Original subtitles

hi everyone this is Grandmaster Eugene Polsky

and welcome to today's lecture

now today I will talk about something very interesting

I'm gonna talk about my match with the strongest

chess program in the world

called Rybka

over the Labor Day weekend

I came down to Maryland

and played the two game match against this monster

it was running on 8 CPU

8 processor system

and Larry Kaufman was kind enough to offer this match

and uh I thought that was

there would be a great opportunity for me

both to practice against the strongest

chess engine in the world

and also just to see with my own eyes

you know how powerful computers really are

especially Rybka running on 8 8 way processor machine

so

I played the two game match

and the first game I was white

and I managed to lose pretty much a one sided game

I had some chances in the opening

but basically

I was unfamiliar with the opening a little bit

and Rybka played truly flawlessly

according to her 3,000 or so rating

and the second game I believe

I finally

was able to find one single weakness of the computer

and you're gonna be able to see what what it is

and just a little background for you

if you are not quite familiar with what Rybka is

Rybka is the strongest chess engine in the world

it's probably much stronger than Fritz these days

especially the latest version Rybka 3

now Ripka as you know

have played many matches against grandmasters

and to a lot of grandmasters

Ripka gave pawn and move odd

so grandmaster would be white

and Ripka would be down a pawn

and most of the matches Rybka won

except one match Rybka drew against my coach

Roman Janjgashvili

but this time we decided to play on equal ground

so this is gonna be completely even

there are no pawns there are no you know exchange

it's just simply chess

except I'm gonna have 90 minutes plus 30 seconds

which is the normal fide time control

and Rybka is gonna have 10 times less

9 minutes and 3 seconds

now according to Larry Coffman

he still thinks that Rybka plays about 3,000 rating

which is unbelievable rating

stronger than any world champion

dead or alive

so imagine

how it feels like

playing against the strongest entity in the world

so let's see what happens in the second game

I'm white

so I play knight of three

in the first game I played D4

and went into one of the variations of the Nimzo

Indian with G3 but now I decided to kind of play solid

and not to go for forced positions

so D5

alright so now again I have a choice

do I play G3 C4 or D4

and again

if I play G3 giving up the center to the strongest

chess computer in the world

it's probably not a great idea

and by the way the expectations

of me going into this match was

I was gonna lose two games

but I managed to draw the second game

and actually

discovered quite an interesting weakness of Rybka

so I played D4 fighting for the center

knight of 6 c 4

e 6 and now e 3 this is not you know

very aggressive way to fight for advantage

if you're white but again

my goal is to play solid

try not to go into crazy positions

because I'm playing a 3,000 rated opponent

who is virtually almost like god

in open positions

there is no mistake that I can expect from rip

my only chance is to try to get some kind of closed

or semi closed positions

where human understanding and experience

will be dominating

compared to sheer calculation and

and brute force by the computer

so I play e 3 bishop e 7

so all of this you can say is book

so Rybka has its own book especially

constructed against me and now again

I play a very solid knight b d two of course

I can play night c 3 which is totally normal move

but I wanted to

deviate as much as I can from the mainstream theory

and my goal is simply to develop my light square bishop

castles and play b 3

bishop b 2 kind of simple

easy development especially

this is for those D4 players who really

don't wanna learn any theory

this is practically the easiest way to develop

alright so computer plays castles

so far Rybka spent zero time on the moves

because this is all book

here I had the first dilemma of the game

should I play Bishop e 2 or Bishop d 3 or even b three

and again I'm not trying to play according to theory

I'm just simply trying to play chess right now

against computers

closing the position is recommended

so C5 kind of went through my mind

but the problem with C5 is the phone

black simply plays B6

B4 and A5

and I don't have the time to play a 3

because my rook on a 1 is not defended

and basically my queen side falls apart

and so does my position so see if I was too premature

and I play bishop to d three

and now Ripka play C5

Castles Night C6

so here I really

didn't like c t x

d coming up with idea to

basically have an isolated pawn on d four

and my knight on d

2 is not well placed in these types of positions

so I don't really wanna get an isolated pawn

I wanna keep my pawn structure nice and fluid

so I take on d 5 myself

and Rika plays the unusual looking queen

takes d five again with zero

time spent on her clock

this is all preparation so far

now if pawn takes

then I have a very comfortable position

after pawn takes c 5 Bishop takes

and now either night b 3 going after the d 4 square

or b 3 with a bishop b 2

white has a very easy play

and he's gonna play against the isolated pawn on D4

so these types of positions are pretty solid

and yet black probably would have played this

if this was a human game

so Queen takes d 5 is a big surprise to me immediately

and

the move that I was actually thinking here

for a long time is E4

because why don't you you know

the thought of going through my mind is

why don't I attack the queen

get my opponent to the center

and now if the queen goes to h 5

I can drop back to e 2 with my bishop

threatening knight e 5 and hunting down the queen

and I looked at this variation

pawn takes

Knight takes queen e 5 knight c 6

pawn takes and now black does have a weak pawn on c 6

but my knight on d 2 has to defend my pawn on e four

and I was a little bit unsure

if this is the good position

to have against the computer

so

probably I made the correct decision now

and I play Bishop to C4

again

my job is not to go for some kind of complications

because I am playing

the computer that can see

millions of positions per second

this is really not a match

in terms of calculation ability

but my goal is simply to develop my pieces

and try to get a comfortable game

and Ripka plays which is probably the strongest move

queen f 5 and immediate question for you

can white go e four and win a piece after bishop Z 3

well don't forget

you're playing against the strongest

computer in the world and now night X

F2 is the tactic that I had to find over the board

so this is not good for white

if I take knight takes queen

if bishop retreats

Knight goes to e 3 and black is totally winning

a bishop h 7 king takes rook takes CD again

white is totally lost

so basically bishop d 3 and e 4 doesn't work

alright so

how do I do all my pieces down

that's a good question to ask

and again I try to play simple

I take on C5 and I'll play an a B3 preparing bishop d 2

bishop c 3 in the future and also possibly

I am the d 4 square for one of my knights

rook d 8 queen a 2

bishop d 6 now by the way

Ripka started playing on her own

after I played Bishop C4

which is a novelty in her book

so now I'm actually playing the computer

without any type of databases or opening theory

and looking at this position

it's not so clear how white can try to

you know fight for advantage but you know what

I'm not even concerned

about trying to fight for advantage

I'm looking for maintaining Equality

which is in itself very hard against computers

the human kind is doomed

that world champion can no longer win against computers

maximum we can do is draw

so if we draw one of the games

this is already a huge huge success for humans

so now let's think

what to do with the bishop on c 1

well bishop d 2 is possible

but I really didn't like either knight e 4

or possible e five

so that's why I play rookie one

with idea to play e 4 myself

followed by bishop e 3

now Rybka simply drops back to g 6 with the queen

setting up a little trap if I play e 4

the knight to g four

and I really have nothing better to do

than play rook f 1

and now of course rook e 1 doesn't make any sense

I just simply lose time if I play bishop e 3

this is just simply bad

I get to double up my pawns and then I lose d 4 pawn

so rook f 1 is the only move

not something that I wanna play

so after queen g six

my best hope is try to

attack the queen hopefully

the queen will leave a good square on g 6

with knight h four

Ripka plays queen h 6 and now night of three back

I'm basically saying I don't mind the repetition of

of the position

because draw against such a powerful beast

is a victory for me

and of course now I wanna play E4 and Rybka says I

I really don't wanna repeat the position

and I wanna win

so the next move is very strong Knight to G four

so if I get to play H3 which is what I played

the knight gets to reposition to E5

so far there are no fancy tactics

but Rybka is outplaying me little by little

because now I get to lose my B5 bishop

and as we all know the bishop pair

is slightly better than bishop and knight

especially in symmetrical half open you know positions

and again I have to kind of grind my teeth

and look for possibilities

to equalize and make a draw

of course

bishop b 5 now is not such a great possibility

after a 6 bishop a four

my bishop is totally dead

the g 3 square is weak and this is really bad position

so I play bishop d 2

knowing that I have to part with my very nice

light square bishop

knight takes queen takes and yet I'm pretty optimistic

if I get my bishop on c three

I had I still maintain a very solid position

I'm sure I would do well against the grandmaster

but against computer

whenever computer has a slight edge

such as the 2 bishops it is very

very hard to hold

because computers never make mistakes

so think about it

for the duration of the game

I have to play near perfect

if I make one mistake in a slightly inferior position

I'm basically gonna lose so this is very hard

psychological battle that every human faces

against computers

alright so let's keep going

so now Rebka wants to open up the position so she plays

e 5 opening up the light square bishop

bishop c 3 hitting the e 5 pawn and queen g 6

now if I take the pawn on e 5

Bishop takes h 3 and again

this is not something I wanted to do

I wanted to defend my h h 3 pawn I play queen to h four

f 6 and now a 4

with idea to play a 5

and try to get some counterplay on the queenside

bishop e 6

so finally we get to the first test

where we can test the computer

opposite color bishop endgame down a pawn

so I play a 5

trying to lure the computer into taking my knight

if bishop takes pawn

takes pawn takes black is up a pawn

which is a big advantage in computer chess

because computers are very materialistic

but Rybka is an advanced kind

this is if you wanna compare Terminator 1

this is Terminator 2 type of position

so Rybka understands that

this is the next generation chess

opposite color bishops are likely drawn

extra pawn means nothing

especially this is a double pawn

b 6 b 7

and Rybka makes the first correct choice

that every human would make

is to not get Learned by this material advantage

and she plays Bishop C7

so you see this is the power of modern computer chess

five or maybe 10 years ago

almost every single computer would go for the pawn

and I would make a draw without any problems

but now I really have to suffer

because the bishop pair still dominate I did too

well actually one second

she even played a better move than Bishop's C7

she played bishop to d 5 first

forcing the exchange of Queens

she could have played bishop c 7 and then knight d 2

bishop e 4 but this is a much bishop d 4

I mean bishop d 5 sorry

but this is a much better way

because now she's threatening to take on G2

so you see this is very kinetic

now I play

Queen G4

when take g 4 pawn takes bishop c 7 and I d 2

so this is the main position

so let us think if black has any chance to win

of course black has chances to win

because black has a bishop pair

all black has to do is try to create pressure

and open up the position for the bishops

the only problem is I'm just way too solid

I'm gonna play f 3 king f 2

and place my knight on e 4

because I'm not afraid to have double isolated pawn

and this is the weakness that computers have

even Rybka is that after king f 7

f 3 rook to 8

king f two

Ripka plays now king e 6 rook f d 1 Bishop d 6

Knight e 4 this is the test of time

computers cannot avoid taking the night

they just think this is too lucrative or possibility

and this is the mistake

well maybe not a mistake but this is an inaccuracy

that rip Comix in the game after Point X

this is very easy to hold

you can almost see that this is gonna be fortress

and computers really don't understand fortresses

that well yet

and this is what I mean by I discovered

still there is chances for humans

because computers don't understand fortresses

now of course much better move

from a perspective of complicating the game

and trying to play for win

is bishop to f eight

now

I have little doubt that I would be able to hold this

in the long term because slowly

slowly I have to make the best moves

and yet computer will probably try to play for win

in like 30 moves 40 moves I have to play correctly

but I probably

objective evaluation of this is that with best play

white should hold nevertheless

but let us think why computers

computer cannot win this position so Bishop C5

king e 2

and then let's say we trade rook

so starting from this move

computer started to maneuver a lot

without really showing a winning plan

and if you think about it

how is black gonna win

black can try to move his king to G6 and G5

and I'm simply gonna play king of three

if black trades a pair of rooks

how is black gonna make progress

so we basically kept moving for about I don't know

30 or more moves back and forth

until Rybka started to make some progress

she played a six and then we traded rooks

and I wanna show you the final position

where Rebekah still thinks she is winning

but it's clear to all humans

that the position is dead drawn

so let's just make some some random moves here

so basically we ended up trading rooks

um then Ripka

so I kind of go back and forth

Ripka transferred the king

to G6 and at some moment she played B5

B4

which doesn't really make a difference and played H6

king G5 so if you put it on any engine in the world

it's gonna show that black is almost up a point

so this is really remarkable

because if you put this position in front of any Class

a player

then it's easy to see that black cannot break through

the best black

and hope for is to break through with G6 and F5

but this doesn't achieve anything

because my E3 point is gonna come

to E4

so for example

let's just say I go back and forth just to show you

now my bishop does have to be on d 2

let's say I go here

bishop here bishop there

f 5 takes takes takes

takes e 4 and again this is a dead draw position

so you see

this is a real problem in computer chess

computers don't see far ahead

because they don't understand that this is a fortress

and the evaluation is not quite correct

and the whole idea with bishop takes knight

doubling up my pawns

is the wrong plan if you're playing for a win

and after about hundred and thirty moves

of being tortured by Ripka

Larry Kaufman made a very good judgment call and he

he called this a draw

and so the game was drawn now of course

playing for you know

49 moves

moving back and forth with the bishop and king

and then on 50th move

Rybka plays a pawn move you know

this is not a good spectator chess

so programmers still have to work on

you know

very good techniques to try to avoid that

but in general

I was very very

amazed how powerful Rybka is

in calculation type positions

and overall general play is almost

you know any world champion type of quality

probably even higher

because Rybka never makes mistakes

but in easy simple

closed positions

which are like fortresses like my game

Rybka still has a lot to learn

so at least humans still have a chance to make a draw

or maybe even try to play for win

if strategic ideas are very

very long term in a closed position

so I hope you enjoy this lecture

and I talk to you later bye bye