[LeifCarrotson]

Yeah, I am having a hard time with the article's black and white distinction of "type A" brute-force chess solvers and "type B" humanlike intelligent engines.

To say that Deep Blue beat Kasparov with nothing but brute-force speed is to neglect the rather intelligent decisions it made, ascribing different weights to pieces in potential sacrifices, positions, development of pieces, control of the center, initiative, and all the other values that a human player uses to play chess.

[V-2]

> To say that Deep Blue beat Kasparov with nothing but brute-force speed is to neglect the rather intelligent decisions it made, ascribing different weights to pieces in potential sacrifices, positions, development of pieces, control of the center, initiative, and all the other values that a human player uses to play chess.

But it's just an evaluation function anyway. A very complex one, but still nothing else. Chess engine doesn't have a notion of a plan (which is how a human approaches chess). All it does is mechanically keep on steering the game towards positions that are evaluted as best by the function.

[lurker456]

While having a plan is important, it's not the only way a human approaches chess. Experienced chess players develop an ability to evaluate positions intuitively. Without being able to explain fully why and without a specific plan in mind, they're able choose the best position out of several options. In a way, it's very similar to a evaluation function without access to its internal logic.

[petersjt014]

> All it does is mechanically keep on steering the game towards positions that are evaluted as best by the function.

I wouldn't say so entirely--It's possible to predict multiple moves ahead (before the number of possibilities explodes), and a heuristic is a sort of plan too.

What you're describing sounds like a greedy algorithim more than anything else.