[bigpooch]

Well, StregaChess' post on "the game" is a good summary of
the unusual events. Sure, I could be wrong about human
intervention, but I'll let others who have looked into this
carefully (if any) speak for themselves.

About chess analysis, it's true that every bot will look at
all positions up to a certain depth. The only problem is
that the "evaluation function(s)" are based on mechanical
calculation. A true world class chess analyst would have
better judgment, i.e., his "evaluation function(s)" is
better. Also, most world class players have a very good
"opening book", especially world class correspondence
players. Opening theory isn't as cut and dried as many
chess players might think.

Also, in the scenario I described, it's not really a very
good test of chess excellence for several reasons, so
apologies for poor experimental design! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

1) I assume all the participants would know something about
their opponents: their name, whether they are bot, previous
correspondence games. It's pretty clear everyone would
treat a bot as if it would play like a bot, etc., so there
would be some advantage to the human participants.

2) Well, I hate to bring this up, but the humans would have
a HUGE ADVANTAGE a la Russians versus Fischer, only now
there would be two "victims"!

3) Also, depends on where these bots originate from: if one
of them was a huge corporation, I think you might get the
picture.... (ok, it's even uglier than 2 above!).