Hydra v Adams

HYDRA beat Michael Adams 5.5-0.5.

http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic.html 's take on the result is

> Adams clearly didn't prepare properly for the match and was duly
> hammered (Kasparov and Kramnik spent months preparing for matches
> against Deep Fritz and Junior).

but I'm not sure that's fair. As Kasparov pointed out, how are you
supposed to prepare when you have no access to the opponent's games,
or opening repertoire ? Perhaps Hydra is simply much stronger than
DB, DF & J were ...

Will this be remembered as the moment when the strongest computers
became decisively stronger than the strongest humans ? It has to
happen sometime...

I like Hydra's choice of openings, choosing sensible mainlines
and then a reasonable little-played byline, just aiming for a
balanced position in which it can deploy its playing abilities.
None of the games were decided in prepared miracle-rook-sacrifices.

I wonder what the future holds for Hydra. Presumably its time could be
sold to GMs wanting to analyse more miracle-rook-sacrifices. Perhaps
some of its special-purpose hardware could be sold to users and patched
into a commercial chess engine, perhaps a dedicated palmtop device.

There may not be many more human volunteers for high-profile matches :-)
But on the other hand, if the top humans continue to refuse to play
against each other, perhaps it could be used as a standard opponent,
with World Champion being deemed to be that person who scores best
against it. Or if it becomes much stronger, then the World Champion
could be that human whose games it decides are of the best quality.
Or perhaps humans will completely bow out, and the World Championship
will be fought between rival corporations, like F1 ...

Regards, Peter

P.S. Is there a published analysis of the last game ? I know that
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bd3 Bc5 6. Nb3 Ba7
was at one time considered a bit dubious for Black...

--

Peter Billam, DPIWE/CIT/Servers, hbt/lnd/l8, 6233 3061
.

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