That's true, but for a reasonably well-written program all of the design/programming faults manifest themselves through the improper use of the product. For instance, in the UNIX world the most common examples are the infamous buffer overflow exploits. (I deliberately avoid talking about Windows-related problems, as that is a huge design flaw on its own, rather than a software.) For someone who is communicating with a program through a chess interface, able to make only legal moves, the possibilities for exploits you are talking about are practically eliminated.

The only thing Nemeth--or any chessplayer for that matter--can do is to find shortcomings of the algorithm--and those aren't the same as errors in the code which hackers would exploit. Turning the shortcomings to your advantage may enable you to beat programs which are nominally 2-300 ELO points higher than you, but the enormous 700+ points gap between Hydra and Nemeth is just too big. No way.

<it would be a fine publicity stunt to highlight the sloppiness and bugginess of virtually all commercial software.>

Then your best hope is that during the next Hydra-Human match a hacker cracks the mainframe via Internet, and makes the computer play imbecile moves, or just resign in a won position. I agree, that would be a good demonstration about buggy software--but this has nothing to do with the playing strength of Hydra, so long as everyone plays according to the rules.

<I have more chance of convincing Christina Aguilera to marry me and have my babies>

Fritz, Shredder etc are only 300 ELO better than Nemeth? I think not. Obviously Nemeth was playing around with these programs to come up with the techniques he's found and he would probably need a fair time playing around with Hydra to if he was to discover anything, but I don't think we can totally discount the possibility. Check this out for absurdity http://f27.parsimony.net/forum67838...

Nemeth (I think) has understood that chess programs are bound 100% by their programming and tries to construct situations where the algorithms that the program is bound by become a disadvantage. Obviously, if a position becomes a mainstream chess position, he will be annihilated. Perhaps an interesting contest would also be if a top GM took on Hydra with Nemeth as a second?

However, it is possible that this would be enough to make it impossible for a player of Nemeth's strength to exploit the flaws in the algorithms. That is, if the computer makes a mistake by only evaluating positions to a certain depth of moves, then it doesn't matter if that depth is beyond Nemeth's ability to calculate. I still think that Hydra-Nemeth would be more interesting thatn Hydra-Adams was, though.

There was a story earlier this month about a game that Shredder lost in a South American tournament (to IM Pablo LaFuente) as the result of an I/O error reading a hash table. The tournament organizers claimed that it was a "one in a million" error. Well, it shouldn't be--it should be one in a trillion at least, preferably one in a quadrillion. And I would love to see more incidents like this, not because I think it would "save chess" but because it would help publicize such geeky things as the unreliability of non-parity memory.

Anyway, this doesn't have a lot to do with chess, my apologies for the digressions. Regarding your chess related points, you may well be at least partly right, although I'd still like to see a match. Don't think it will ever happen.

The element that they are weak on, of course, is bluffing in its many various forms. One of the most important principles of high-level poker is being able to evaluate bluffs by retroactively considering all of the player's behaviors in that single hand up to that point. A good bluff will present a plausible story that "adds up." An amateur will attempt an inplausible bluff, for example, they act elated when they see the third spade hit the table, and move all of their chips in the middle, as if to imply they have completed a flush. However, for this story to really add up, we must imagine what would have kept the player in the pot up to that point--if the bets in previous rounds were prohibitively expensive to allow him to pursue the odd chance of a flush, then it seems unlikely that he was really staying in the pot for that reason. Of course, you might be playing against such a fish that they were calling the previous bets "on a hunch"--fine, then the fish wins a hand, but such behavior will cost them their shirt in the long run.

I think you are right that you have a much better chance in beating a poker program than a chess program, especially due to imperfect information and probabilities.

As for tells, poker is not a card game but a bidding game and several types of betting structures are tactical like pins, forks, skewers and the like for chess. If a computer could understand and exploit those tactics it would be able to run some successful bluffs. In many respects, an opponents behaviour is revealed exclusively through their betting habits and if a computer is able to build a reliable set of "tell" bets on their opponent it's likely they'll be able to exploit that although it would be very hard to program.

No, he wouldn't stand a chance. Nemeth has to play hundreds and thousands of games to determine a computer's weakness so playing a match versus Hydra without preparation... and what if he can prepare? well, Hydra's developpers would have enough time to check the computer also. So no advantage at all. It's not like sitting at home in his chair, eating potato crisps and playing around with some old Fritz on an old PC.

<Caissanist: I'd like to see this not so much because of anything to do with chess, but because it would be a fine publicity stunt to highlight the sloppiness and bugginess of virtually all commercial software.>

1. e4 c5 2. Na3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. h3 Nxe4 6. Bxf7+ Kxf7 7. Qh5+ Ke6 8. Qg4+ Kd5 9. c4+ dxc3 10. Bf4 e5 11. O-O-O+ Nd4 12. Rxd4+ Kxd4 13. Nf3+ Kd5 14. Rd1+ Kc6 15. Nxe5+ Kb6 16. Nec4+ Kc5 17. Be3+ Kc6 18. Qxe4+ d5 19. Ne5+ Kc7 20. Nb5+ Kb8 21. Rxd5 Bd6 22. Nxd6 and White won.

I agree that even a club player could win some of these positions, and I believe that 90 or more out of 100 grandmasters would win this particular game after move 9 (especially if they were already familiar with the Nemeth gambit). Hopefully, today's Hydra, Rybka, etc., will not make the same mistakes that Deep Fritz did, during the first 5-9 moves. Or maybe they will...