agree.

Perhaps you have a variant of the following syllogistic argument in mind: correspondence chess is chess, therefore good at correspondence chess == good at chess; 'good at' == obtains good results at, therefore someone who obtains good results at correspndence chess is good at chess. If this isn't your argument, I fail to see where you disagree with me.

I leave you with three thought experiments to test whether this chain of reasoning stacks up:

1) Player A is very weak, a rank beginner. He is sometimes confused by the en passant rule, and has to concentrate intensely on mate in one problems. However, he is a world leader in parallell processing and cloud computing, and also enlists the help of a friend who is a renowned expert in database management and algorithmic search optimisation. By applying this expertise, Player A obtains good results in correspondence chess.

2) Player B is pretty weak, but very rich and vain. He plays in correspondence tournaments, but all of his games are actually being played by a team of grandmasters in his employ. Player B obtains extremely good results at correspondence chess.

3) Player C is a rank amateur, but tells me he is going to enter an extremely strong email tournament, and is confident of a solid performance. I bet him that he'll be massacred, and sit back confident of winning my bet. Player C obtains a 50% score and I grumpily have to put my hand in my pocket. I have to concede that player C's performance counts as a good result at correspondence chess, but remain baffled. Later it emerges that player C waits for his White opponents to move, sends the moves to his Black opponents, and then sends their replies in turn to his White opponents. 

Players A, B and C obtain good results at correspondence chess. However, I contend that they are not good chess players. Therefore the pseudo-syllogism outlined above does not hold.

If we disagree, fine, we disagree.