You don’t have a chance against big computers unless you are a grandmaster. Their memory capacity and heuristics are too powerful. This kind however, was a primitive program operating operated on the materialistic criteria. Thus, it should be greedy, eager to grab pieces and space. My chance was to turn an advantage into a disadvantage, to make its greed an unstoppable craving, an obsession, leading to its demise.
“Tell me the score.”
“Eighty to twenty in his favor,” my wife said. She now had a cup of coffee too. Beside her my manager hovered restlessly, murmuring to himself.
“ I will lose all my soldi if the computer wins!”
“Relax, man, the coffee is doing its job. Just collect the bids.”
It wasn’t so bad. I estimated the position to be close to equal. But I should not let it to the full equality. This is the Lasker’s strategy. The immigrant champion was famous for making the games deliberately overcomplicated, even to his disadvantage, so that his powerful personality and persistence made it possible to overcome the opponent psychologically. In my case it was a greedology, testing the limits of the machine’s appetite. The secret was to maintain the instability.
“Something is happening,” said my wife. ”The electronic tabloid is flashing and there are words appearing. I don’t understand them. Oh boy, what’s that?”
Voices of the people all shouting at the same time mixed with the rumbling of glasses and cups thrown on the floor. The old dog that slept there since World War II jumped up and started barking. My manager grabbed my wife and started to kiss her.
“Excusato,” he panted between the kisses. “Forgive me. The machine resigned. You won!”
A group of men in suites and ties approached us. They were waving papers and making angry gestures.
“They lost money and don’t understand why it happened. The computer was optimistic all the time and then it unexpectedly resigned. They think it is broken or the game was fixed.”
“Do they play scacci?”
“ Si, like me.”
“Let me show them. Give me a piece of paper, please.”
We sat together around the chess board. I felt myself among the Knights of the Round Table with their swords drawn.
“This is called a tree of thought.” I said, drawing. “The computer thinks linearly. Its tree grows up protruding the branches towards the sun. Once it started it has an irresistible strife to expand upwards. The human brain works more like an ivy. It sprawls around, spirals, goes back, reconsiders and builds feedback. The computer craves simplicity; the human player gains on the controversy. See, there are at least four ways for me to win.”
