"Adams can beat Hydra"
An interview of GM Arno Nickel by Chessfriend.com
This assessment is given by Correspondence Chess Grandmaster Arno Nickel from Berlin, who recently won against Hydra by 2 : 0 in a correspondence chess match after a six month struggle. On the occasion of the forthcoming match Hydra vs. Adams chessfriend.com asked Arno Nickel about his experience with the so-called "hardware monster".
Chessfriend.com: You won two correspondence
match games against the previous version Hydra Chimera. Would
you draw any conclusions from this match for the man/machine
event in London? What is your bet? GM Nickel: Well of course, correspondence chess and over-the-board chess
are nowadays two extremely different disciplines, more so than
ever, because correspondence players in contrast to o-t-b players
have full access to computer engines and databases. Nevertheless
my test games against Hydra (I think, we should call them this
way) show some aspects of the potential of Hydra's chess abilities
as the successor to Deep Blue. In the two games, where I played
White against the Sicilian and with Black against the Tarrasch-System
in the French Defence, Hydra disregarded principles and unnecessarily
got into difficulties, once in the middlegame and the again
in the endgame. If the positions are not guided by tactics,
I wouldn't be surprised, if a super grandmaster like Adams will
give the machine a thrashing on the board. A lot depends if
he manages to neutralize Hydra's tactical power and in reaching
human type positions, where long sighted plans are called for.
Chessfriend.com: This in fact occured to some
of the leading grandmasters, who played Hydra in Bilbao in 2004
and who failed to follow your strategy. Namely ex-FIDE World
Champion Ponomariov and the youngster Karjakin (both from Ukrainia),
while the bulgarian Top-GM Topalov was the only one to take
half a point from the machine and even had winning chances at
one stage. When this became possible... GM Nickel: ...exactly, it was in this game, where Hydra also blundered
positionally. You cannot eliminate such deficits overnight,
and without intensive training against very strong players...
Chessfriend.com: However Hydra Scylla is five
times faster than the previous version, which "only" calculated
about 40 millions moves per second.
GM Nickel: As said before, in positional situations such numbers are
completely meaningless. Really important is the direction in
which the program goes and how it evaluates the positions. Once
the machine has got the wrong idea, it will not correct itself
by deep calculation in quiet positions. This was evident in
my correspondence games, where Hydra had lots of time and could
calculate much deeper than the new Hydra will be able to in
a classical tournament game with four to six hours for all of
moves. The results were not better in most of the critical positions.
Chessfriend.com: Some deficits of Hydra were
also seen in the recent freestyle tournament on playchess.com,
where the sea monster didn't even reach the quarter finals.
GM Nickel: Well, this is of course a hot potato since Hydra as in correspondence
chess had to play against strong players, amongst them even
some FIDE grandmasters who could use engines as in "advanced
chess". I was also surprised by Hydra's failure, but on consideration
I realised that all programs including Shredder 9, Fritz 8 and
Junior 9 which were also running on strong machines, got into
trouble, when playing without human advice. Probably this wouldn't
have happened with shorter time limits, let's say 15 minute
games or even shorter, but in one hour games (1h per player
plus 15 sec. per move), human chess competence can already show
its qualities in tandem with engines. By the way, I also participated
in this very interesting event and didn't manage to reach the
quarter finals either. However in the process I met Hydra again
and played a nice game which was drawn after 102 moves. The
sea monster must have gotten tired of attacking my fortress
without success.
Chessfriend.com: Once again what is your bet
on the match Hydra-Adams...?
GM Nickel: Okay, it will very hard for any human being, but as I always
hold on for humanity, and especially as Michael Adams is a gifted
positional player, I think he might achieve a draw, that means
3 : 3. May be he can even beat Hydra, if he is able to completely
control his emotions and avoid any unclear complications. Should
this be so, he could succeed where Kasparov failed when playing
Deep Blue eight years ago. This would mean that humans have
learned since then even though the computers didn't get weaker,
but obviously stronger since that time. Hydra don't forget is
supposed to be stronger than good old Deep Blue!
Postscript of Chessfriend.com:
The correspondence chess match Hydra vs. Nickel on our server isn't finished yet. The Hydra Team is ready to continue the match against GM Nickel by playing two further games. This will take place after the match with Adams. (The first two finished correspondence games can be replayed online and downloaded on our website.)
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