Anti-computer tactics

Anti-computer tactics is a style of play used by humans to beat strong computer 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 appear sub-optimal in the short term in order to exploit known weaknesses in the way computer players evaluate positions.

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.

In the 1997 Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov match, 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.

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