Data loses to Troi in chess....

[Danoz]

Okay. So. Watching TNG (I do this often, I have all 7 seasons on disk )... I just threw on "conundrum," actually, a pretty fun episode-- but this opening scene has inspired me to post about something that has bothered me since the first time I've seen this. Data has "tied" the expert in strategema, and Tuvok compares Chess to "tic tac toe," yet somehow, Troi, in her infinite logic, has devised a move in the game in chess that has left our android baffled? Because she has "intuition?" Frankly, I'd like her to beat the hardest level of my latest version of "Chessmaster" and see if she survives on intitution. You'd think Data would at least have some 2008 chess AI installed in his system...

Okay, rant over. Just wanted to comment on this absolutely ridiculous scene.

 

[Michael]

Yeah, the logic of that was certainly flawed. But I appreciated the scene for what the writers tried to convey (i.e. intuition is important).

 

[WillsBabe]

I agree, it's pretty daft. Can't say it really bothers me, though. On the other hand, they could probably have written a more believeable way to have Data stranded behind the bar when the amnesia struck.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I hate when they do that! I think it happened quite a few times in Trek.

Sure, intuition and hunches can get you somewhere in elastic situations but I really think chess is one of those where more computing power just wins.

 

[kEROTH]

It would have worked better if they had been playing Go rather than chess; since there are multiple premises in that game (acquisition and retention of territories, capture of opponents, etc.), you can't always be sure what your opponent's intentions are. Even high ranks can and do get blind-sided by lower ranks. But the writers tended to get wrapped up in Western culture and probably didn't think about going outside the box.

 

[Tomalak]

I thought it was just a nice reference to the Kirk-Spock game in WNMHGB, nothing to lose sleep over.

 

[K-Star]

Perhaps Data lowered his chess program's difficulty level for Troi, so he wouldn't pwn her TOO badly, and didn't anticipate that Troi could beat him on the slightly lowered playing level?

 

[Timo]

We can't be sure Data wasn't anticipating a defeat here. He wasn't anticipating Troi's move, sure, but he might already have been royally losing - Troi just made it happen in seven moves while Data was expecting twenty.

As to why Data would have been losing, note how he considers it his business to assist Troi in her moves. Perhaps this is in practice a game where Data plays against Data, only Troi moves half the pieces?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tomalak]

He actually only says he has studied every stratagem and great play, so there's no reason to assume Data is pre-programmed to be a master chess player, like a 24th century Deep Blue, unless I'm missing something. I'd guess that as with poker, he read everything he could find on the subject, but Troi's unexpected move had him flummoxed, as did Riker's poker face.

We've got to remember that Data isn't very creative, as much as he tries to be. He can imitate Branagh's Henry V, play the violin perfectly, paint in all manner of styles, but genuine inspiration seemed to elude him.

 

[cultcross]

He actually only says he has studied every stratagem and great play, so there's no reason to assume Data is pre-programmed to be a master chess player, like a 24th century Deep Blue, unless I'm missing something. I'd guess that as with poker, he read everything he could find on the subject, but Troi's unexpected move had him flummoxed, as did Riker's poker face.

We've got to remember that Data isn't very creative, as much as he tries to be. He can imitate Branagh's Henry V, play the violin perfectly, paint in all manner of styles, but genuine inspiration seemed to elude him.

I think this is the best explanation - he isn't programmed, as far as we know, to be an amazing chess player, we can assume he just learnt chess by, as he says, memorising other people, the same way he learnt to play the violin - a compilation of great past players. Just as his violin playing is pitch perfect every time but lacks any passion, his chess playing is based on the great games of history but doesn't anticipate something on-the-fly, sneaky, or in fact based on dumb luck that Troi does spot.

It's a stretch, true - and the scene was clearly in there to make a rather forced point, but it is explicable enough.
Unlike that ridiculous conceit that Data is unable to use contractions. Riiiight.

 

[urbandk]

i think this particular sequence was pretty lame. i don't think we necessarily have to come up with complex in-universe explanations. if you wanted one, i'd just say that data let her win to make her think that her intuition was important.

 

[Timo]

Unlike that ridiculous conceit that Data is unable to use contractions. Riiiight.

But that's just a fan myth.

Contrary to popular belief, "Datalore" does not establish that Data can't use contractions. It merely establishes that Data uses language more formally than Lore. And "Offspring" does not establish that Data can't use contractions - it establishes that Lal uses them fluently, whilst Data has not mastered informal speech patterns.

Data has used contractions throughout his TNG career, and nobody has commented on that. Some, like Lore, have ridiculed his normally stilted speech patterns, while others have found his attempts at informality either amusing or then not even that. But nobody has specifically been amazed when Data suddenly pops a contraction.

Not even in "Future Imperfect", mind you. There, Riker has already decided that everybody around him is an impostor, including Data. He merely attacks the fake Data with the charge of "You used a contraction!", expecting the doppelgänger to get completely tongue-tied at that charge where the real Data would merely point out that he is perfectly capable of using contractions, sometimes even in appropriate context...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[cultcross]

Not even in "Future Imperfect", mind you. There, Riker has already decided that everybody around him is an impostor, including Data. He merely attacks the fake Data with the charge of "You used a contraction!", expecting the doppelgänger to get completely tongue-tied at that charge where the real Data would merely point out that he is perfectly capable of using contractions, sometimes even in appropriate context...

That's rather a reading in, imho - I'd say the implication of all the mentions of 'contractions' - particularly this one and The Offspring, the two examples I was thinking of, make it pretty clear that Data doesn't use them. And The Offspring implies that he can't - they are a sign of his child 'moving beyond him'. The fact there are dozens of examples of him using them without comment just makes these mentions of his issues with them even more dumb.

 

[K-Star]

Maybe Data's issue with contractions comes from the improved politeness subroutine that Julianna mentions in Inheritance? I think it was mentioned that in order to improve Data's manners Dr. Soong had to reprogram him to be alot more polite... and might have actually overdone it. Super-polite people speak much more formally than those who aren't.

Just a random theory.

But yeah, nowhere is it ever EXPLICITLY mentioned that Data absolutely CANNOT use contractions. Just that he has trouble with them.

 

[Random Canadian]

I think that it makes sense. Since he's trying to become more "human-like", I would assume that instead of playing the chess game by using pure logic like computers do now, he's playing by trying to understand his opponents and how their experiences, personalities, etc.. affect their gameplay, and making his choices based upon that.

 

[KirksFlyingFist]

Okay. So. Watching TNG (I do this often, I have all 7 seasons on disk )... I just threw on "conundrum," actually, a pretty fun episode-- but this opening scene has inspired me to post about something that has bothered me since the first time I've seen this. Data has "tied" the expert in strategema, and Tuvok compares Chess to "tic tac toe," yet somehow, Troi, in her infinite logic, has devised a move in the game in chess that has left our android baffled? Because she has "intuition?" Frankly, I'd like her to beat the hardest level of my latest version of "Chessmaster" and see if she survives on intitution. You'd think Data would at least have some 2008 chess AI installed in his system...

Okay, rant over. Just wanted to comment on this absolutely ridiculous scene.

Unless Data was programmed to fail in order to be more human like (which is stupid and has very little to no supporting evidence) I agree.

Oh well. Nothing is written perfectly.

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

If Data has enough time/processor speed he can, from knowing the rules, calculate the possible effects of every outcome. Chess is complex enough that this would be very demanding - and in addition, Data is probably working as hard to analyze social cues as he is working on his game, if not far more so. In social (aka fun!) chess you can't spend forever on a move.

If Troi can see the 'pattern' of the board, she may see things that Data - in extrapolating what seem the most probable moves a few branchings into the future - misses.

And if he's trying to win by knowing the best moves the masters of the game have made... it only takes one calculated 'bad' move to get into a whole new chess game. I've resorted to that myself, back in my chess-playing days, and it worked to let me defeat players who had far more openings and mid-games memorized out of chess books, but couldn't adapt to a more irregular game in time. Troi could easily have done something like that.

 

[Trekker4747]

It is concievable that Data has to "learn" Chess as much as anyone else does, maybe a special, gimped, section of his processor is dedicated for chess? Or maybe he was playing on "Super Easy" for Troi.

It's also *possible* that Troi just plain beat him.

 

[Timo]

Look at the other side of the equation: since when does Troi know any chess?

I'm not sure we have to assume that Troi is a master player who defeats Data in an epic battle of minds where neither side shows an ounce of mercy. Rather, we could be observing a friendly game played for social goals and purposes, in which Data is basically playing both sides and Troi is just tagging along and making a few amateur suggestions.

It should be possible for Data to see seven moves into the future. Would it be possible for a situation to emerge where Data can't extricate himself from trouble in seven moves? If we assume he played largely against himself until that point, we could also assume he would assume that a Data-level opponent would oppose him during those seven moves. So the question of whether he could wiggle out of the defeat when playing against opponent X of skill level Y is moot - he'd be assuming the worst case there.

And, of course, even if it were possible to wiggle out of the situation, Data at that timepoint would be socially smart enough to tell Troi that she had inflicted a very clever seven-move defeat on her opponent... Only the first-season Data would choose to tell Troi that "If you played at this skill level from now on, you might defeat me in seven moves, but of course your average skill level so far suggests an outcome where I defeat you in three to eleven moves after you make an amateur mistake, for example move your-".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Praetor]

"Data, if he has time to prepare."



So this implies that Troi is in some way smarter than Data, right?