Presumably an April Fool's joke

[Jeremy Bernstein]

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8047

Actually much more than “gazillions” – something in the order of 10^100, which is vastly more than the number of elementary particles in the universe. Obviously we could not go through all of them – nobody and nothing will ever be able to do that. But: you do not have to check every continuation. It’s similar to Alpha-Beta, which looks at a very small subset of possible moves but delivers a result that is identical to what you would get if you looked at every single move, down to the specified depth.

[Event "Rybka/IBM cluster"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2012.04.01"]
[Round "?"]
[White "King's Gambit solved"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C33"]
[PlyCount "7"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Be2 $1 {The only move that leads to a draw.} (3.
Bc4 Nf6 $1 {and White loses.}) (3. Nf3 {is indeed winning for Black.} d6 $1
{The only winning move - everything else allows White to escape with a draw.}
({For instance the more popular} 3... g5 {allows White to draw after} 4. h4
$1) {In fact , Fischer's main line holds up incredibly well:} 4. Bc4 h6 $1 5.
d4 g5 $1 {(an exclam denotes any move which gives a better theoretical result
than every alternative)}) 3... d5 4. exd5 $1 {and White can hold a draw against
any attack Black can play.} 1/2-1/2

[BB+]

Let's just say that I was a bit surprised to see a link to "Order Rybka 4" at the bottom. Making an April Fool's joke is one thing -- making such a joke/promotion about a product you are selling is another. Here is the EU Directive on Misleading and Comparative Advertising.

Article 2: For the purposes of this Directive:

(a) "advertising" means the making of a representation in any form in connection with a trade, business, craft or profession in order to promote the supply of goods or services, including immovable property, rights and obligations;

(b) "misleading advertising" means any advertising which in any way, including its presentation, deceives or is likely to deceive the persons to whom it is addressed or whom it reaches and which, by reason of its deceptive nature, is likely to affect their economic behaviour or [...]

The German implementation of such directions is available here (and in English translation).

[Harvey Williamson]

It seems in this CB reply http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8067 they miss the point. The problem is not the joke but the pinning of a Rybka advert at the bottom.

[BB+]

I also find it a bit curious that various web-archive versions of the CB piece (correctly) list David Ferrucci as the Senior Manager of the Semantic Analysis and Integration Department [see below], while later versions now jocosely interpose "David Slate" (presumably of Chess 4.x fame). Maybe they suddenly realised that dragging in "real people" from IBM was not too wise?

[BB+]

Here is another flaw:

Some readers were not so convinced that the method was impossible. Why couldn't the pruning of the tree, using Rybka set with a plausible evaluation window, produce a result with the awesome hardware mentioned in the article. [...]
Once you have the possibility of a drawn outcome, or claim that you have found a forced drawing move, the numbers involved become galactic – many, many orders of magnitude bigger than anything we can envision.

ChessBase/Rajlich claims that proving something is a draw is orders of magnitude more difficult than proving a win. At the level of credulity, this should indeed be the case (as per KenT's comment). But the idea that "proving draws is too hard" does not need to be true in a specific given case.

Indeed, we all know positions where proving a draw is easy: every move for White except one loses quickly [perhaps in the RybkaWatson 5.12 sense], then the same for Black, etc. After a few moves, it's a draw by repetition. QED.

The unspoken assumption which seems to have tripped VR/CB up is to assume that drawn positions "typically" have many drawing moves. Then indeed there would a tree explosion. But given that we need to suspend disbelief in the first place, I don't see any particular reason (other than to make his explanation work) that one shouldn't conclude that after 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Be2 d5 4. exd5, that after a suitably large tree search of depth 25-30 or something, both sides are essentially forced to quickly seek a repetition, as else a quick loss would ensue.

[kingliveson]

April: Rybka Capitalists rely to ChessBase boomers unto hoaxery (Pago)! Emission failure (5) deems in rigidity, yet Fat Propaganda buys only with turdy.

http://ippolit.wikispaces.com/History

Say what?

[Jeremy Bernstein]

April: Rybka Capitalists rely to ChessBase boomers unto hoaxery (Pago)! Emission failure (5) deems in rigidity, yet Fat Propaganda buys only with turdy.

http://ippolit.wikispaces.com/History

Say what?

Comrades Propaganda affords the tall giraffery! Haha!

There is some brilliant writing on this page. Love it!

jb

[hyatt]

April: Rybka Capitalists rely to ChessBase boomers unto hoaxery (Pago)! Emission failure (5) deems in rigidity, yet Fat Propaganda buys only with turdy.

http://ippolit.wikispaces.com/History

Say what?

Comrades Propaganda affords the tall giraffery! Haha!

There is some brilliant writing on this page. Love it!

jb

Had no idea Rolf was writing for a Wiki.