Anti-computer tactics

Anti-computer tactics is a style of play used by humans to beat strong computers opponents at various games, especially in board games such as chess and Arimaa. It involves playing conservatively for a long-term advantage that the computer is unable to find in its game tree search. This will frequently involve selecting moves that are believed to be sub-optimal in order to exploit known weaknesses in the way computer players evaluate positions.

In chess

One example of the use of anti-computer tactics was Brains in Bahrain, an eight-game chess match between human chess grandmaster, and then World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik and the computer program Deep Fritz 7, held in October 2002. The match ended in a tie 4-4, with two wins for each participant and four draws.

Unusual opening

In 1997 Garry Kasparov played an anti-computer tactic move at the start of the game to get Deep Blue out of its opening book. Kasparov chose the unusual Mieses Opening and thought that the computer would play the opening poorly if it had to play itself rather than use its opening book. Kasparov played similar anti-computer openings in the other games of the match but the tactic backfired.

Anti-computer chess games

• Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue (Computer) IBM Man-Machine, New York USA 1997
• Garry Kasparov vs X3D Fritz (Computer) Man-Machine World Chess Championship 2003
• Rybka (Computer) vs Hikaru Nakamura ICC blitz 3 0 2008

Read more:

• Human-computer chess matches
• Arimaa - A game inspired by Kasparov's loss to Deep Blue in 1997.