I think the biggest myth of all was that humans were good at chess and
that a computer had to be better at EVERYTHING in order to beat the
human masters who were practically given god-like status.
In fact they are even today weaker than the top humans besides in
"athletics". The reason for computer supremacy is Tartakower's law: The
winner of a chess-game is the one who made the second-last blunder.
GM M.Adams can play almost every move at least as good or better than Hydra.
But in contrast to Hydra he (and any other human player) can not play in a
complicated game 10 moves in a row without making a serious error. After a
few complicated moves a human gets exhausted. Maybe 8 out of 10 moves are
optimal, but then the 9th move is a blunder. In case of Hydra 3 out of the
10 moves are not optimal but also not really bad. Actually this second best
moves are often for a human more complicated than the best one, because they
deviate from known human patterns.
Hydra has never lost against a human player. But she was several times
beaten by Zentaurs (human-computer-combinations). With the help of other
programms the human player avoids the most striking blunders and the human
player is superior in complicated positional decisions. But it depends also
on the position. If it gets really wild Fritz et al. are of little help.
Go is more complicated: Building up a fortress like in chess and playing it
safe is pointless. One has had the end no weak group but also almost no
territory. E.g. Many Faces plays very safe. Again modest skilled players
like myself Many Faces usually does not loose tactical fights. But I win
relative easy by making more territory and avoiding any infights. Handtalk
is tactically much weaker and especially almost blind for double-attacks.
But my Anti-Many-Faces strategy to "give the ape some sugar" does not work
against Handtalk. Against Handtalk I have to look for infights.
Making no tactical blunders is in Go too less.
Chrilly
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