Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 15

Variety Minneapolis Star and Tribune CO k. CO cn Tuesday August 241982 CO GOOD DATE OF oo a SALE ONLY CO Computers near supremacy across the chessboard I By Nicholas D.Kristof Washington Post Playing a perfect game of chess is possible in theory. Just work out and memorize the best move for each of the 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible positions in a chess game. Then you've got it made. The only drawback is that such a task would take even the fastest computer longer than the universe has existed.

That's quite a while to wait for your opponent to make a first move. It's not much consolation that every subsequent move would be instantaneous. That is one reason why computers may never play the perfect game of chess. But it's best to avoid the word 'never' 'when discussing computers and chess. When the first computer chess program was written in 1953, it was crude and easily defeated.

Even when an improved program began defeating some tournament players in the mid-1960s, a lot of people scoffed. Now computer chess has come into its own, with the ability to defeat more than 99 percent of all players. Only masters and grandmasters are safe for now, and no one knows for how long. The best computer programs are playing at master level or slightly below. The Mississippi state chess champion is a computer that defeated a master to win the title.

That computer program is rated a provisional master, and another based in New Jersey plays even better. In 10 years or 20 or 30 or longer a computer will be world chess champion, according to many experts. Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh has offered a $100,000 Fredkin Prize to the programmer of the first computer that wins the world championship. The interest on the prize money is used for other prizes and competitions in computer chess. The prospect of some microchips surpassing the best human at the chessboard is daunting and controversial.

"There's no question that (the Fredkin Prize) will be won," said Hans Berliner, a computer scientist at Carnegie-Mellon and former world champion of correspondence chess, "it'll certainly happen in. this century; my guess is about 1 990. Robert M. Hyatt, a computer instructor at the University of Southern Mississippi and programmer of the state champion, said a computer triumph over the world champion is inevitable, probably within 20 years. "I don't see it as good or bad," he said.

"I notice we still have the Kentucky Derby even after we have cars. I assume we'll always have chess." But Edmar Mednis, an international grandmaster who lives in New York, said computers never will challenge the best human players. "I think a computer can never do what we can do," he said. Good chess, Mednis noted, requires enormous insight into such intangibles as improved playing positions. A player's decision whether to advance a pawn or to castle or to accept a gambit may be based not on numerical calculations but on intuition about better positions.

These intuitions, Mednis said, are based on some fundamental principles keep knights away from the edge of the board, dominate the center but they cannot be applied as hard-and-fast rules because the situation may dictate an exception. i Mednis said computers are superb for looking ahead several moves and avoiding some kinds of stupid errors, but he doubted that programs will ever threaten a world champion with consummate understanding of the game. "It's damn good, really, but just because you're damn good doesn't mean you'll be world champion," he said. "Just because a person can run a mile in four minutes doesn't mean he can run it in two. The going gets tougher, and I think that is this situation, too." A British international master, David Levy, won a famous bet he made in 1968 that a computer could not beat him within 10 years.

In 1978, Levy renewed that bet for only five years, and has had no takers. Levy, who runs a computer game company, didn't make the renewal for 10 years because soon his own computer programs will be able to beat him at the game, said Levy's business partner, Kevin O'Connell. The world champion in computer chess is Belle, programed by Ken Thompson and Joseph H. Condon of Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. Belle relies upon what is known in the Chess 3B I Name Game judges withstand punishment of 500 entrants Stove Lawrence and Eaty Gourmet, husband and wife cooking team David Rickert, Minneapolis Maureen Staplegun, reupholsterer Judi DeGonda, Deephaven Muffy Letta, preppy restaurateur Peter Engebretson, Burnsville Abra Cadaver, magician and mortician Gene Hetland, Sioux Falls, S.D.

Pope John Paul George Ringo, singing pontiff from Liverpool Kimberly Andrea Cope, Owatonna Salvadoortodoor Dali, traveling art salesman Phil Hilker, Minneapolis Art C. Crafty, art and craft shopowner Mrs. E.C. Trisko, Plymouth Sigmund Droid, robot psychologist Bill Bethell, Minneapolis Alfred Lord Tennisanyone, Wimbledon's poet laureate Michael Hixson, Minneapolis entries: Chestee Lauder, Dolly Parton's publicist Selma Albrecht, Brooklyn Center Perry A. Water, trendy public utilities commissioner Angelo Gentile, Duluth Dewey Hafta, taught course on procrastination Kevin Lynch, Lakeville Bert Crackaback, chiropractor Sharon Rowles, New Hope Sh Sh GaBore, librarian Margaret Robinson, Minneapolis Gunar D.

Gudoldays, Scandinavian historian Robert J. Worrall, Minneapolis Urethra Franklin, funky urologist J.W.Peck, Edina Pronto Pup, valedictorian graduate of the police canine corps Nancy Westerberg, Bloomington Dixie Cups, Alabama bra maker Linda Rickert, Minneapolis Cindy Pierson of Shoreview found the Name Game a very moooo-ving experience. To her udder delight, she milked the contest for the first place prize of an electric fan with her entry: Helen Guernsey Brown, editor of Cowsmopolitan Magazine. "Please send it right away," she buttered-up the judges, "because we don't have air conditioning." The challenge of the game was to twist a famous name or word into a new name that reflected a job. Pierson's entry was the cream of more than 2,000 entries sent in by about 500 readers.

People not crying over spilt milk are three entrants who tied for second place. They each will receive a supply of lemonade. The entries were: Spick N. Spannaus, clean politician Linda Hammer, Minneapolis hee hee Cummings, limerick writer Howard and Nicki Haugh, Mankato Oscar de la Rentals.U-Haul dealer Pam Johnson, Minneapolis The rest of these were skimmed from the many Metromedia planning to jilt Channel 1 1 run off with Chicago station Metromedia reportedly is unloading WTCN-TV to acquire WFLD-TV, an independent UHF station in Chicago. An article in last week's Broadcasting magazine speculated that the price tag on WFLD-TV is $125 million, which would be the most ever paid for an independent station.

The deal could be more complicated. Metromedia also is believed to be ready to announce the sale of WXIX-TV in Cincinnati, where a staff meeting has been called for today. And Metromedia reportedly is interested in buying Detroit's WKBD-TV, another independent station on the UHF dial. Field Communications owns both the Chicago and Detroit independent stations. Metromedia, which is headquartered in New Jersey, is in a position where it must sell a station in order to buy another one.

That's because Federal Communications Commission regulations limit an owner to seven TV stations, and Metromedia already operates seven. No one Monday would confirm the supposed agreement. WTCN-TV's general manager, Raymond Schonbak, couldn't be reached for comment. Eric Block, the station's promotion manager, said, "At this Metromedia the owner of WTCN-TV (Channel 1 1), is expected to announce this week perhaps today that it is selling Channel 1 1 so that it can buy a TV station in Chicago. A New York source, who asked not to be identified, said Monday that Metromedia would sell Channel 1 1 to the Atlanta-based Gannett Broadcasting Group.

Gannett will pay $93 million for WTCN-TV, according to rumors circulating in the Twin Cities. However, the New Yorkource said that figure is too high. A price of about $80 million is likelier. point, we have received no off icial confirmation one way or the other." Block said no staff meeting had been scheduled tor today. Metromedia reportedly considered selling Channel 1 1 last year.

Instead, it sold KMBC-TV in Kansas City, for $79 million, so that it could buy WCVB-TV in Boston for a record-setting $220 million. Acquisition of Chicago's WFLD-TV and Detroit's WKBD-TV would give Metromedia stations in five of the nation's 10 biggest television markets New York, Los Angeles, Carman 3B John Carman.