↵

“It was an impressive achievement, of course, and a human achievement by the members of the IBM team, but Deep Blue was only intelligent the way your programmable alarm clock is intelligent. Not that losing to a $10 million alarm clock made me feel any better.”

–Garry Kasparov

 

.:: The Machine || NaDa Capablanca ::. Machines can range in complexity from an abacus to the latest Apple iPhone, from an hourglass to the antikythera mechanism. Machines are not complicated. Their designs can be, but the tasks they perform are not. The purpose of a machine is to quickly perform the mundane, much faster and more efficient than a human could, freeing that human to concentrate on bigger ideas that cannot be small-chunked into rudimentary tasks. This is an important distinction: man versus machine. A machine can simulate complexity with a corresponding increase in the rate of calculations per second but this is an illusion. Increases in graphics processors have demonstrated a shift in emphasis from compelling gameplay to jamming as many hair follicles onto the protagonist’s arm as possible but this does not make it real. A realistic simulation but simulation nonetheless. A machine can be taught arithmetic and perform calculations at astronomical rates but a machine cannot invent new mathematics describing universal consciousness or the human condition. Machines do not innovate; they replicate, constantly, consistently, until the end of their useful existence. In some circumstances, a machine can appear innovative. This illusion stems from perfect execution. A machine, which performs rudimentary tasks rapidly, will find and follow the most efficient route. Sometimes this most efficient route is foreign to human reasoning and appears innovative. It is in fact a direct and necessary consequence followed to its logical conclusion. Humans, unable to rival the machine in either speed or ability, hadn’t pushed the limits far enough. Such is the case with Lee Yoon “NaDa” Yeol. He was the first player in Brood War to win two major starleagues simultaneously; Flash was the next person to do this, but not for another seven years! In 2003 he was given the nickname Grand Slammer due to his wild success that year. Players also called him the “Genius Terran” due to what appeared to be his innovative strategies.<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="1" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6hs-6zJxYRI" style="float:left;margin-left:0px;margin-top:5px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:0px" width="640"></iframe> In fact, NaDa only used one strategy regardless of the race he faced. Instead of caring about this or that composition or balance issue he focused on perfecting execution in a rapid manner. His apm averaged at 400, completely unheard of at the time. He is largely responsible for the first shift towards perfect mechanics. For this reason he was nicknamed “the Machine.” Machines are consistent. No one punches an addition problem into a calculator and then second-guesses the accuracy of the machine. Human error perhaps but not the machine. NaDa earns this nickname in consistency as well, performing well in leagues until his father’s tragic death in 2005. NaDa, though crushed by this loss, recovered enough to compete. After switching to Wings of Liberty, NaDa continued to display his consistency, competing in nine consecutive GSLs. He never dropped to Code A or played in an up-and-down match in the first GSL format. And yet despite his early success over a decade ago, NaDa hasn’t earned any major tournament wins since. Chess is a game that has a healthy respect for machines. For decades different chess computers such as Deep Blue were pitted against grandmasters with varying results. But long before IBM’s greatest minds programmed the aquatic abyss there lived a man known as “the Human Chess Machine.” This man played chess for ~29 years, was undefeated for eight of those, and in 1906 won 96% of his games. This man was Jose Raul Capablanca. <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="1" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Xi9T5g24XAQ?start=141" style="float:right;margin-left:10px;margin-top:10px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px" width="640"></iframe>Some chess commentators have noted Capablanca’s lack of theory on the game. He did not subscribe to this school or that but rather focused on simple moves which safely developed his pieces. If his moves at times seemed odd it can only be assumed that it is for efficiency, the best move. His speed was one of the most notable things about his play. Rather than calculate a given position, he would intuit the best position and then confirm it through calculation (much the way modern chess computers do). Remember a machine performs a simple objective very quickly. Capablanca played a simple style, easier to do rapidly. He repeatedly told students to disregard opener strategies or the mid-game in favor of learning late game positions. His idea was, of course, simple: if one knows all the possible late games, one can best calculate moves in the early- and midgames to achieve favorable positions. One must know a destination before one can plot a course to get there. Today chess is a game accused of being rigged. In the immortal words of Bobby Fischer:  “I consider the old chess is dying [...] it’s degenerated down to memorization and prearrangement.” A computer can calculate endless variants and then hold those variants in memory to intuit the best outcome for a given situation. There are a finite number of moves existing from initial position and this continues from every move thereafter–what Fischer referred to as “pre-arrangement.” Capablanca was like this in many regards, working towards his calculated endgame with simple and intuitive machinations. But there are weaknesses to machines. They invariably follow identifiable patterns. Capablanca never forced engagements. He let his pieces develop naturally. So in 1927, Alexander Alekhine spotted and successfully exploited a weakness in Capablanca’s play: when in an inferior position (frequent against Capablanca) Alekhine would become scrappy, offering much resistance. Capablanca would never push his advantage, allowing Alekhine to recover.

  ↵

“You will already have noticed how often Capablanca repeated moves, often returning to positions when he had had before. This is not lack of decisiveness or slowness but the employment of a basic endgame principle which is ‘do not hurry.’”

–Alexander Kotov

 

Unfortunately, Alekhine recognized this as well and used it to his advantage. He relied on playing the game as efficiently as possible whereas Alekhine focused on playing Capablanca.  

“When you sit down to play a game you should think only about the position but not about the opponent. Whether chess is regarded as a science, or an art, or a sport, all the same psychology bears no relation to it and only stands in the way of real chess.”

–Jose Raul Capablanca

“For my victory over Capablanca I am indebted primarily to my superiority in the field of psychology. [...] For the chess struggle nowadays one needs a subtle knowledge of human nature.”

–Alexander Alekhine

In other words, Alekhine states that mechanics alone are not enough. Awareness of the meta-game and your opponent’s tendencies are vital. His results speak for themself. This might be good advice to a younger NaDa whose 400 APM never quite secured him a GSL victory. His reliance on mechanics opposed to match-up, meta-game or composition would prove to be his downfall. NaDa, like Capablanca before him, was a powerhouse for a time but machine efficiency can never match human innovation.  

“The ‘Chess Machine’ [...] revealed the great drawback of a machine: it had not sufficient flexibility to adapt itself to altered circumstances.”

–Max Euwe

 

 

:: Aeternus Recurrentia :: It is a difficult distinction to decide whether the facts and stories presented within this article demonstrate some mystical form of eternal recurrence or is simply a manifestation of Jung’s archetypal symbolism. Whichever you accept, please do not dismiss lightly that patterns emerge within existence. What is a minute but sixty individual seconds? What is an hour but sixty individual minutes? Smaller cycles beget larger cycles and then the cycles repeat. Draw your own conclusions. Find your own meaning. Namaskar ?  

 

 

And only the enlightened can recall their former lives; for the rest of us, the memories of past existences are but glints of light, twinges of longing, passing shadows, disturbingly familiar, that are gone before they can be grasped, like the passage of that silver bird on Dhaulagiri

–Peter Matthiessen

Now, however long a time may pass, according to the eternal laws governing the combinations of this eternal play of repetition, all configurations that have previously existed on this earth must yet meet, attract, repulse, kiss, and corrupt each other again.

–Heinrich Heine

If you enjoyed this content, feel free to follow the author at @theonlyshaft on Twitter.

  ↵

“It was an impressive achievement, of course, and a human achievement by the members of the IBM team, but Deep Blue was only intelligent the way your programmable alarm clock is intelligent. Not that losing to a $10 million alarm clock made me feel any better.”

–Garry Kasparov

 

.:: The Machine || NaDa Capablanca ::. Machines can range in complexity from an abacus to the latest Apple iPhone, from an hourglass to the antikythera mechanism. Machines are not complicated. Their designs can be, but the tasks they perform are not. The purpose of a machine is to quickly perform the mundane, much faster and more efficient than a human could, freeing that human to concentrate on bigger ideas that cannot be small-chunked into rudimentary tasks. This is an important distinction: man versus machine. A machine can simulate complexity with a corresponding increase in the rate of calculations per second but this is an illusion. Increases in graphics processors have demonstrated a shift in emphasis from compelling gameplay to jamming as many hair follicles onto the protagonist’s arm as possible but this does not make it real. A realistic simulation but simulation nonetheless. A machine can be taught arithmetic and perform calculations at astronomical rates but a machine cannot invent new mathematics describing universal consciousness or the human condition. Machines do not innovate; they replicate, constantly, consistently, until the end of their useful existence. In some circumstances, a machine can appear innovative. This illusion stems from perfect execution. A machine, which performs rudimentary tasks rapidly, will find and follow the most efficient route. Sometimes this most efficient route is foreign to human reasoning and appears innovative. It is in fact a direct and necessary consequence followed to its logical conclusion. Humans, unable to rival the machine in either speed or ability, hadn’t pushed the limits far enough. Such is the case with Lee Yoon “NaDa” Yeol. He was the first player in Brood War to win two major starleagues simultaneously; Flash was the next person to do this, but not for another seven years! In 2003 he was given the nickname Grand Slammer due to his wild success that year. Players also called him the “Genius Terran” due to what appeared to be his innovative strategies.<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="1" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6hs-6zJxYRI" style="float:left;margin-left:0px;margin-top:5px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:0px" width="640"></iframe> In fact, NaDa only used one strategy regardless of the race he faced. Instead of caring about this or that composition or balance issue he focused on perfecting execution in a rapid manner. His apm averaged at 400, completely unheard of at the time. He is largely responsible for the first shift towards perfect mechanics. For this reason he was nicknamed “the Machine.” Machines are consistent. No one punches an addition problem into a calculator and then second-guesses the accuracy of the machine. Human error perhaps but not the machine. NaDa earns this nickname in consistency as well, performing well in leagues until his father’s tragic death in 2005. NaDa, though crushed by this loss, recovered enough to compete. After switching to Wings of Liberty, NaDa continued to display his consistency, competing in nine consecutive GSLs. He never dropped to Code A or played in an up-and-down match in the first GSL format. And yet despite his early success over a decade ago, NaDa hasn’t earned any major tournament wins since. Chess is a game that has a healthy respect for machines. For decades different chess computers such as Deep Blue were pitted against grandmasters with varying results. But long before IBM’s greatest minds programmed the aquatic abyss there lived a man known as “the Human Chess Machine.” This man played chess for ~29 years, was undefeated for eight of those, and in 1906 won 96% of his games. This man was Jose Raul Capablanca. <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="1" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Xi9T5g24XAQ?start=141" style="float:right;margin-left:10px;margin-top:10px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px" width="640"></iframe>Some chess commentators have noted Capablanca’s lack of theory on the game. He did not subscribe to this school or that but rather focused on simple moves which safely developed his pieces. If his moves at times seemed odd it can only be assumed that it is for efficiency, the best move. His speed was one of the most notable things about his play. Rather than calculate a given position, he would intuit the best position and then confirm it through calculation (much the way modern chess computers do). Remember a machine performs a simple objective very quickly. Capablanca played a simple style, easier to do rapidly. He repeatedly told students to disregard opener strategies or the mid-game in favor of learning late game positions. His idea was, of course, simple: if one knows all the possible late games, one can best calculate moves in the early- and midgames to achieve favorable positions. One must know a destination before one can plot a course to get there. Today chess is a game accused of being rigged. In the immortal words of Bobby Fischer:  “I consider the old chess is dying [...] it’s degenerated down to memorization and prearrangement.” A computer can calculate endless variants and then hold those variants in memory to intuit the best outcome for a given situation. There are a finite number of moves existing from initial position and this continues from every move thereafter–what Fischer referred to as “pre-arrangement.” Capablanca was like this in many regards, working towards his calculated endgame with simple and intuitive machinations. But there are weaknesses to machines. They invariably follow identifiable patterns. Capablanca never forced engagements. He let his pieces develop naturally. So in 1927, Alexander Alekhine spotted and successfully exploited a weakness in Capablanca’s play: when in an inferior position (frequent against Capablanca) Alekhine would become scrappy, offering much resistance. Capablanca would never push his advantage, allowing Alekhine to recover.

  ↵

“You will already have noticed how often Capablanca repeated moves, often returning to positions when he had had before. This is not lack of decisiveness or slowness but the employment of a basic endgame principle which is ‘do not hurry.’”

–Alexander Kotov

 

Unfortunately, Alekhine recognized this as well and used it to his advantage. He relied on playing the game as efficiently as possible whereas Alekhine focused on playing Capablanca.  

“When you sit down to play a game you should think only about the position but not about the opponent. Whether chess is regarded as a science, or an art, or a sport, all the same psychology bears no relation to it and only stands in the way of real chess.”

–Jose Raul Capablanca

“For my victory over Capablanca I am indebted primarily to my superiority in the field of psychology. [...] For the chess struggle nowadays one needs a subtle knowledge of human nature.”

–Alexander Alekhine

In other words, Alekhine states that mechanics alone are not enough. Awareness of the meta-game and your opponent’s tendencies are vital. His results speak for themself. This might be good advice to a younger NaDa whose 400 APM never quite secured him a GSL victory. His reliance on mechanics opposed to match-up, meta-game or composition would prove to be his downfall. NaDa, like Capablanca before him, was a powerhouse for a time but machine efficiency can never match human innovation.  

“The ‘Chess Machine’ [...] revealed the great drawback of a machine: it had not sufficient flexibility to adapt itself to altered circumstances.”

–Max Euwe

 

 

:: Aeternus Recurrentia :: It is a difficult distinction to decide whether the facts and stories presented within this article demonstrate some mystical form of eternal recurrence or is simply a manifestation of Jung’s archetypal symbolism. Whichever you accept, please do not dismiss lightly that patterns emerge within existence. What is a minute but sixty individual seconds? What is an hour but sixty individual minutes? Smaller cycles beget larger cycles and then the cycles repeat. Draw your own conclusions. Find your own meaning. Namaskar ?  

 

 

And only the enlightened can recall their former lives; for the rest of us, the memories of past existences are but glints of light, twinges of longing, passing shadows, disturbingly familiar, that are gone before they can be grasped, like the passage of that silver bird on Dhaulagiri

–Peter Matthiessen

Now, however long a time may pass, according to the eternal laws governing the combinations of this eternal play of repetition, all configurations that have previously existed on this earth must yet meet, attract, repulse, kiss, and corrupt each other again.

–Heinrich Heine

If you enjoyed this content, feel free to follow the author at @theonlyshaft on Twitter.