iPhone/computer/machine/etc
Humans don't win by calculation the way computers do. When you have multiple humans working together on chess they don't add up to an ultra-smart human. You are simply as smart as the smartest human in your crew, and that's it.
Did a quick sanity check here - this seems about right - Carlsen might be at least competitive with Pocket Fritz 4 at similar hardware performance to the iPhone 1, but that discounts the software improvements chess engines have seen over the past couple decades.
What makes it funny is: when 143000 chess players merge, they basically become Anish Giri.
> In the Chess.com virtual chat this week, players appeared split on whether to force the draw — and claim the glory — or to keep playing against Carlsen, even if it ultimately meant a loss.
But then again, with 24 hour time to brute force every possible combination, I guess chess engines may be better at freestyle when compared to classical chess, due to the sheer amount of creativity and calculation involved.
sfblah•4h ago
somenameforme•3h ago
But there's an interesting meta in that Magnus played far more passively than he normally would. And so I think he also expected he was probably playing an engine by proxy, and wanted to keep the position completely under control. If he knew the world was legit, they probably would have lost!
I'm still trying to reconcile how it came to be that the world didn't cheat though. Lowest common denominator amongst 140k+ people paired with inevitable chatter of 'Hey best engine move is blah' seems unavoidable.
Scarblac•1h ago
rthnbgrredf•1h ago
somenameforme•1h ago
But things like this are social. I didn't follow this (or even know it was going on somehow) but it seems very safe to assume that somebody and probably multiple somebodies were regularly pointing out and discussing engine moves.
So my only real assumption is that a significant chunk of people would end up deferring to the engine moves rather than their own preference. Of course my implied assumption there is also that a significant chunk of people were involved in the social aspects of this, but I think that's also a fairly reasonable assumption.
squigz•11m ago