卡爾森 戰勝電腦的國象大師

Magnus Carlsen’s triumph over Viswanathan Anand on Sunday allowed the 23-year-old Norwegian to retain his crown as world chess champion.
週日，23歲的挪威人馬格努斯•卡爾森(Magnus Carlsen)大勝維斯瓦納坦•阿南德(Viswanathan Anand)，成功衛冕國際象棋世界冠軍。

Yet it was the remarkable way in which Mr Carlsen defeated his Indian opponent that has reinforced the view in fiercely competitive, top-level chess that he is simply the best the game has ever seen.
然而，最令人印象深刻的，是卡爾森打敗其印度對手的方式。在競爭激烈的國際象棋頂級賽事中，他的取勝方式再次證明，他是國際象棋比賽有史以來的最佳選手。

He won without a huge team of seconds, or assistants, to feed him new ideas and without a room stuffed with supercomputers to prepare game plans in advance.
在比賽過程中，沒有龐大的助手團隊爲他提供新的思路，事先也沒有一屋子超級電腦爲他籌備競賽計劃。

His victory was, as Frederic Friedel, co-founder of the Chessbase chess software company, put it, “like a tennis player turning up to Wimbledon with an ancient wooden racket – and winning”.
正如Chessbase國際象棋軟件公司的共同創始人弗雷德裏克•弗裏德爾(Frederic Friedel)所說，卡爾森的勝利，“就像一名網球選手帶着老式木質球拍出現在溫布爾頓並取得了勝利”。

Computers and the number-crunching analysis they provide have become a regular feature of the highest levels of chess for more than a decade. Top players rely on them to generate the theoretical novelty that can provide a telling advantage in the opening.
十多年來，提供計算機和大批量數據分析，已成爲國際象棋頂級賽事的常規服務。最高水平的選手依賴這些服務提供創意，從而在開局中取得有效的優勢地位。

In 2010, as he prepared to fight for the world chess crown against Anand, the Bulgarian grandmaster Veselin Topalov revealed that he was using IBM’s Blue Gene/P supercomputer, decked with 8,192-processors, to help prepare some tailor-made openings.
2010年，在籌備與阿南德的國際象棋世界冠軍爭奪戰時，保加利亞特級大師維塞林•託帕洛夫(Veselin Topalov)曾透露，他正在使用IBM生產的擁有8192個處理器的藍色基因/P(Blue Gene/P)超級計算機，幫助他準備某些量身定製的開局。

Anand, meanwhile, admitted that the desktop of one of his main seconds looked “like a pilot’s cockpit”.
與此同時，阿南德也承認，他一名主要助手的桌面看起來“就像飛行員的駕駛艙”。

Such an approach is logical in a game so complex that players arrive at one of 9m possible positions after just three moves each – and one in which there are more possible unique chess games than neutrons in the physical universe.
對國際象棋這樣複雜的比賽而言，這種應對方式有其道理。據統計，在僅僅走過三步之後，每位選手就面臨900萬種可能的棋局。國際象棋中的可能棋局數，超過了宇宙中的中子數。

As Mr Carlsen said with some understatement following one of last week’s games, “chess, in general, is more difficult than other things”.
正如卡爾森上週在一場比賽後略爲謙虛的說法：“總體上說，國際象棋比其他事情都難一些。”

But the man who regularly plays in ripped jeans and has a reputation for slouching in his chair during matches does not rely on computer analysis nearly as much as his opponents and pays relatively little attention to opening theory.
不過，這位慣於在打比賽時身着乞丐裝牛仔褲、並以懶洋洋靠在椅上而聞名的選手，並不像他的對手那樣依賴計算機分析。他對開局理論的關注幾乎爲零。

“With the modern computer age, there are some new ideas,” he said a couple of years ago. “But the principles are basically the same . . . I try not to over-focus on preparation.”
幾年前，他曾表示：“在當代這個計算機時代，確實存在某些新的想法。不過其中的原理從根本上說是一樣的……我努力不去把過多注意力放在籌備方面。”

The result of this old-school approach has turned modern chess on its head. Whereas computer analysis has raised the relative importance of the opening for most players, Mr Carlsen has relegated it. He looks instead to win a game later on via the steady and patient accumulation of sometimes almost imperceptible advantages.
這一舊的學院派方法取得的戰果令當代國際象棋十分尷尬。儘管對多數選手來說，計算機分析提高了開局的相對重要性，卡爾森卻不那麼看重開局。相反，他關注的是如何穩定而耐心地積累優勢——有時候這種優勢甚至難以察覺，在後面的比賽過程中取得勝利。

“The space that chess occupies is so gigantic that in spite of all the computer work done today, you can get out of it,” says Mr Friedel, who occasionally chaperoned Mr Carlsen at tournaments when he was a teenager. “Magnus goes off into sidelines . . . then he just outplays people. It is extraordinary and amazing.”
少年時代曾偶爾在錦標賽中陪伴卡爾森的弗裏德爾表示：“國際象棋的博弈空間太過巨大，儘管今天計算機能完成許多判斷，你仍可跳出它的思路。馬格努斯跳了出來……並在之後的比賽中大獲全勝。這是非比尋常而讓人驚歎的。”

That he is able to do so is evidence of his raw talent. A grandmaster at 13, he became the world’s strongest player at just 19 and has remained there. In May, he reached an “Elo” rating of 2,882 – the highest a human being has ever achieved.
他能做到這一點，證明了他天生的天分。這位13歲當上特級大師的選手在僅僅19歲時就成爲全球最強的國際象棋選手，並一直保持在這種高水平狀態。今年5月，他的“Elo”等級分達到2882分，這是人類選手曾獲得的最高分。

Asked in 2012 how he played so well, he replied modestly, “I don’t know . . . the game somehow comes naturally”.
2012年，在被問到爲何他棋藝如此高超時，他回答得十分謙虛：“我不知道……我就是自然而然地想到了應手。”