2 Comments

The byte is stronger than the brain

December 5, 2006 by in Geeky,Random with 2 Comments

The brain is no match to the mighty byte. World chess champion Vladimir Kramnik lost to computer program Deep Fritz (how can you beat a program with a name like that?).

World chess champion Vladimir Kramnik lost his final game in a match against computer program Deep Fritz on Tuesday, ceding a hard-fought Man vs. Machine series 4-2. Kramnik, seeking a final win to level the match, played an unbalanced opening with Black. He built up a good position and equalized. But he then went astray, losing a pawn from which he never recovered. The Russian takes home $500,000 (euro375,000) — half of what he would have received if he had won against Deep Fritz, a commercially available chess program that runs on a powerful personal computer.

On a semi-related note. I happened to lose for my chess game on OS X. The frustration was so much so that I immediately sent that chess game straight to the trash with AppZapper. Who has time for games anyway these days?

If there’s something worth recommending, drop a note in the comments. I’m open to alternate forms of entertainment.


  • http://portfolio.gizone.co.uk Matt

    Try Defcon, a really nice indie game from Introversion. It sells for £10 ($15) and is really worth the money. Just play a game in office mode (real time) and leave it in the background while you work, you come back to it when something is happening.

    I know it’s currently out for Windows but I’m not sure when it comes out on OSX or Linux but Introversion always release on all three withing 3 months of the game being released.

  • http://quatre.wordpress.com Matthew Rodgers

    Funny story about OSX Chess:

    In my high school’s Student Council I was their Technology Coordinator. We had happened to buy a G5 to mess around with and sometimes I would play chess. (Sometimes against my friends who hung out with me.)

    To my dismay, I could never bet the computer. Never. I’m fairly good at chess, but, obviously not as good as a Vladimir Kramnik or Kasporav, but I’m pretty good. The computer just doesn’t let you win. When I get to the point where I could take a Knight or sometimes even a Queen, the game wouldn’t even let me take the piece. It sort of pissed me off. Of course, I did bet it once, later on, after I discovered that I wasn’t supposed to win and my goal was to lose. At least I think that’s what it was. It could have been that the computer was messing with my mind.

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