Young Russian beats AlphaGo

John Fairbairn · #1

Yes - the title's a bit of a con. But I was so impressed by little Mikhail Osipov that I thought his achievement excelled that of AlphaGo. In his mere three years Misha has had to learn to talk, walk and chew food. with a tiny programming team - mainly Mummy Kseniya. Despite that he has found time to play astounding chess. See him on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTSfq9V3rZw

It helps to know Russian and chess, but even without those I think any games player will enjoy Misha, much to his surprise, taking on world champ Anatoliy Karpov. The tv show is called "Best of Them All" and is about prodigies.

He played a blitz game with clocks and dealt with all the distracting chat. After the game he sliced through several hard problems (well, one was too hard for me), and incidentally showed that he's mastered chess notation as well.

For me (who gave up chess mainly because of chess players) it was nice to see a nice chess guy again in Karpov. I've met him and have always thought he's a really pleasant guy. This show confirms that. But note from his eyes how he stays on pro alert - e.g. keeping an eye on the clock. Misha, for his part, reminded me also of Liao Xingwen, who hasn't made it to the top yet - but Misha still has a couple of years head-start on him.

Spoiler safe-deposit box for after the video:

Incidentally, where does this leave the 10,000 hours theory?

dfan · #2

Looking at the game, I'd guess he's around the equivalent of 10k (say 1200?), not 1d or something.

I also assume the problems at the end were learned in advance, because if he could really solve them all instantly he'd be much, much stronger than was demonstrated by the game. I'd be more impressed if he took 30 seconds to think first, because then there would be a chance that he really was solving them on the fly! Still: 1) he certainly may have solved them all on his own on the way to memorizing them, and 2) just being able to recall the moves is something.

I'm mostly impressed that he is able to play a reasonable game of chess without tactical blunders at the age of 3. I was playing at 3 but I'm sure he's significantly better! There are certainly plenty of casual-playing adults he could beat now.

As far as his future goes, I would happily bet even odds that he will eventually be an IM (analogous to 1p I guess), but I wouldn't want to predict anything more yet. For one thing, there's a not insignificant chance he will lose interest at some point.

Joaz Banbeck · #3

This was on reddit a few weeks back.

someone on reddit wrote:

For those who don't speak Russian, a little funny part:
Host: Be honest, are you sandbagging?
Karpov: Me? I would never
Host: No, I'm asking Misha

EdLee · #4

someone on reddit wrote:

For those who don't speak Russian, a little funny part:
Host: Be honest, are you sandbagging?
Karpov: Me? I would never
Host: No, I'm asking Misha

Maybe 06:11 - 06:17.

Beginner chess question (spoiler):

( Look forward to high quality machine translation of all human dialogues.

)

DrStraw · #5

EdLee wrote:

someone on reddit wrote:

For those who don't speak Russian, a little funny part:
Host: Be honest, are you sandbagging?
Karpov: Me? I would never
Host: No, I'm asking Misha

Maybe 06:11 - 06:17.

Beginner chess question (spoiler):

( Look forward to high quality machine translation of all human dialogues.

)

I know almost nothing about chess, but I thought pawns could only change column by capturing. So how come there are three of them in a column if only one black piece has been captured?

EdLee · #6

DrStraw wrote:

hyperpape · #7

I am roughly 1000 in chess (aka weaker than the boy), and I know that doubled pawns are a classical bad shape (they can't defend each other). I have never seen tripled ones.

dfan · #8

EdLee wrote:

Beginner chess question (spoiler):

hyperpape wrote:

I am roughly 1000 in chess (aka weaker than the boy), and I know that doubled pawns are a classical bad shape (they can't defend each other). I have never seen tripled ones.

Doubled pawns are "bad shape", and as in go, they are not so great all other things being equal, but in many situations their benefits outweigh their shortcomings. I think many beginning players have an irrational fear of doubled pawns because it is an easy-to-remember rule. Tripled pawns are uncommon but not incredibly rare.

gowan · #9

Given that the boy is only three years old it is amazing that he can even play at all, let alone play with a clock in the stressful environment of the show. No surprise that he lost it and called for his mother at one point. I was also impressed with his articulate spoken Russian at an age when many children can hardly speak grammatically.

schawipp · **#10**

EdLee wrote:

Beginner chess question (spoiler):

Edit:

dfan · **#11**

Charlie · **#12**

After watching it in Russian, I now really want a version with subtitles that I can read - English or German, that is, not Russian or YouTube-auto-translate. It was a great watch, anyway, but I fear that 102% of the humour was in the dialogue.

ohyou · **#13**

I'm 90% sure this is fake. Showing "prodigy kids" is a mainstream in Russia. Recently a 9yo kid won "Who wants to be a millionaire" without even thinking about questions for longer than 30 seconds. Also recently another ~12yo kid won some singing competition.

Everything you see on this show is almost always fake. I'd be surprised if this kid at least knows all the chess pieces, let alone knowing how to play. Also please note how they cut the camera shot for every single move, somebody was probably saying the kid what to do inbetween the moves.

Source: I'm Russian and my parents watch this bs TV show every now and then, and we can't help ourselves but wonder how much effort they put into faking everything in the show.

Young Russian beats AlphaGo

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