Attention chess nerds

[FastEddieB]

First off, the Netflix show “The Queen’s Gambit” is quite compelling, fairly accurate in its of representation of the chess world, and with enough character development and nuance to draw folks in, even if they don’t play chess. Highly recommended.

Second, today at 5P Eastern time Hikaru Nakamura, one of the world’s top players, is going to begin an odds match against one of the latest chess programs. The fact that 2 pawn odds is needed now to level the playing field is remarkable - it was only in 1996 that Deep Blue beat the world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a single game, and 1997 that it won a match against him. In my lifetime it was wondered if a computer could ever beat a top-tier human. That question was settled quite some time ago.

Anyway, I plan on tuning in - could be interesting.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

In my lifetime it was wondered if a computer could ever beat a top-tier human. That question was settled quite some time ago.

That is remarkable about 2 pawns being needed to level the field now.

When I was a young adult, the fact that a computer could not beat the best human players was considered by many as a sign that computers would never really "think".