Chess vs. Bridge

[ShuShu]

Was a classic argument I used to hear in my youth. Of course, most of the combatants are probably dead now. But its legacy is relavent to the CIV progression.

Which game requires more skill?

There is a firmly entrenched camp that feels Chess is the obvious answer as there is no room for luck. The other camp feels bridge is the answer because it takes skill to account for uncertainty.

My position used to be that any game where a computer can beat the best humanity has to offer can't require too much 'skill' cause dose machine's be dumber dan posts. But neural networks are gaining fast in backgammon.

Before i get too far off track, I believe the same has taken place in Firaxis. I believe Sid is a Uncertainty=Skill guy, and Brian Reynolds is a Determinism=Skill guy.

As I am an uncertainty=skill guy I find myself playing full CIVIII games much longer than I played full games of CIVII or SMAC. As the franchise has been attracting Determinism=Skill folks, I don't think the level of upset is that surprising.

Of course, CIVIII is a big improvement over CIVII because it is finally moving back in the right direction...

PS. Poker players think neither require as much skill as poker because poker is not about the game, it is about the players...

[Bilo]

Actually there is no luck involved in bridge if you are playing with 4-person teams. I belive that bridge requires more skill than chess, in chess all information is avaliable to both players, where in bridge each player only sees 1/4 of the cards when bidding and 1/2 of the cards when playing, but they can(and should) determine which player has what cards by observing each others plays.

[ShuShu]

... and there is in Chess too ...

But I shouldn't have used the word 'Luck'. The dilemna is in the determinist vs. non-determinist arguments that have raged nigh-on since the dawn of creation...

God might not play dice, but he does play CIV III...

[DrSpike]

Chess requires infinitely more skill than bridge. The fact that Kasparov lost to Deeper Blue merely underlines the tactical (the portion of the game where computers will always have an advantage) complexity of the game. In positions with fewer immediate tactical complexities the long term strategic planning of the top humans is far superior. Kasparov was just too confident to steer the games into these sorts of positions. And the fact that all the information is available in chess but not in bridge means nothing. You don't have all the information in "happy families" (or for that matter most card games) either............

[Bilo]

Originally posted by DrSpike
The fact that Kasparov lost to Deeper Blue merely underlines the tactical (the portion of the game where computers will always have an advantage) complexity of the game. In positions with fewer immediate tactical complexities the long term strategic planning of the top humans is far superior.

I might be missing your point, but how come the fact that computers can beat humans underlines that more skill is involved?? All the computers do is making relatively simple (but usually tedious)calculations with 0s and 1s. The fact that machines that only use 0s and 1s can beat even the best humans, show that the game is simple enough to be completely represented in a binary language.

[DrSpike]

Bilo:

Yeah, you are missing the point. For those not familiar with the game of chess it is usually divided into tactics and strategy. Tactics involves calculating possible variations from a given position. Strategy is long term, it involves forcing weaknesses in your opponents position sometimes with no immediate gain. Computers are better than humans at tactics if the position is complex (this has been true for a while), since there are many variations and subvariations. Clearly humans analyse less variations, ones they deem worthwhile, whereas computers examine all immediate variations, usually augmenting this by picking some lines to pursue in depth. The computer's "dumb" brute force approach is effective in the short term and will highlight any chances for material gain, which it rates very (perhaps overly so) highly. Computers are not a patch on humans in long term strategic planning, because they have no real understanding of the game. If the Kramnik-computer match ever comes about Kramnik will win (as would Kasparov), I guarantee you. He will use his understanding to steer the games into positions where the computer will misevaluate the imbalances, and ultimately win.

Further (new) points.

Computers owe a lot of their strength to databases of ever larger size that contain millions of variations of opening moves and typical endgame situations. Without these computers would be weaker.

[Kat_Somm_Faen]

Preach on brother Spike!!!

Chess is *SOOOOOOOOO* much more involved and requires more concentration, creativity, strategy and even imagination.

The reason computers win in chess is, as you correctly pointed out, the enormous databases and the fact that they do not faulter or get tired. They simply put out 100% all the time while person's performance can drop due to many limitations such s stamina. Computers are simply dry number crunchers without the will to improvise or imagine or experiment. Human game is much more then accounting of pieces on the bord ( which is what a comp does ).

Chess is simply a beautiful game.

[bahoo]

Originally posted by Bilo


I might be missing your point, but how come the fact that computers can beat humans underlines that more skill is involved?? All the computers do is making relatively simple (but usually tedious)calculations with 0s and 1s. The fact that machines that only use 0s and 1s can beat even the best humans, show that the game is simple enough to be completely represented in a binary language.

The reason computers can win in chess is because there is 0 randomness. With enough processing power you can basically look at every possible outcome and pick the move that results in the best ones.

Deep Blue supposedly could look at everyone possible outcome 40 moves ahead. It would then take the most promising and extend those to 80 moves ahead. That's what you call brute force computing. It's no wonder it beat Kasparov. The one game Kasparov did win was mainly because an operator on Deep Blue misinterpreted it's instructions to move the piece.

[Salvor]

I think ShuShu's original point is getting lost.

I see several people posting, claiming that chess requires more skill than bridge, but from there the posts get side-tracked into discussions of computer chess programs.

If you start a post by presenting a position or premise, like "chess requires more skill than bridge", I would expect the remainder of the post to contain arguments and evidence to support the opening premise. I see none of that. Nobody yet has given any reason WHY chess requires more skill than bridge.

As for the computer program arguments, it's a no-brainer that a deterministic game is easier for a computer to "learn" than a non-deterministic one. That is in no way an indication of the amount of skill required. It just happens that computers are good at manipulating and storing data. If you know all the data at the start, the rest is just tedium and number-crunching. If you don't know all the data at the outset, then you have to do some guessing. You still need skill to make educated guesses and play with the odds, know when a risk is warranted, etc., but there are always risks and uncertainties involved.

Personally, I believe that chess vs. bridge is an apples-to-oranges comparison, for the reasons ShuShu originally pointed out. They both require skill, but they require different specific skill sets. I'm not really interested in which type requires more skill. I'm interested in which one is more fun. For me, the non-deterministic ones are more fun. So I guess that makes me a determinism=boring/uncertainty=fun person. The deterministic games become too much like work, and there's less variety, less experimentation, and fewer successful approaches. I like a game that rewards creativity, not one that forces you into a certain pattern of action if you want to achieve success. In this regard, I much prefer bridge to chess. I'm not sure I fully understand the analogy to Civ3 vs. Civ2. I think both are in the "bridge" category, but I do very much enjoy Civ3, and I do believe it has more variety and replayability than Civ2 did.

[Smash]

lets not forget the Kasparov/Deep Blue match was rigged in favour of Deep Blue.Every single move Kasparov has ever made was fed into that machine.Kasparov was not permitted to look at 1 single game Deep Blue had played.

And the biggest factor of that game loss was fatigue.

A team of top programmers and what not was assembled.They were given unlimited resources.For the sole purpose of beating the world champion of chess.Doing the same for Bridge would be a snap...cept nobody cares about Bridge

[Goatguy]

Besides the fact that i can kik all of ur @$$'s in chess, im gonna have to tie this in to Civ to its not booted off the forum.

Just like in real life chess and bridge, Civ3 requires luck and skill. No factor outwieghs one another, becuase if you dont have good position, and your opponent finds 10 huts that each give him things and you find none, then you just cant win. UNLESS you have alot of skill.

Besides, (and i agree w\ smash) that nobudy gives a ___ about Bridge. I was actually at the Deep Blue vs. Kasporov match, and Kasperov was VERY fatuiged. And he DID have advanced knowledge of deep blue (from the harvard cup matches)


kasporov= when he lost

[DrSpike]

k, a few points.

Chess is not effectively deterministic just because all the information you need is in plain site. Despite what Bahoo said it is simply not possible even for todays super computers to calculate all possible permutations from even the starting position 40 ply deep.

Computers are better at tactics (a huge part of the game), have huge databases of opening moves and endgame positions but STILL aren't better than the best humans. Kasparov lost under bad conditions when he was simply too confident in his prowess. He in no means won the 1st game of the 6 because he of some error on the part of the technicians. Look at the game, it a slow struggle that Kasparov was always winning. He would win another match I am sure, though we may not get to test this. But I'll also assert that Kramnik will win the upcoming man v computer challenge.

Oh, and Kasparov stuffed Deep Blue, he lost to Deeper Blue.

Anyway, as someone suggested, this isn't really answering the question of which game requires more skill. I'd have to say it's definitely chess. It's hard to define a reasonable benchmark, but lets say something like time of study needed to reach master level. Anyone in this thread could be in their national side within a couple of years, they just aren't cos they don't care about bridge.

And civ3, though I'm still playing it (what a cunning tie in) has about the same level of propensity for strategy as bridge.

[Tarquelne]

Doesn't the amount of skill required depend upon your opponent's skill? Doesn't the amount of skill you possess depend upon, well, _you_, not the game?

Take 2 people of equal intelligence, creativity, etc. One trains for a lifetime in chess, the other one trains _an equal amount of time_ in bridge.

Why say one player is "more skilled" than the other?

I think the question "Which requires more skill?" isn't a really the right question. How about: "Which game rewards study the most?" I think that question addresses what the "skill" question tries to address, but doesn't quite because of the vaugness of the word "skill."

How about "Which requires more concentration?" or "Which rewards the ability to visualize the current situation and "think ahead" more?" or "Which rewards a better understanding of the opponent more?" or "Which rewards creativity more?" or "Which is more dependant upon luck in determining the outcome?"

[Zachriel]

Duplicate Bridge, which is the Bridge used in tournaments, has no luck.* Everyone ends up playing the exact same hands. So the idea being, with a particular hand who did best. Duplicate makes every hand interesting and every play critical, even hands with few winning cards.

(Bridge is harder to learn to play initially though. Chess has very simple rules. So does Bridge, but unless you also know the bidding language, it is not really Bridge.)

Chess and Bbridge are each very complex games at the edge of human understanding.

* Probability is a different matter. There is a great deal of probability in both the bidding and the play. However, everyone looks at the same deal in Duplicate, everyone has the exact same randomizer seed.

[Captain]

um... relating this to CIV 3, would you say:

Civ 3 form of research = chess = deterministic
Skill = choosing the optimal path directly

BLind research = bridge = uncertainty
Skill = anticipating and influencing the path indirectly

[Dauphin]

Deep Blue supposedly could look at everyone possible outcome 40 moves ahead

Thats definitely no true. Each move there are around 10-20 pieces that you can move (and even more positions that they can be moved to). That equates to at least 10⁴⁰ possible outcomes.

A computer cannot analyse that many moves, it would take eons



In my experience the best moves in chess are not the most tactically sound, or strategically useful, but are the ones your opponent does not wish you to make.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by ShuShu
God might not play dice, but he does play CIV III...

No wonder atheism is on the increase.

[steelehc]

i can kik all of ur @$$'s in chess

Oh really? Bring it on.

I think the point originally made here was that Chess and Bridge are two very different games, each of which requires a cartain amount of skill. Bridge additionally requires luck, as you don't know what cards you will be dealt. Chess can require luck, as in the case of the person who makes stupid moves, but luckily has a stupid opponent, allowing him a victory.

Steele

PS:If I have missed something, please correct me. I play Chess as often as I can, but I have never played Bridge.

[Dauphin]

I play both, but I prefer Bridge at it is more of a memory game than a predictive game.

That is you have an advantage if you can remember what cards have gone before - in chess remembering previous moves is unimportant. Conversely in chess predicting what can happen upto several moves ahead is important - in bridge it is not as difficult, because it is easier to force moves of the opponent, plus the opponent has only a few options of what card to play.

[Tarquelne]

"Chess can require luck"

I think it can accuratly be stated that even a "deterministic" system has an element of chance (luck) if a person is makeing decisions based on anything less that _complete_ understanding of the system.

Where a participant's understanding ends chance enters. A chess player, for example, might know that moving his rook either _here_ or _there_ is the best move.... but which is it? They look equal to him. If he had, say, 100 years he could figure out which move was "best" - which would be most likely to lead to victory. However, as his opponent isn't willing to wait that long he has to choose now. If he happens to choose the best move he's "lucky", if he happens to choose the less-favorable move he's been "unlucky."

A similar situation would be one in which the player knows that his opponent has a plan in operation, but doesn't have the skill to figure out exactly what that plan is. If his response is the one that foils his oppoent's plan he's "lucky" (but he could claim it was skill), if his response is one that leaves him vulnerable his opponent's gambit then he was unlucky, though you could also say, without contradiciton, it was his lack of skill that led to his loss.

Civ3? What's that? Oh. I'll say that I think Civ3 needs to have a strong element of chance to remain fun. I don't think the game is "deep" enough to remain interesting without the need to cope with and try to plan for unforseen events/eventualities. (Imainge Civ with only 2 civs on a 8x8, nothing-but-grassland map... might be amusing for a few games, but not much to it.)

[kimmygibler]

"The fact that machines that only use 0s and 1s can beat even the best humans, show that the game is simple enough to be completely represented in a binary language."

Bridge could just as easily be played by computors. I would say that for a game with simple rules, chess is exceedingly complex. No other game has such a simple set of rules and no random variables, yet it takes a supercomputor just to beat the top human. It seems to me that computors should have been unbeatable years ago. They can analyze millions more positions than a human can, but somehow humans can win. It shows that you must make moves beyond what you can actually calculate. The intuitional aspect shows how complex it is.

[Dauphin]

The intuitional aspect shows how complex it is.

As is the understanding of the opponent.

If you were playing a human player, whom you have some experience of, you will do far better than against a computer of the same "standard". Similarly if you think you are playing a human player instead of a computer you will play differently.

Sometimes it is a case of playing the opponent rather than playing the game. Hence my previous comment about making the moves that the opponent does not want you to play.

[Ming]

Originally posted by steelehc
Bridge additionally requires luck, as you don't know what cards you will be dealt.

When Bridge is played competitively... ie duplicate bridge... Luck is minimized. You all play the "same hands" and your score is based on how you do vs how others did with the same cards. So it doesn't matter what cards you have.

[ShuShu]

1) Thanks all for proving this is an eternal conflict that gets people rather heated.

2) As was pointed out, I was trying to emphasis that the same emtions that show up in the bridge/chess debate show up in the CIVII/CIVIII debate.

3) CIVII=chess, CIVIII=bridge. Civ II has predictable combat, and 100% reliability points (no polution, no corruption, no defensive bonus...) Hence the vehemence against the combat system and corruption.

4) luck comes into play in both chess and Bridge. as Sander, errr Sagacious points out, your opponent matters in chess. In bridge, its your cards. In both cases, if they match your style, you are lucky. The argument of Deeper Blue above is that Deeper Blue had enforced luck because its style was tailored to beat Kaparov's.

--- bit of personal advocacy
5) Despite large economic incentives to provide ever better AI's for both bridge and chess. Computers are already beating the masters in chess, they are not even close in bridge.

[CJM]

My $.02:

In terms of the deterministic (i.e., chess) and non-deterministic (i.e., bridge) argument, I would think that both Civ2 & Civ3 come out on the non-deterministic side (much as Salvor earlier commented). Why would I argue this? The random number generator/seed thing. If I recall correctly, the game generates some random number series that influences things like combat results and goody-hut outcomes of all players, human and AI. That's going to make the Civ games non-deterministic, at least from the player's perspective (Tarquelne's comment about a complete understanding of the system is relevant here; if we knew the random string used, and all the actions of the AI, the randomness could effectively be removed).

But why might Civ2 seem more deterministic than Civ3? Perhaps the combat differences play in here. My knowledge in this area is not as detailed as some others' may be, but I believe this more complex combat system was introduced to do away with the legendary "Anti-Tank Spearman." So even though Civ2 also used random numbers to influence the outcome of battles, perhaps the influence wasn't great enough to overcome the advantage a more advanced unit had over a more primitive one in terms of FP and/or HP. As a result, the combat appeared more "predictable."

CJM

[Libertarian]

Computers owe a lot of their strength to databases of ever larger size that contain millions of variations of opening moves and typical endgame situations.

Databases, I might add, that were culled from the games of the best human players.