Talk:Deep Blue (chess computer)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 January 2020 and 6 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): The Tanner B. Peer reviewers: Bobaylobor.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Down the Rabbit hole Due Weight

Is the fact that a youtube video was made about this really important to understand this event? Like, good for the guy who made it, but it seems somewhat out of place. Unless it leads to some larger discussion the match with Kasperov, I, at the moment, think it should be removed from the article. Argis113 (talk) 02:53, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. This seems more like advertisement. It should be enough if the video author's own wiki page links to the Deep Blue article, should he have one. Ludens123 (talk) 21:22, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Deleted. Also, you can just delete things like this yourself per WP:BRD. Rolf H Nelson (talk)

Reference for "In the opening book there were over 4,000 positions and 700,000 grandmaster games"?

The claim that Deep Blue contained 700,000 grandmaster games (back in the day!) sounded surprising to me, and does not have an explicit citation. Initially I was sceptical, but having looked through a bunch of the references to the article, I found a claim in the Hsu--Campbell "Deep Blue System Overview" (1995) paper (note date: this was presumably before the upgrade which got it beating Kasparov) that it had "an opening book created from a chess game database with 300,000 games". The paper does not seem to claim that they're grandmaster games, however if you're going to digitise games in 1995 then you may as well digitise grandmaster games, and note also that they are not claiming that all the games themselves are in the system, just that the 300,000 games were used to generate the opening book. Ultimately then, I am not suggesting that the claim is false, but I'd like to use this claim in a talk and I am a bit wary of citing it right now (I'll use the quote in the system overview pdf). Kevin Buzzard.

Easily too dump and unexperienced or even on low energy

Was the Prozessor too simple or even in Power Saving mode 2A00:20:3001:91E4:E8C3:6BCC:5765:A6C0 (talk) 23:07, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Deep Blue (chess computer)/GA3. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Bwoodcock (talk · contribs) 03:26, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Overall thoughts

The article is not GA quality yet. It fails to clearly and unambiguously address or answer a fundamental question up-front: Is this an expert system, implemented as software on general-purpose hardware, or implemented partially or wholly in hardware, or is it a machine-learning system? Clues are buried way down in the Aftermath/Chess section and in the Design section, but this is a fundamental deficiency in the article. In general, citations are well provided and structured.

Origins section

The two "Origins" paragraphs need copyediting by a native English speaker.

I have done so. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)}

Deep Blue versus Kasparov section

Use of the word "upgraded" is ambiguous and would seem to require further explication. Does it refer to more or faster hardware? Further training of a machine-learning system? Development of additional constraining rules?

Added more context. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 04:27, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

The word "mistake" is likewise ambiguous. Is this being used in its commonly-understood sense, as in, Kasparov meant to move a piece from one square to another, but mistakenly moved it to a different square? Or Kasparov meant to execute one strategy, but got confused and made a move from a different strategy instead? Or is this some chess term-of-art with some other meaning? After watching the documentary, it appears that the "mistake" was instead a defensive one, in falling for a relatively common ploy. Yet such ploys would not exist if people didn't fall for them. So the word "mistake" seems to mischaracterize the situation here.

Fixed, Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 04:46, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

The attribution of the information about the software bug to Nate Silver is incorrect. Silver's extensive Wikipedia article makes no mention of his having any expertise in chess, nor do search engines find anything of substance at the intersection of "Nate Silver" and "chess." I've just watched the short Silver documentary, and it's clear in context that he's merely reiterating what the interviewees have said, and which they in turn attribute to the Deep Blue team, or are in fact members of the Deep Blue team. So, that needs to be fixed.

Fixed, Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 05:00, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Aftermath/Chess section

The passive voice needs to be fixed. The repetition ("was the first computer to face a world chess champion in a formal match") needs to be fixed.

Fixed Repetition. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 03:58, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Fritz is referred to earlier out-of-context but is internally linked to an explanatory article. In this section, however, "Deep Fritz" is referred to without any explanation. Why is this relevant to an article about Deep Blue? Are they related somehow?

It's relevant to Deep Blue because the earlier mention Fritz beat the prototype of Deep Blue in 1995. In 2006 Deep Fritz (The "Upgraded" version of Fritz) beat a world champion with only searching 8 million positions compared to Deep Blue's 200 million. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 16:00, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

What's a "plie?"

Added info about it. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 04:52, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Aftermath/Cultural section

This section seems to be being used as a dumping-ground for trivia which hasn't been woven into a narrative. Which isn't a characteristic of a "good" article.

• • I've integrated this a bit more into the prose. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:29, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Design section

This finally gets to the meat of the article, in a burying-the-lede sort of way. It feels like a discussion of IBM's many cited refusals to disclose information would be worthwhile relative to the much different context of open-source development that obtains today. From a 21st-century perspective, that kind of caginess gives a "they must have had something to hide" sense, lending credibility to Kasparov's assertion of mechanical-turk intervention; but in the context of IBM as a slow-moving company in the mid-1990s, their behavior really wasn't that unusual. Proprietary closed-source software was still the norm, and trade secrecy was commonly employed and fought out in the courts.

The article seems close to GA. A thorough copyedit, some trimming of trivial factoids, and general promotion of core content up to the lede will get it there. A fun read, and the Nate Silver mini-documentary provided good context. Bill Woodcock (talk) 03:26, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Bwoodcock: Thanks for your review. I think me and Lee have fixed most of the problems. Feel free to add more comments. Thanks again. Best, Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 16:01, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Formal review

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	The writing is now clear, the organization is straight-forward, and it reads easily.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	"Aftermath" is a little dramatic, a more neutral section name might be appropriate. It might also be useful to separate the two Kasparov matches each under their own subheads.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	The references seem comprehensive, and they're well and clearly formatted. And relatively uniform in their formatting.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	The references cited to support the hardware architecture of the RS/6000 were in conflict. (fixed) Per this discussion Mental Floss is not a reliable source. (fixed) Apparently the New York Daily News isn't always a reliable source, but I don't see any problem with it here. Citing IBM's own publications about their own champion, or its importance or consequence, would be problematic, but as used in citation 36, regarding a matter of fact on something someone else did, I don't see a problem with it. It's a little hard to evaluate the reliability of the "Top 500 List" as a source, so if there are other sources that say something useful on the topic, which may have specifically validated claims, that would be great, but if not, this probably suffices. Everything else looks fine.
	2c. it contains no original research.	I don't spot any claims that aren't backed by a citation.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Appears to me to properly summarize its sources.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	The article doesn't appear to miss anything I think a casual reader would want to know. My first reading of it was frustrating because of vagueness on what exactly Deep Blue was, and I think some of that has been addressed with more detail in the Design section. For a modern reader, who'd be very used to something like this being implemented as a machine learning system trained on winning and losing sides of historical games, I think it would be very useful to point out that this is an expert system, and that its success depended upon evaluating the state of the board and comparing it to a lot of stored rules about how the game could subsequently play out, devised by experts.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	The article spends quite a lot of space on name-dropping, which won't be of interest to most readers, though may be useful to people researching and trying to follow up in more detail.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	I don't see any examples of bias, and the controversial issues are handled fairly and well.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	No evidence of any edit-warring here.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	Both seem plausible.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	The illustration situation is ok, under the circumstances. The lead photo is actually of half of the cabinet, in the Computer History Museum, so that's appropriate. The photo of Kasparov is from an unrelated and dissimilar match a decade earlier.
	7. Overall assessment.

• As a note, we don't use "further reading" if it contains sources used within the article. This is both a repository of Harvard references, and also a general list of references. I'd be against changing the name. I also wouldn't want subsections for the two games. We don't need subsections simply based on things being different, it should be a natural place to split the text. I don't think it's currently long enough to warrant a subsection. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:07, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

That all seems reasonable. Just wanted to make sure you'd considered the options and were making an intentional choice. Bill Woodcock (talk) 18:47, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

We can't really magic up an image of the computer itself if it doesn't exist on commons (the GA criteria doesn't force people to take images). However, we have added an image that may be helpful. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:19, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep, I'm well familiar with the problem, and recognize how frustrating it is, particularly when something's well covered in the news media and so forth. Not looking for magic, just wanted to make sure that it had your attention. Bill Woodcock (talk) 19:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Bwoodcock Yeah, It doesn't really need more images, plus there isn't really any pictures. I think with the picture we added it's good. I think we have done everything we needed to. Feel free to add more comments. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 19:47, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Bwoodcock We have copy-edited the prose. Feel free to check. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 20:22, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@The4lines: is the use of "drawn" in "it defeated Kasparov winning three and drawn one" a chess term-of-art? One would expect that to be "drawing" in regular English. In the past tense, "three won and one drawn" works, or without tense "winning three and drawing one" but if this isn't a term of art, it seems like it's mixing tenses. Bill Woodcock (talk) 12:06, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Bwoodcock Yeah it is. It means when a player has made the same moves, or is about to make the same move, three times in a row. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 15:06, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@The4lines: I understand what a "draw" is, and (now) I understand the formal definition of it in chess... My question is about agreement of tenses. Whether "drawn" means something different than the past tense of "draw," and what I gather from what you're saying is that, no, that's what it means. So do you want to make the tenses agree, between "won" and "drawn" or "winning" and "drawing"? I don't care which way you go, either is fine, it's just the mixing-and-matching that's grammatically problematic. Bill Woodcock (talk) 15:14, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Bwoodcock Looks like Lee is fixing it. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 15:36, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

- agreed. Changed. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:34, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Discrepancies regarding RS/6000 platform

It looks like there's some confusion regarding the hardware architecture, which is understandable given that it went through at least three major generations, but I think some clarification is warranted. This source describes the 1995 state, without going into much detail about which model of PowerStation was used, since that wasn't really the operative part. Then you've got this which seems quite clear, and was undoubtedly taken directly from an IBM press release that would have been checked for technical accuracy before it hit the wires. That says that they went from a PowerPC 604 High 1 to a PowerPC 604e High 2 and the dates match up. Contradicting that, you've got this Summers and Winters of Artificial Intelligence reference, which you quote as saying it was a POWER2 Thin model. Which could also be possible, given the dates, but I can't check the reference because I don't have the paper book. Then you've got a discrepancy between whether there were 30 processor nodes or 32 (I assumed 32 was the correct number and changed the single reference to 30 before I realized how deep the discrepancies were running), and whether there were 512 VLSIs, or 480 VLSIs, or 512x32=16,384, or 480x30=14,400. So, I'd like to see that cleared up with some references that I can check without buying a $600 book. And, yes, I get that all of this is incidental to chess. But not to the subject of the article, which is the first major intersection of chess and computing. Bill Woodcock (talk) 15:14, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm a little confused. As you say, there are contradicting sources. Is there something specific we don't say? We can't magic up a source that disproves one of these sources. You'll have to WP:AGF on the book source. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:36, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. The current values were added in this edit in 2004, overwriting previous values, one of which (32) agreed with the other sources. It was an IP edit, from an IP that's made no other edits, all of that predates the citation to a paper encyclopedia which now follows it. That citation (as well as a bunch of others) was added by Renamed user 5097696514 which is a permanently-blocked sockpuppet of a permanently-blocked account. So, we probably won't get very far trying to track that down. Er, no... the blocked sockpuppet just cleaned up and added detail to this previous edit by you, The4lines on 18 June 2020. In that edit, you replaced a citation to this PDF] which requires a password to get to, but is in the Archive here. This first-hand account is pretty clearly the source of the 30 and 480 numbers. It also says that the VLSI was a 32-bit device, it had about 148,000 gates, and there was a backup FPGA which they included in case they needed to patch the VLSI, but wound up not needing to use. He also says that it was a 0.6 micron (600µm) CMOS, which is very coarse, but was used for automotive applications in the 1990s, so would have been relatively inexpensive. So, I guess the question is, The4lines, why did you replace that citation, and what did the paper one say? Or do you want to roll back to the archived version of the original source? Bill Woodcock (talk) 16:35, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I went ahead and cleaned it up, so we can get this finished. Bill Woodcock (talk) 18:02, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Bwoodcock, Hey! Sorry I wasn’t able to fix it earlier, I’ve been busy all day, thanks for going ahead and fixing it. I would like to thank you for the review and the work you did. Best, Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 01:22, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The4lines, Lee Vilenski, my pleasure, glad it worked out, and thanks for your quick responses. I feel like the article is quite strong, and I'm glad that we were able to work through some of the discrepancies. Bill Woodcock (talk) 12:32, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Future direction worth mentioning?

I just noticed this article... It doesn't have direct bearing, but might be worth a mention regarding what direction things have taken since the time of Deep Blue... What direction that work has sent us. Bill Woodcock (talk) 12:37, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Full circle on describing Deep Blue as an "expert system"

I restored the longstanding lede description of Deep Blue as a supercomputer instead of the unhelpful relatively recent change to characterize it as an expert system. Chess playing computers have occasionally been described as expert systems, but that isn't especially common. The expert system article does not mention Deep Blue or chess playing computers or even any games playing computers at all. The link to the expert systems page didn't help the reader learn anything about Deep Blue at all. By contrast, the supercomputer article does mention Deep Blue specifically. The lede is supposed to summarize the important points in the body of the article, but "expert system" was mentioned nowhere except the lede. Quale (talk) 06:48, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

You just created self-reflexive nonsense. "Deep Blue was a chess-playing supercomputer run on a unique purpose-built IBM supercomputer." A computer is the hardware. An expert system is the software. Software runs on hardware. Hardware doesn't run on hardware. And hardware doesn't magically do anything without software. And appeals to antiquity are just a logical fallacy, not a supporting argument. Reverted. EVhotrodder (talk) 07:19, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Bug in 44th move

In the article it says on the 44th move in the first game of the second match there was a bug. The source is also talking about 1997, first game: "[...]referred to an incident that had occurred toward the end of the first game in their 1997 match with Kasparov". This is the first game of the 1997 match: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070915

44. Rb1 is the only valid move in this position. There is no other move. Where is the bug? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.250.206.130 (talk) 08:04, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

It makes no sense to me that Kasparov would be surprised when Deep Blue played the only possible move in this poition. Like, There are no other legal moves, so why should Kasparov be surprised. This makes no sense at all, something is not right here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.250.206.130 (talk) 08:07, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

44.Rb1 is in game 4 of the 1997 match. The 'bug' is 44...Rd1 in game 1 of that match. Your Chessgames.com link is game 4, not game 1. --IHTS (talk) 09:56, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Software types of Compare

the remark " The opening book encapsulated more than 4,000 positions and 700,000 grandmaster games " sets foot on a big compare that is impossible for a human being. is there any REAL information about the REAL software used? how many moved where result of a giant COMPARE function and how many maove were realy CALCUlated... instead of "holding up to the light and look for that one open pinchhole" but then very, very, very(etc) quick and are references or links to those computer routines ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.149.83.125 (talk) 17:13, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

"The system derived its playing strength mainly from brute force computing power"

I don't get the trend of classifying everything that has Alpha Beta search as brute force. Sure there is a large search and the speed (averaged) of 200 M positions per seconds is impressive but it is negligible compared to the search space. There is a great deal of smart pruning, I wouldn't call it mainly brute force.

Sources: [1]IBM’S DEEP BLUE CHESS GRANDMASTER CHIPS
Behind Deep Blue, Feng-hsiung Hsu
And related articles to 1. Pier4r (talk) 22:15, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 11 June 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Deep Blue (supercomputer) can be discussed separately. (closed by non-admin page mover) CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} (please mention me on reply) 01:57, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

---

• Deep Blue (chess computer) → Deep Blue
• Deep Blue → Deep Blue (disambiguation)

– Clear primary topic, by both page views and long term significance. Reviews of page views suggests the computer receives ten times the page views of all other Deep Blue's put together, and the long term significance of the others is negligible, while the long term significance of the computer - which revitalized optimism in the AI field - is significant. BilledMammal (talk) 10:57, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

• Weak support as primary topic just based on my quick review of the rest of the disambiguation page, although surprisingly Deep Blue (great white shark) is pretty competitive in terms of page views (even surpassing it one month). –CWenger (^ • @) 14:46, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The great white shark by the name of Deep Blue is not so obviously less notable that the computer is the primary topic by views or longterm significance. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:15, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The page views are inconclusive even without considering Shades of blue. Walt Yoder (talk) 18:44, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

  A note from the revision history: the chess computer was at Deep Blue (e|t|h|li|w|lo) until 2007, when a disambiguation page was created. Walt Yoder (talk) 18:44, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: It doesn't seem accurate that the computer receives ten times the page views; it is not much more than the shark. Maybe you can argue the computer is by far the most important in a more general sense of human knowledge, but while I agree it is the most important of the entries, I don't think it is so important in the history of the computing as to justify that. I also wonder if "Deep Blue (computer)" would be less of a mouthful and still sufficiently clear. Jmill1806 (talk) 23:23, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

  I would prefer Deep Blue (supercomputer), as that its predominant defining trait. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 10:59, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

• https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Deep_Blue indicates there were 458 or 418 incoming views of "Deep Blue" in May '23, and in turn 319 to the computer (~70% or ~76%), followed by a non-trivial amount of traffic to the shark and a few other topics. This kind of a ratio is typically not indicative of a conclusive primary topic by usage, but it's certainly possible to argue about it :) --Joy (talk) 14:29, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

  That may be because the first Wikipedia result from search engines like Google and Bing for Deep Blue is the computer, not the dab page. BilledMammal (talk) 02:12, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

• Comment @Zxcvbnm, Walt Yoder, and Jmill1806: Reviewing all page results (I had not expected the shark to have a significant number of views) we see that in the past year the computer has received 70% more views than all other articles put together (263,426 views to 153,231), and 150% more views than the next most viewed article, the shark (263,426 to 106,120). I believe this meets the requirement of "much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined".

I also don't see any reasonable claim for the shark to have similar long term significance to the computer. This can be seen by search for sources; the shark has news coverage and passing mentions in a couple of scholarly sources, while the computer has hundreds of scholarly articles and books written solely on it. It can also be seen in how the sources describe the two; sources describe the computer as a technological milestone; sources have made no such claims of significance about the shark or, I would bet, any other topic on this list. BilledMammal (talk) 02:12, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

150% more views is hardly a typical threshold to make something a primary topic. I would think more like 1000% more views or close to it. And dismissing "One of the largest great white sharks recorded" and an icon for shark conservation as a mere triviality indicates some bias towards the computer. I simply don't see an obvious primary topic here. Despite Deep Blue arguably being a bit more important, it's not enough to make it "obviously" the article that should take precedence. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 02:26, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

The threshold is "much more likely"; 150% more would appear to meet that. I'm also not seeing any claim that the shark is an icon for shark conversation; such a claim isn't included in the article and it isn't in any of the sources in the article. I would contrast that with the computer, which reliable sources regularly describe as a milestone and a major accomplishment, and I would also contrast that with the depth of coverage received in reliable sources; compared to the computer, the shark has received very little coverage. This tells us that sources accord the computer far greater significance; we should follow the sources. BilledMammal (talk) 03:07, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I was also surprised by the page-views for the shark. Clearly, no topic other than the chess computer could be the primary topic. But, overall, I see the evidence as people viewing it as more "historical trivia" than "a transformational impact to computing". (The separate issue of considering the primary topic separately for Deep Blue v. Deep blue is complicated, and I am happy to avoid commenting on it.) Walt Yoder (talk) 23:15, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.