Objectively Speaking, Is Magnus a Patzer Compared to StockFish and AlphaZero?

I've been reading threads about StockFish being dethroned by AlphaZero.  Then I clicked on the London Chess Classic for the first time (see that's why Chess.com is best) and lo-and-behold, I heard Yasser exclaiming to Jennifer Shahade about AlphaZero destroying StockFish which had just won the TCEC Championship.

My ears perked up because of the timing of going from reading a thread about it to now hearing it live on ChessTV.   Moreover, I learned something extraordinary from Yaz.  AlphaZero did not start with an evaluation function or program!!  It's completely self-taught!  Then Yaz keeps going with the surprises by saying that opening novelties will already be seen by AlphaZero!  Just name all opening novelties after AlphaZero!  Lol.

Anyways, the estimated rating for StockFish is 3389.  AlphaZero is estimated at 3489.  Magnus is what, 2850?  So StockFish is 500 points higher than Magnus!  AlphaZero is 600 points higher than Magnus!

C'mon.  Don't we say that a 1200 player is a patzer compared to a 1800?  That a 2000 player is a patzer compared to a 2500 GM?   Based on the same scale of relativity, Magnus is a patzer too!

I quit chess for 30 years because I thought chess was dead.  Moreso when Deep Blue defeated Garry.  The old fever came back this spring with a roar, and I put to rest the feeling that chess was dead.  

But now, it's kinda stirring back again.  Magnus, the strongest human player of all time (as measured by ELO) is a freakin' patzer!!

Can anyone talk me off the ledge, lol?

 As compared to the top chess engines out there, absolutely.  In a heads up no odds match Magnus Carlson will get b——  slapped by any one of them.  Humans don’t stand a chance. 

  In a Komodo versus Stockfish match, Komodo announced mate in 59!  Even on the surface that sounds insane, but it’s absolutely mind-boggling when you think about it deeper. That’s 59 moves only with best play from the opponent.  That means it had to have seen every branch, of every branch, of every branch from every legal move, calculating the best Stockfish could do is delay mate for 59 moves. 

"In a heads up no odds match Magnus Carlson will get b——  slapped by any one of them."

I can imagine a scenario where Garry is talking to Magnus, urging Magnus to play StockFish or AlphaZero.  Prize pool is several hundred thousand. And Magnus doesn't want to. But Garry is saying come on, do it.

And Carlsen asking Garry, why do you want me to play so bad?  And Garry saying that he doesn't want to be the only WC to get his butt kicked by a computer!

"Humans don’t stand a chance."

Yet chess is still growing a bit in popularity.  Is it worth the large time, effort, and money to significantly improve at chess when the best player in the world is a Patzer?

I think you’re misunderstanding. Computers can’t even be compared to humans as they don’t play in human rating pools, and they play a fundamentally different type of chess than we do. The idea that Magnus is a patzer I think is also a misunderstanding. He’s extremely strong, given that he has to sit at a board for 6 hours and is a very fallible human and computers don’t and aren’t.

How do you mean "fundamentally different type of chess than we do"?  I understand "attacking" chess, "positional" chess, "prophylactic" styles of chess like Tal, Capablanca, Petrosian, but what do you mean exactly?

With computers, it’s just endless calculation.

With humans, all kinds of other things come into play.

My ears perked up because of the timing of going from reading a thread about it to now hearing it live on ChessTV.   this is called baader meinhof phenomenon- a frequency illusion..  It's like when you think about buying a new car and all over sudden you see the same type of car all over the city. 

Alpha zero was running on a super computer, while SF was on a computer that's worse than mine.  If one SF was on super computer and the another SF on regular computer, it would be 100-0

I don't know about no terrorists by that name, but you can check this article if you wanna know more about baader meinhof phenomenon  nothing to do with terrorists. .   

When it comes to weightlifting we are nothing vs a hydraulic machine. When it comes to calculating millions of patterns we are nothing versus the computer. Still proud to be a human - we make the machines!

I agree.  But still, an inanimate object easily beating humans at a game which requires the best of human thinking and imagination is a bit disconcerting.

are you seriously trying to compere protein pack to a silicon one? remember the apple to apple rule

That was only a very small demonstration of AlphaZero's chess ability.

I am thinking if they applied it's constant machine learning to chess in a more systematic way, it will in fact, solve chess. At the very least, it will solve a lot of openings and throw them out.

The games it played against Stockfish were nothing short of beautiful. It sacrifices pieces and pawns, gets an advantage, and never let's go after that.

When you say solves chess, do you mean in the same way as solving the game Tic-Tac-Toe?  Maybe that's a crude elementary analogy, but wouldn't that kill the interest that we humans have in chess?

I mean, I still play Tic-Tac-Toe with little kids, but there's no studying, no tournaments, since the game has been solved.

If it's true that DeepMind's AlphaZero Go program will or has solved chess, then doesn't this have dark implications or consequences for human OTB chess competition and tournaments?

I saw some of the games that AlphaZero beat StockFish, and those combinations were incredibly deep and beautiful.   

Do people want to watch Blunder Blitz by humans (which is exciting and entertaining) or do they want to watch beautiful computer chess?

What does this portend for sites like chess.com?

We are a step closer to Skynet.

Yes we are. Never thought I'd see the day when Skynet would be a reality and here we are.

Very soon, this AI will learn how to drive cars and then we will have driverless cars, etc.

Become soldiers that never miss a shot.

This AI will take over our jobs. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/stowe-boyd/robots-jobs-purpose-humans_b_5689813.html

But since we are talking about chess here, I have to admit even though Caruana won again last night and he could be regaining his old form, it didn't excite me any more. Human chess suddenly looked a lot less exciting now.

Here is a machine that is playing exciting chess, sacrificing material, and winning. Probably putting an end to "Chess Styles" which are a characteristic of humans; It doesn't have any, it just goes for the most direct route to win.

 # 16. yesterday when I left the forum, was causally browsing on Netflix and then to my surprise the movie showed up. lol

on another note. i'll rather watch humans with all their flaws, than watch 2 AIs play each other. It would be exciting for the first two games and then we'll get bored with it. 

Maybe you haven't read the article by Chessbase.

https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-future-is-here-alphazero-learns-chess

It showed some tactics by AlphaZero that Stockfish never even saw coming. So among engines, this AlphaZero is actually schooling them.

I read the chessbase article prior to your posting a comment here, and that Bg5!! Move was astonishing.  Just jaw dropping.  

The movie Wargames.  With a young precocious Matthew Broderick.  I watched when I was a kid.  Very exciting back then.  Now it's ancient technology.

He wasn't, Kramnik lost a match to Fritz in 2006 whilst still world champion.

chess computers cheat because they have access to opening books and opening databases