TREK's best chess player?

[USS Triumphant]

Chess is a mathmatically solvable game. Which means that, by the 23rd century, any computer should know how to win or at least force a draw in a chess game against ANY opponent. We're actually close to having computers capable of this, now.

So the answer to whom would be Trek's best chess player, assuming we're only talking about crewpersons from the hero ships, would be Data. Barclay in "The Nth Degree" might have briefly been an exception, but that would only have been based on the speed with which he could calculate his moves - the outcome of a game between Data and him would still have been inevitable math.

For all we know, Vulcan schoolchildren learn chess solutions like our children learn multiplication tables. But I doubt it, or there would have been no challenge for Spock to play Kirk. Maybe Vulcan math skills are somewhere between those of a human and a current-era PC - in which case, it is still pretty impressive that Kirk ever beat him. Maybe Spock was accepting a handicap. Or maybe Spock was also capable of mathmatically solving the game, and played specifically to allow Kirk to win sometimes as encouragement to his captain.

Another possibility is that 3D chess, unlike conventional chess, includes some element that makes it significantly less solvable - random elements like dice rolls, for example.

 

[Anticitizen]

Another possibility is that 3D chess, unlike conventional chess, includes some element that makes it significantly less solvable - random elements like dice rolls, for example.

Spock landed on the 'chance' spot, and his card told him to 'to to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go...'

 

[Captrek]

Chess is a mathmatically solvable game. Which means that, by the 23rd century, any computer should know how to win or at least force a draw in a chess game against ANY opponent. We're actually close to having computers capable of this, now.

This is not true. It is true that we can build computers that can beat the best human chess players on the planet, due to sophisticated evaluation functions and powerful brute-force look-ahead computations. However, those computers could still be beaten by more powerful computers. We are nowhere near mathematically solving the game, and the Wikipedia article you link to states, “The question of whether or not chess can be perfectly solved in the future is controversial.”

Another possibility is that 3D chess, unlike conventional chess, includes some element that makes it significantly less solvable - random elements like dice rolls, for example.

I think the element that makes it less solvable is that it’s vastly more complex.

In “Whom Gods Destroy,” it is stated that there are virtually an infinite number of possible responses to a single opening move. While this is surely rhetorical excess, there are probably a lot more than the few reasonable responses to any single opening move in conventional chess.

Also, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” has an exchange that makes no sense at all if 3D chess is considered to be very similar to conventional chess. Spock tells Kirk that he is one move from mating him. Kirk makes a move and Spock immediately knows he has been had. He later complains that Kirk played illogically.

How is it that Spock thinks he has the game won, but when Kirk shows him his move it takes Spock less than a second to realize he was wrong? That suggests that Kirk’s move is one that Spock had not considered, even for a second, before Kirk showed it to him. Why?

Here’s my fanwank: In 3D chess, the number of moves available at any given turn is so large that a humanoid brain with only a few minutes to think can’t consider all of them, even for a second each. There are logical heuristics that narrow the large set of possible moves down to a much smaller set of moves worth thinking about. Kirk’s move was one from a whole class of moves that should have been eliminated by those heuristics before any of them were even considered.

 

[Anticitizen]

How is it that Spock thinks he has the game won, but when Kirk shows him his move it takes Spock less than a second to realize he was wrong? That suggests that Kirk’s move is one that Spock had not considered, even for a second, before Kirk showed it to him. Why?

Easy.

When Spock's back was turned, Kirk 'reprogrammed' the conditions of the game (by quickly repositioning a few pieces) so it was possible to win the game.

He doesn't like to lose.

 

[Captrek]

How is it that Spock thinks he has the game won, but when Kirk shows him his move it takes Spock less than a second to realize he was wrong? That suggests that Kirk’s move is one that Spock had not considered, even for a second, before Kirk showed it to him. Why?

Easy.

When Spock's back was turned, Kirk 'reprogrammed' the conditions of the game (by quickly repositioning a few pieces) so it was possible to win the game.

He doesn't like to lose.

Spock’s back was never turned during the scene in question, but maybe his inner eyelids were closed.

 

[RobertScorpio]

How is it that Spock thinks he has the game won, but when Kirk shows him his move it takes Spock less than a second to realize he was wrong? That suggests that Kirk’s move is one that Spock had not considered, even for a second, before Kirk showed it to him. Why?

Easy.

When Spock's back was turned, Kirk 'reprogrammed' the conditions of the game (by quickly repositioning a few pieces) so it was possible to win the game.

He doesn't like to lose.

Spock’s back was never turned during the scene in question, but maybe his inner eyelids were closed.

Nope..Kirk had some red matter and changed the time contiuumm!

Rob

 

[USS Triumphant]

“The question of whether or not chess can be perfectly solved in the future is controversial.”

The link you posted does not say anything about whether a full solution is possible (it is, and the fact that it is is pretty easy to demonstrate - you don't have to know the values, just that every value involved is finite and non-random, and they all are). It discusses a debate as to whether or not a perfect game, played by white, would result in a win or a draw.

 

[Captrek]

“The question of whether or not chess can be perfectly solved in the future is controversial.”

The link you posted does not say anything about whether a full solution is possible (it is, and the fact that it is is pretty easy to demonstrate - you don't have to know the values, just that every value involved is finite and non-random, and they all are). It discusses a debate as to whether or not a perfect game, played by white, would result in a win or a draw.

Chess is a mathematically solvable game in principle. There’s no argument there. The question is whether, in practice, it can actually be solved, even in the future. Quantum mechanics places a theoretical limit on how much conventional (Turing machine) computing power can be packed into a given volume of space. Many people have argued that it would take the most powerful possible Earth-sized computer far longer than the age of the universe to solve chess.

 

[RobertScorpio]

“The question of whether or not chess can be perfectly solved in the future is controversial.”

The link you posted does not say anything about whether a full solution is possible (it is, and the fact that it is is pretty easy to demonstrate - you don't have to know the values, just that every value involved is finite and non-random, and they all are). It discusses a debate as to whether or not a perfect game, played by white, would result in a win or a draw.

Chess is a mathematically solvable game in principle. There’s no argument there. The question is whether, in practice, it can actually be solved, even in the future. Quantum mechanics places a theoretical limit on how much conventional (Turing machine) computing power can be packed into a given volume of space. Many people have argued that it would take the most powerful possible Earth-sized computer far longer than the age of the universe to solve chess.

Great conversation going on here...I love it!! Keep it going!

Rob