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Main
Date: 25 Jun 2008 17:56:09
From: samsloan
Subject: Goichberg says that there is "no risk" to putting Chess Life online
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In BINFO 200803043 Date 2008-06-20 the following exchange took place:
"Risking the brand -- by offering a non-magazine option -- is not an
effective substitute.
"Eric C. Johnson"
"We disagree regarding whether there is risk in offering a bulletin/
online option. However, I would be interested in hearing your ideas
regarding how USCF's marketing efforts can be more successful.
"Bill Goichberg"
The above statement is truly astounding. Virtually every commentator
outside of the board has expressed the opinion that the Goichberg "New
Plan", under which, among other things, members will be offered a no-
magazine option for $13 less, is tremendously risky. Many have said
that they will drop their membership if this happens. Some have called
it "suicidal" or "insane". Hanon Russell has written that he will
consider this to be a breach of contract and has implied that he may
stop paying $150,000 per year to the USCF and may even file a lawsuit
against the USCF, if this plan goes into effect.
Yet, in the face of all this, Goichberg says that there is "no risk"
to his plan.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 07 Jul 2008 21:46:09
From: help bot
Subject: Re: Are you a IM?
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On Jul 5, 3:07 pm, billbrock <[email protected] > wrote:
> If I did not memorize (in this case, a pattern, not a position) "like
> a robot," I would then have to calculate "like a robot." (Hopefully a
> trifle faster than GetClub.)
The good chess programs associate rote
moves with positions, while the bad ones
go with a specific sequence of moves, like
many humans.
I don't want to sound mean, but when I read
that someone lost because they mixed up
their rote moves and thereby hung a piece,
the obvious conclusion is robotic memorization
of moves which are not truly understood;
understanding implies knowledge of not
only the moves, but /why/ each is played
exactly when it is.
> Thinking is of course paramount, and it's more fun for the carbon-
> based player. Anthony Cozzie (whom I met very briefly a couple years
> ago) knows much more about chess than his creation, 2006 World
> Champion Zappa, ever will.
>
> http://uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200606178231-13148800
>
> But that's due to the limitations of the carbon-based programmer, who
> hasn't yet figured out how to tell the machine everything he knows.
One thing which pops up again and again
in my games at GetClub is the idea "in this
kind of position, the program ought to have
done such-and-such". But it seems the
program begins its calculations without
first defining the type of position it is in--
unlike most humans. I might say that it
ought to have activated its King because
at that point in the game, it was "safe" to
do so; but how do you instruct a chess
program of such a general idea? Errors
would quickly result in self-destruction
OTB, just as too much King-safety has.
> Parenthetically: I'm aware of the Dasein objection. In one of his
> online lectures, Hubert Dreyfus tells of his battles with AI people
> when he was at MIT back in the 1960s--how do you "teach" Robot Tank
> Gunner when to shoot & when to hold fire? Ultimately, you can't do so
> perfectly, because it's impossible to program every possible context.
They should have thought about that before
spending $234 million on the project. ; >D
> By contrast, humans have coping skills that computers don't. Granting
> all this, I suspect that certainly one can program computers to cope
> *relatively* better in *certain* contexts: learning to recognize
> potential blockade defenses, for example. Chess AI is still very
> primitive, I suspect, largely because brute force in chess has proven
> to be so productive, and because the marginal ELO gain from more
> sophisticated approaches is probably nominal. The "human" programming
> that folks were trying to do thirty years ago has largely been
> abandoned--I'm probably overstating the case, and welcome corrections
> from folks who know more. Anyway, in my next incarnation, I will take
> up Go.
That game may be solved by then. In the
distant future, people might play simulation
games in which the far-reaching consequences
of various actions are calculated out a hundred
years forward. For instance, what might have
happened if Mr. Alekhine had given Mr.
Capablanca a rematch and Mr. Stalin had
simultaneously invaded Cuba?
> "Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly
> subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments.
> Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly,
> the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of
> their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they
> must, =97 when the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw their shining, =97
> we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our
> steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may
> speak. The Arabian proverb says, 'A fig tree, looking on a fig tree,
> becometh fruitful.'"
"A fig tree, having not eyes, becometh fruitful
when the wasp doth lie within its flowers."
-- wise, ancient bot
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Date: 05 Jul 2008 12:07:02
From: billbrock
Subject: Re: Are you a IM?
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On Jul 5, 12:57=A0am, help bot <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jul 3, 3:17 pm, billbrock <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > I'm just finishing Gleick's _Genius_; perhaps the best scientific bio
> > I've read. =A0Feynman was always contemptuous of rote learning. =A0In t=
he
> > 60s, he refused to read Physics Today and tried for years to cancel
> > his complimentary subscription; he thought journal articles were a
> > waste of time. =A0But in the 40s and 50s, he had Fermi, Bethe, Dyson,
> > and Gell-Mann to bounce ideas off of, and Schwinger as his
> > competitor. =A0One cannot always to so lucky as to have such a high
> > caliber of peers and rivals.
>
> > In the 60s, he lost touch with the cutting edge of physics because of
> > his insistence upon originality.
>
> > Emory Tate is phenomenally strong: imagine how much stronger he'd be
> > if his (amazingly creative) openings weren't (sometimes) utter crap.
>
> =A0 Or would he perhaps be /less successful/,
> since he would less frequently take his
> opponents down paths with which they are
> unfamiliar?
>
> > If geniuses like Feynman & Tate (the greater of these is Emory
>
> =A0 Just ask him! =A0I have little doubt that he
> charges about the same rate for chess
> lessons as any "other super-GM". =A0;>D
>
> > per the ICC cult) could benefit from a little book learning, creatively
> > applied, how much more true is this for patzers like me? =A0All I neede=
d
> > to know was that Nxf7 was playable because of e5/Ne4 ideas & the
> > weakness of the h5-e8 diagonal & the dark squares.
>
> =A0 But that would still amount to memorizing
> your move in "position x", like a robot. =A0My
> idea is this: you come to a position x, and
> you do not know, nor indeed, have any need
> to know, the correct move by rote.
>
> =A0 Example: I have played "average" players
> in blitz games who will just toss out moves
> on a whim when they are run out of book, so
> to speak. =A0We might play: 1. e4 =A0e5, =A02. Nf3
> (I think: I am threatening the e-pawn) ... Nc6
> (they think: this is the book move), =A0 3. Bb5
> (I think: I am /almost/ threatening the e-pawn
> again) ... a6 (they think: this is a book move),
> and so on until they just hang their e-pawn,
> which leads me to wonder how I managed to
> overwhelm their, um, resistance. =A0Of course,
> they had no clue that each of their responses
> was just barely holding that pawn, and upon
> reaching the "dead end" last page of their
> memorized-by-rote book, they simply hang it.
>
> =A0 Now, I do not deny that knowing all the ins
> and outs of one's pet openings can result in
> more wins and fewer losses. =A0But the thing
> is, every time you get into an /unfamiliar/
> position and you are used to relying upon
> this crutch, you are going to feel helpless,
> clueless or at least not up to snuff. =A0 A
> heartless computer may massacre you in
> such a situation, much like Colonel Custer.
> Some players will "hit you" with inferior slop
> (think Sam Sloan) just to get you out of
> your book knowledge so they can, hopefully,
> crush you with their superior tactical skill.
>
> =A0 But imagine if that were reversed-- what if
> instead of knocking you off your feet, they
> in fact played right into your hands? =A0What
> if *you* were the superior tactician? =A0Now
> you know how I feel every time the GetClub
> program plays one of its wacky moves; I
> am the far superior tactician, and because
> of this I can even play "waiting moves",
> knowing that I am less likely to blunder
> than my distinguished opponent; as the old
> song goes, time is on my side.
>
> =A0 -- help bot
If I did not memorize (in this case, a pattern, not a position) "like
a robot," I would then have to calculate "like a robot." (Hopefully a
trifle faster than GetClub.)
Thinking is of course paramount, and it's more fun for the carbon-
based player. Anthony Cozzie (whom I met very briefly a couple years
ago) knows much more about chess than his creation, 2006 World
Champion Zappa, ever will.
http://uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200606178231-13148800
But that's due to the limitations of the carbon-based programmer, who
hasn't yet figured out how to tell the machine everything he knows.
Parenthetically: I'm aware of the Dasein objection. In one of his
online lectures, Hubert Dreyfus tells of his battles with AI people
when he was at MIT back in the 1960s--how do you "teach" Robot Tank
Gunner when to shoot & when to hold fire? Ultimately, you can't do so
perfectly, because it's impossible to program every possible context.
By contrast, humans have coping skills that computers don't. Granting
all this, I suspect that certainly one can program computers to cope
*relatively* better in *certain* contexts: learning to recognize
potential blockade defenses, for example. Chess AI is still very
primitive, I suspect, largely because brute force in chess has proven
to be so productive, and because the marginal ELO gain from more
sophisticated approaches is probably nominal. The "human" programming
that folks were trying to do thirty years ago has largely been
abandoned--I'm probably overstating the case, and welcome corrections
from folks who know more. Anyway, in my next incarnation, I will take
up Go.
NM Alexander Stamnov wiped me off the board twice last weekend. In at
least one of these games (arguably both), he clubbed me with his
"crutch."
help bot's position is not too far away from Emerson's in "The
American Scholar." But Emerson does believe that "book" has its
place:
"Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly
subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments.
Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly,
the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of
their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they
must, =97 when the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw their shining, =97
we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our
steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may
speak. The Arabian proverb says, 'A fig tree, looking on a fig tree,
becometh fruitful.'"
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Date: 03 Jul 2008 14:38:36
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Goichberg says that there is "no risk" to putting Chess Life
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On Jul 3, 3:17 pm, billbrock <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jul 1, 7:37 pm, help bot <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jul 1, 1:02 pm, Sanny <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > There is one Advance Level 2200+ that only one player plays as it
> > > takes an hour to make a move. But Master Level will tell us whether
> > > you are 2000+ or not.
>
> > There is a difference between competing at
> > the master level and playing well against the
> > GetClub program. In competitive play, one
> > faces a different kind of opponent -- one who
> > is trying his best to derail your plans -- and
> > of course there is the added element of
> > time controls. Also note that in human vs.
> > human play, there is a titanic struggle in
> > the openings, whereas at GetClub there is
> > no openings book-monkey contest at all.
>
> > As we saw in this very thread, in a game
> > between Mr.Brockand an international
> > master, a mix-up of memorized-by-rote
> > moves can sometimes lead to harrowing
> > experiences. In my experience at GetClub,
> > there are no such memorization contests,
> > no such bungling of by-rote-move orders;
> > it's a different sort of chess in many ways,
> > where the object is to outplay a machine,
> > not another hominid.
>
> > -- help bot
>
> I'm just finishing Gleick's _Genius_; perhaps the best scientific bio
> I've read. Feynman was always contemptuous of rote learning. In the
> 60s, he refused to read Physics Today and tried for years to cancel
> his complimentary subscription; he thought journal articles were a
> waste of time. But in the 40s and 50s, he had Fermi, Bethe, Dyson,
> and Gell-Mann to bounce ideas off of, and Schwinger as his
> competitor. One cannot always to so lucky as to have such a high
> caliber of peers and rivals.
>
> In the 60s, he lost touch with the cutting edge of physics because of
> his insistence upon originality.
>
> Emory Tate is phenomenally strong: imagine how much stronger he'd be
> if his (amazingly creative) openings weren't (sometimes) utter crap.
>
> If geniuses like Feynman & Tate (the greater of these is Emory, per
> the ICC cult) could benefit from a little book learning, creatively
> applied, how much more true is this for patzers like me? All I needed
> to know was that Nxf7 was playable because of e5/Ne4 ideas & the
> weakness of the h5-e8 diagonal & the dark squares.
Could you possibly put this back on the original topic?
Sam Sloan
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Date: 26 Jun 2008 05:16:09
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Goichberg says that there is "no risk" to putting Chess Life
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[quote="marknibb"]Give people a basic membership for $5 which only
gives them access to the rating system and they will join.
Mark Nibbelin [/quote]
I am glad that now I understand that what you really want is for USCF
Membership Dues to go down to five dollars.
Mark Nibbelin is a 945 USCF Rated player who is the strongest
supporter of Susan Polgar and Paul Truong, is the strongest supporter
of the Goichberg "New Plan" which will put Chess Life OnLine, and is
the strongest critic of the Mottershead Report and those who say that
Truong is guilty, on the USCF Issues Forum.
http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtHst.php?12818435
Sam Sloan
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