Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Capa - Best of All Time

According to chess program Crafty, the great Capablanca was the best of all time. Guest blogger Larry Ermacora gives us an update on his interest in computer chess.

As I was saying:

My interest in computer chess led me early this morning to the University of Turin for the 5th International Conference on Computer and Games. I stayed for the two opening topics: Automatic Chess Tutor and Computer analysis of World Chess Champions. In the Tutor part it was said that at present computers can't explain why they make a move whereas humans can.

What we need from computers is evaluation of positional aspects not just numbers, ie computers that can turn numbers into comments in everyday chess language, give the reason why a move is good, with position evaluation. David Levy told me the other day that the next thing computers wil learn to do is to annotate our games in a far better way than some can do now. Computers must also learn when to comment and when not to comment to cut down on reems of output, produce comments for GMs and comments for weaker players. So the project is for a Chess Tutor and annotation program.

The other topic dealt with computer analysis to determine who has been the best player of all time. Surprising, based on a number of criteria the computer Crafty decided Capablanca was the best followed by Kramnik and only then Karpov and Kasparov!!

- Larry Ermacora

See also: "A Conversation with David Levy", by Robert Huntington

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