Background: Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov is in a four game match with X3D Fritz, designed by X3D Technologies in the "X3D Man-Machine World Championships." Fritz defeated Deep Blue in 1995 to take the "machine world title." Game one, yesterday, ended when both sides agreed to a draw in the 37th move. Thus, the current score is 1/2 - 1/2.
What exactly is ESPN showing? Kasparov is playing these wearing 3-D glasses, right? (Hence the 3D in X3D Fritz). Is Fritz also generating a graphical output for viewers, or is there still a real life chessboard in front of Kasparov to manipulate?
Originally posted by EddieBurkettWhat exactly is ESPN showing? Kasparov is playing these wearing 3-D glasses, right? (Hence the 3D in X3D Fritz). Is Fritz also generating a graphical output for viewers, or is there still a real life chessboard in front of Kasparov to manipulate?
I'll tell ya tomorrow after I watch it for the first time. :)
Originally posted by GrimisIf Deep Blue beat Kasparov in 1997, why wasn't Kasparov playing Frtiz back then?
I dunno - my educated guess is IBM paid better than X3D. I'll look around and see if I can find a REAL answer for you...
EDIT: Well, I looked around and it looks like I'm confusing several iterations of Fritz with Deep Blue, and maybe also Deep Junior. Also I'm relying too much on X3D press releases, probably. ;-)
Part of my question is answered! From the article: "The chessboard is suspended on a screen in front of Kasparov, who wears 3D glasses, voice-activates the pieces and uses a joystick to rotate the virtual board."
That sounds rather crazy. I'd want to say that a pressure sensitive chessboard would make more sense, but that only works as far as Fritz being able to detect the moves. They need a way for it to manipulate physical objects, because I wonder if the fact that Kasparov is relatively new to the interface affects his performance.
I still wonder exactly what ESPN is showing.
(edited by EddieBurkett on 14.11.03 1248) If you're reading this, the tide was in.
Just finished watching ESPN's coverage of game three of the match. Mind you, the game itself is far from over, but ESPN2 only allotted ninety minutes of airtime to the game. Once the ninety minutes were over, viewers were instructed to tune into ESPNEWS for periodic updates as to how the game was progressing. Did the network do this for the first two games as well? IMHO this is somewhere between disappointing and unacceptable. It would be similar to a network televising only the first period of an NHL contest, or just the first quarter of a football game. If this was all the time that ESPN was willing to budget for their coverage of the event, then the network could have better served its viewers with a program broadcast after the game was completed (instead of offering partial live coverage), so that the game could be condensed and shown in its entirety during the time period allowed.
As to the game itself, as I write this Kasparov has the better position, as he has a material advantage of a pawn, while Fritz has yet to develop his pieces to take advantage of his (its?) King side space advantage. If Kasparov can convert his advantage into a victory it will tie the match at 1.5 apiece.
Finally, to attempt to answer Eddie Burkett's question:
Originally posted by Eddie BurkettWhat exactly is ESPN showing?
For the most part, appoximately two thirds of the screen displays the virtual chess board as Kasparov is seeing it, in 3D. Kasparov is shown in the bottom left corner of the screen wearing the 3D glasses and contemplating his next move. Occassional cuts are made to the three analysts working the event for ESPN. Hope this helps.
Originally posted by Downtown BookieJust finished watching ESPN's coverage of game three of the match. Mind you, the game itself is far from over, but ESPN2 only allotted ninety minutes of airtime to the game. Once the ninety minutes were over, viewers were instructed to tune into ESPNEWS for periodic updates as to how the game was progressing. Did the network do this for the first two games as well?
I only saw Game 2 on Thursday - when they ran out of time on ESPN2 (previous obligation of showing Master Cup tennis, I believe), they moved the coverage to ESPNEWS, pre-empting 25 minutes out of their half hour of news (which I'm sure pissed off a whole OTHER group of people). I reckon the reason they're not doing that today is because they can't give up a "football" audience. Keep in mind I say ALL of this at work with no television, so I'm just watching the online coverage...which is at http://www.x3dchess.com/chess/live/xml/ index.html if you're interested (requires Shockwave Flash, I think?).
The online commentators were saying that Thursday's game got a 1.4, doubling the usual ESPN rating. They'll probably keep this in mind next time they get a chance to cover a match like this.
Barring another colossal blunder of Thursday's proportions, Garry *should* get a victory here to tie it up going into Tuesday.
I thought four games sounded odd for a match, but I never imagined a tie ending up with them splitting a game and drawing the other two. I want to say there should be a fifth game to establish dominance, but I suppose with the possibility to draw each time, that could become an endless cycle. (Although I suppose in the long run, given enough games, I suppose Kasparov would be more likely to err than Fritz.)
This parity booking is the reason why no one ever gets over...
(edited by EddieBurkett on 18.11.03 2211) If you're reading this, the tide was in.
My brother and I used to play. We never "got into character" though. We did get into many fights. "The Dark Chaos Lord can't do that!" "He just did." I think my game's under my bed.