Skip to main content

Brilliance or Brute Force

Is brute force more brilliant than brilliance itself? This question could sound quite stupid if not considered seriously. Garry Kasparov, regarded as the greatest chess player in the world played a match – six games – against an IBM designed chess computer (Deep Blue) which mainly relied on brute force computing power, and the Deep Blue won the controversial match.

Garry Kasparov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan (U.S.S.R then) and won the world chess championship when he was 22 – thus becoming the youngest champion. He held the world champion title from 1985 till 2000. He is best known for his five matches against Anatoly Karpov, another Russian grandmaster in chess. He played with Deep Thought – a chess computer – in 1989 and won the match. In 1996, he played another match with a chess computer (Deep Blue)and won. In 2003, he played a match each with Deep Junior – An Israeli designed chess computer which won the computer chess championship - and X3D Fritz. Both the matches ended in a draw.

The most interesting match took place in 1997 between Kasparov and “Deeper Blue” (which is and upgraded version of Deep Blue), which was a rematch of 1996. Kasparov won the first game easily by tricking the computer into his way. He lost the second game in which the computer made a move which completely shocked the grandmaster. He was so confident that there was a human factor in play and said it's the “hand of God” in reference to the statement made by Maradona when he scored the world cup winning goal with his hand. He never recovered from the shock and finally lost the sixth and the final game after two draws.

Kasparov asked for the log files of the second game right after the match (in an attempt to prevent the IBM from tampering the file), but his request was rejected. He wasn't given access to see the computer or the room n which the computer was located. However, IBM published the log files on their website later. Kasparov requested the IBM team for a rematch, but the team rejected the request for rematch too. After the game, the “Deep Blue” was dismantled and one part was donated to Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. Kasparov viewed the rejection of log files and rematch, and dismantling of the computer as covering up evidence of tampering during the games.

The documentary film “Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine” was released in 2003 which documents the events during the match. The film ALMOST (I feel that the film takes a little biased stance towards Kasparov by comparing the computer to “the turks”, which was a hoax involving a chess playing machine built in 18th century, but secretly operated by human beings) takes a non-inclined position by presenting the views of both Kasparov and the developers of Deep Blue. The documentary is provided below and you can make your own stance on it. Happy watching if you can load it :)



By the way, look at the small teddy rabbit(?) which I won from claw vending machine. This is the first time I got something from that damn machine after playing several times over the years. I wish to close the chapter between me and those gambling machines for good now.

Comments

  1. Wow! Great Read! I am already looking up the torrent sites for the movies :P

    ReplyDelete
  2. That was informative! I never knew about the controversy.

    haha..looks like I am better with claw machine than you. I have good collection from it..maybe around 4!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yak Legpai Lhadhar Gawo

Soe Jangothang, a small village near the foot of magnificent Mt. Jomolhari became the village for Chuni Dorji in 1922. Like most of his fellow citizens of his time, he never had the opportunity to enroll in formal school. He was everything but educated, yet he excelled in playing with words. He spent his whole life herding yaks, singing songs and dueling lozays. According to Kuensel (December 29, 2003), he became the singer and composer for His Late Majesty Jigme Dorji Wangchuk till His Majesty’s Death. Ap Chuni happened to compose one of the most beautiful songs from Bhutan: Yak Legbi Lhadhar. The combination of the melody and the emotional story it narrates has the capacity to bring tears to everyone who listens to it. The lyrics of the song is as follows: Soo yak legbi lhadhar zshel legsa Yak legbi lhadhar lhachu dhi Soo yak kayyul droyuel shedming go Yak kayyuel droyuel shed go na Soo thow gangri karpoi zshaylu lay Pang sersho khagyel thosa lu Soo ya metho baabchu legsa mo Yak rang...

Hoch Scholarship Program and Bhutan

“The Hoch Scholarship program is a small private scholarship program which provides funding for up to two Bhutanese grantees, currently in the field of electrical and hydroelectric engineering at the undergraduate level, for a maximum of four years. Grantees are selected by the Royal Civil Service Commission of Bhutan. Grants are full grants and cover tuition, room and board, insurance, airfare and grantax services. It is funded by an individual philanthropist and his family”, says the Information on Institute of International Education (IIE)’s website. That is the only information on this scholarship program which educated a handful of Bhutanese students in the United States in engineering fields. I am sure all those students are contributing towards the nation building process. I have been lucky enough to receive this same scholarship and study here in the United States. I am sure that the extraordinary experiences (be it in academic or non-academic fields) I gain here will help me ...

Don't Fall Off the Mountain

" Don't Fall Off the Mountain ", an autobiography book written by Shirley MacLaine narrates her childhood days in the suburbs of Virgina, adult days in New York and Hollywood, and the adventurous journeys – in search of her true identity – from the deserts of Africa to the high mountains peaks of the Himalayas. She writes about her involvement in the civil rights movement in the United States to her escape from the political revolution of the small Himalayan Kingdom. She talks about the intolerance of the white Americans towards the African-Americans during the segregation and the Jim Crow's era. She takes a tour to Mississippi to “see their world through their eyes”. It was a era when every white, no matter what his work was, was a member of the KKK. She writes about the first hand accounts of the brutal acts of the KKK. She describes about a journey she took along a klong in Thailand. Suddenly, an infant toppled head first into the klong and the parents don't ma...