Calculation is over-rated.
The biggest difference between players like us and super-GMs is the tremendous "feel" for positions that the super-GM has.
He wasn't born with it, of course... it's the result of years of hard work and tournament experience.
Carlsen can't see 50 moves ahead. Lol, then he would beat the s**t out of Rybka and all. He might see 10 moves ahead. Do you know how many possible moves are in a ten moves combination? (that meaning 10 moves for each player). MILLIONS! This guy Carlsen, who most of you think is a machine, just takes the most viable continuations and calculates. And I doubt the fact that you can calculate 4-5 moves ahead. You might see a 5 move tactic but I'm pretty sure you fall for 2 moves tricks also. In many positions masters don't even bother to calculate. They just improve their pieces position. It's not all about calculating in chess.
A famous quote from a chessmaster is "I only think one move ahead. The right one." While this is more a product of his own perception of how he thinks, it is partially right. Chessmasters don't gain most of their advantage from thinking further ahead. They gain their advantage from only pursuing good lines, and discarding bad moves. The better a player is, the less time she spends thinking about bad moves.
Kasparov said he could see up to 15 moves if they were forced ones. Of course, you can see up to 33 if you know how to mate with knight and bishop. They can see usually a few moves ahead depending on the complexity of the position. I am rated 1500 OTB give or take and I can't see more than 4-5 moves and most of the time I miss a move along the way that gets me by surprise. If I could see exactly the next 5 moves I'd be a monster. I usually see 3 moves:
1st If my move is safe
2nd if my opponent can pose a threat I can't meet
3rd what would I do can meet it.
I usually follow Heisman's Safety Table and checks, captures and threats.
blueemu carlsen when he was rising in the ranks was considered a tactician.
it goes without saying that you cannot be very good let alone a GM without having terrrific calculation ability. Even Kotov, who was an average GM had abnoral calculation ability. when Richard Reti was asked how many moves ahead he could see, he said 1 move. And yet, when you look at his games, he has delivered the most striking of checkmates.
so positional ability exists always over and above raw calculating ability so disagree that what distinguishes GMs from others is solely positional sense.
my question was, if the GMs calculating ability is so good, then why do even factors like positional sense come in. Can't they literally see everything. Why do they play chess when it is so simple to them.
Kasparov said he could see up to 15 moves if they were forced ones.
aetheldred, sorry to differ with you but the definition of what a 'forced' move is for me or for kasparov is very different. if you look at the analyses he has presented in his predecessors book you will realize that the moves he says a move is the only move then in the brackets he gives a ten move line to prove why it is the only move. This is what i mean by phenomenal calculation. With a memory by which they remember exactly at least 15000 games of the highest importance, every line known to man, and calculation that can include at least 30-40 moves, where exactly is the scope for error.
also, i have to object to the truth of the statement that kasparov can see 15 moves if they are forced. if you mean by forced that i check here he goes there i check there etc.. then i would guess he can see at least 500 moves if not far more of those kind of moves. these guys are able to play 30 games blindfolded so just imagine their visualization.
also, when carlsen was asked how many moves he can see ahead, he said calculation is not the problem the problem is being able to evaluate the position at the end of the calculation. that is genius.
GMs see pictures like this without being tricked into thinking the picture is moving.
estragon, yours is the first post i agree with. however i want to refine the argument. the gms don't calculate because they have subconsciously calculated and realized that it is pointless to put more effort into it. i think there is something fundamentally different in how the super GMs calculate and how novices calculate. take silman's analogy. he says don't calculate simply imagine where the pieces should be. i think soemthing similar happens in a GMs head. they calculate so fast that it seems to them that they are able to make leaps of 10 moves and simply 'imgaine' where the pieces would be 10 moves later. then if a novice asks them the reason why a certain move is wrong, they will pause for a second and instantly rattle off a 15 move line. so there is something fundamentally different.
fingerly, i doubt it. GMs would probably see the picture moving in ways that you and I cannot imagine.
Actually I beleive, regular GM's can calculate 40 moves in a not super complex position. I am 1600 FIDE, and can calculate 7-10 movess ahead. Doesnt that throw everything off
well then what is a complex position. nothing is too complex for a super GM. imagine that what is complex us is super easy for a GM like Lev Psakhis and super GMs are at least 15-100 times stronger than Lev Psakhis.
and another point of clarification. i think most GMs ARE stronger than Houdini 3.0 and will remain so for the next 100 years or so. what makes houdini succesful is that all the moves that it makes are of the SAME strength whereas a human will make both brilliant moves and outright blunders. so houdini is CONSISTENT, not strong. kasparov said that an ideal match between a human and a computer should be that if the human wins ONE match, then the contest should be declared in favor of the human. this is because humans get tired. I want to go one step farther and say that if a human can see a SINGLE move that is stronger than a computer can find then the contest is over. this is because humans are more versatile than machines.
pdve, you seem to know all the answers already. Why did you ask in the first place?
perhaps this is not so relevant, but i believe a fair match between a human and a computer would take place without the opening books and endgame tablebases that are built into computers. this seems extraordinarily unfair, and i think it inflates the ratings of computers considerably.
wik, right. let's see how far the computers get without knowing that 1.e4 is a good move. also, maybe they shouldn't be allowed to know that knight outposts are good or that bishops need open diagnols or that rooks on the 7th are good. such information is hard coded in their 'evaluation functions'. remove that and let the 'search' function find its way to mate. stripped of these things, i would beat houdini in bullet.
nah, the evaluation function can stay, because that is the fundamental tool of being good at chess. humans use a similar eval function, only ours isn't coded it's heuristic, and it's nowhere near as powerful. i think that calculation and the eval function are the two indisputable strengths of computers. openings and tablebases are entirely devised by a whole group of humans though, and in a true "man v machine" contest they should be stripped away. otherwise it's like "man v (machine + everything humans know about chess)" which, as i said, doesn't seem very fair.
wik, the reason i say that evaluation functions should disappear in an official match is because it is cheating. computers, litereally 'compute'-ers compute. putting in things like rooks on the 7th are good is like giving them a great hint. and outside hints are not allowed in matches. imagine having the entire analysis of a computer transparent to the human opponent. such a match would obviously not be fair. so why should computers have tons of these hints. to me it's obvious that these things should be deleted and then the computer should try and prove its superiority by its supposed speed. again, i would beat such a computer easily.
such a computer would be smart enough only to avoid fool's mate or the scholar's mate. i would probably be up a whole ton of material by move 15.
melvernboy, would you say that einstein didn't calculate he saw ideas. of course he presents his findings in terms of ideas but subconsciously he calculates.
similarly, when kasparov says that in 'such' a position prophylaxis is not a good idea, then that is an idea but challenged to prove it he could probably give variations to prove it.
i disagree with you there pdve. i understand your point, but the eval function is sort of just a substitute for experience. computers obviously cannot learn from experience, they don't build up knowledge over time like humans do. without the eval function, which simply converts positions into numerical values, computer would not be strong at all. even today, computers do not "know" that rooks on the 7th are strong, all that they can do is calculate the numical advantage the results from making such a move. i think this is fine, and should be the benchmark for grandmasters playing against machines: how well that they can play versus the pure numbers.
melvernboy, you are missing the point of my argument. did you read all the posts in this thread?? i believe that even though kasparov says that prophylaxis is a bad idea in the position, he subconsciously HAS calculated. otherwise, the ideas would be coming from thin air. Is that what you think? that the chessboard is airing the ideas into the GMs head. they subconsciuolsly look at certain sample lines, and the process is messy and zig-zag. If they are asked then they can provide a neat proof but over the board it is not necessary to do so.
I cannot shake the notion that super GMs can see EVERYTHING right through to the very end starting from move 1. Of course, this couldn't be true because otherwise, the game would be decided by move 5. However, a player like me sees 4 or 5 moves ahead and I am 1350 FIDE. It stands to reason that a 2000 FIDE could probably see 8 or 9 moves ahead. Then obvioulsy an IM can prbably see 14-15 oves ahead. An average GM could probably see 18-19 moves ahead. A 2600 could probably see 22 moves ahead. Then a 2700 may see 25 moves ahead. A 2800 can probably see 40 moves ahead. And a 2850 like Carlsen can prbably see 50 moves ahead. And a normal chess game is 40-50 moves. so then, why do these guys even sit down at a board when they can see everything. It is also worth noting that these guys can play more than 30 games blindfolded. With such exhaustive analysis why do they play AT all. Wouldn't chess seem to them as tic tac toe. However, it is ironical that these very super GMs claim that chess is extremely complex. In fact, the higher the skill of a player, the more complex chess seems to them. Kasparov said that chess cannot be solved by any technolody we can CONCEIVE of today. Isn't this a contradiction? Kasparov was an expert in the opening. He could evaluate chances as early as move 12.
GMs frequently agree to draws when there are as many as 12 pieces on the board. What exactly is going on here? So what about super GMs shouldn't they agree to a draw when there are like 20 pieces, or shouldn't they resign simply because someone has control of an open file or because of some similar reason.