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Comment by hemloc_io | Hacker News Reader

First thing I've seen from Google that gives me that old "Google" feeling of them shipping something cool and fun.

I agree it is cool and fun and nice to see. But the investment here seems minimal. Preexisting image generation capabilities (with a link to Imagen-3...) plus some "prompt engineering" slapped on top of https://github.com/josefjadrny/js-chess-engine.

oh I don’t think the investment is much, but similar to the dino game in chrome it’s just fun it’s delightful unlike a lot of genai stuff rn.

Nobody else did it.

At least they're now willing to publish these kinds of fun and creative things. Which was almost guaranteed to be blocked by one of approval chains for several years.

I was hoping that, with sufficient practice, a studious person might be able to beat a JS chess engine. However it looks like these engines are in the ELO range of 2500-3000, so unless you're a young teen with a few years to spare for improving your chess score, it's probably not possible. Even for a smart teen, it would be a stretch goal.

if "with a bit of practice" extends to "with a bit of research"

folks used to beat engines by playing lines that the engines could not calculate correctly. you could probably find lots options to play that give you an advantage, though youd still want a pretty good elo to pull it off

That’s not really a thing anymore. Humans now can’t beat engines even with anti-engine techniques.

Maybe... but being able to play "anti-computer chess" (lots of subtle moves that have very small perceived advantages) hasn't been a particularly viable strategy since Kasparov's loss to Deep Blue in the 90s.

Jonathan Schrantz has videos beating stockfish (not full strength, more like the JS version) a couple years ago using specifically anti-computer preparation.

Thanks for the recommendation - I'd be interested to see that. Stockfish is no patzer.

If that rating is accurate for these JS chess engines, even a motivated young teenager practicing and studying continuously for years STILL doesn't guarantee that they'd be able to beat it. 2500+ is the realm of GM level chess.

There's only a couple thousand chess grandmasters IN THE WORLD.

No human has ever reached 2900.

A handful (Magnus, Hikaru) have had official FIDE Rapid and Blitz ratings over 2900 though none at the moment.

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