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How can chess strategy be applied to Counter Strike? How does probability play apart in your team's ability to win the round? GotFrag chess expert baka answers this and more in this article.  Disclaimer: Please do not take this piece too literally. Many have fallen into such a hole and have criticized this article for providing a poor comparison. We can compare chess with anything; likewise, we can compare Counter-Strike with everything. If you truly believe that you can compare egg tossing with Counter-Strike as well as I can provide a contrast between Counter-Strike and chess, and that you can show just as strong a correlation, as ranged of an extrapolation, and as profound of a rationale, then please do so at your own discretion. Welcome to my third installment of this rather peculiar series. This article is way overdue partially because of my own immediate commitments with my own business and studies, but also because I put myself into a trap to discuss a topic that is far more intricate than I would’ve thought it to be. To be quite honest, I’m rather amazed at the number of people who actually read these article and take what they offer to their game play. I must give credit to jStar from devastation for constantly bombarding me with questions and offering his take on things, which helped me develop this installment. Now, without further ado… It is imperative for me to reiterate the purpose of this series before continuing with the rather complicated and intricate topic that I am about to introduce. First and foremost, this series is not intended to teach anyone about how to play the game of Counter-Strike. In fact, it does not intend to teach at all, but simply correlate a process of deep analytical thinking that has often been neglected by those who play the game. All in all, this series is a reminder that the game of Counter-Strike is not really as easy as we think it is. With that set aside, it is time for my fellow readers to take a seat and relax as I explain the power of what chess players often refer to as 'brute force': Probability. Probability is an art; it does not provide answers, but rather provides a map that we can use to decide the route we are to take. Like other aesthetics, it is opinionated upon as well as appreciated subjectively, and in relation to chess, it is a style of play. Gary Kasparov, undoubtly the greatest chess player of all time, was challenged in 1996 by IBM and their chess machine known as the 'Deep Blue'. Kasparov was able to defeat the Deep Blue under standard tournament rules and maintained the title of the best player in the world. IBM refined their machine and challenged Kasparov once again in 1997, this time defeating him in six games (3.5 - 2.5). How is it possible for a seemingly human activity, requiring intelligence and thought and even psychology, to be dominated by a computer? Probability. Page:
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Wednesday November 25 2009 | |||||
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User Comments
good last line :P.. its actually true though. the opponent will think about what the CTS can do that would work the best and counter that, and vice versa times infinite ~_~!? thats my impression at least
just an awesome and intelligent write up. gj :D
Good article, im sure it'll be of great help to many teams if they let it.
Alot of it is chance tho more then probability in my opinion.
most cs maps provide say at least 3 routes. defending it means you have 1/3 chances if on ct side to get rushed. Of course im speaking in very lame 5 T's rush one s ide at a time. What if bomb is dropped, how much probability is left? or is it reduced to chance like i said before. so many ways to look at it.
but very fun =)
thx for the read.
Well, you can determine the weapons both you and your enemy team will have depending on the previous round. That limits their successful maneuvers quite a bit.
If nobody died on the other team and they did a full buy, it is probable they will keep their guns. Likewise, if they had pistols and won a round, you can expect automatic weapons.
If the enemy team rushes a site and is cut down without even doing damage to the enemy, assuming they had full weapons, you can defend that area less as they are probably not going to attempt it again.
Of course, all of these have a counter-example, and I have seen them occur in competitive play. "Rush B again, they won't expect that." "Buy this round they won't expect that".
<3
thanks baka
thanks baka
I'm sorry, in what aspects did it disappoint you? Maybe i'll improve on that next time :o
#15
It doesnt intend to be smart, it's a matter of observation and reiteration. It's really nothing difficult... unless you find it...
The actual probabilities in chess are different from x^n, i think anyway. As what you expect your opponent to do, in thinking moves ahead is think "if i do this, what's the best move that he can do and what's he likely to do in the future?" So in reality the number of possible moves you have to consider when predicting moves ahead is not as big as made out, as a player is not likely to throw away is queen or do something equally stupid (unless it ends in definate mate). I think anyway. I am not the greatest chess player, partly because i usually can't be bothered to sit through a full time control game and get bored and decide to swap off some pieces to see what happens. Feel free to disagree.
I did enjoy reading it, but i thought that it was a lot weaker than your "offense/defense" article about initiative. Please keep writing though.
I think I discussed that lightly in one of my paragraphs. I'm not sure if it fully answers though. Then again, I can get real Mathematical (which I'll love to do :p) and explain how the evaluative functions work etc.
I do feel this article is weaker than the rest, because I had a hard time drawing the correlation. Hope it still provided a little tickle :p
Chess and Counter-Strike are more different than the same--it's a terrible endeavor to draw from. Chess is entirely about strategy; Counter-Strike is about strategy, but also about tactical maneuvering, teamwork, money managment, timing, luck, and so on. Making a comparison to basketball would be a far greater achievment in my opinion.
But this was one of the smarter and sincere pieces I've read. I really appreciate what it offers, even though I feel as if it was not as pertinent to CS as something else could have potentially been.
#20 Actualy the number would be as big. You're thinking of combinations, whereas this is permutations.
Definitely wrong. Gary Kasparov in his game vs the World (1997) made a very suprising move on ply 35 by doing: 35.Kh1 which in all insanity is not what was expected.
Sometimes sacrificing or "losing a piece stupidly" can be in your favor by psyching the enemy as well.
While I generally agree with your statement that "We can compare chess with anything; likewise, we can compare Counter-Strike with everything," it doesn't mean that it is the best comparison. #25 brought up a good point, but I don't completely agree. Your article is well written, and I think you bring a new level of intuition to the community, but you shouldn't try to forcefully make a comparison between two things.
Other than that and the fact that the article could have used at least a second example, 'twas a good read and so are the previous two entries. I hope to see the remainder of this feature soon! =)
Take the two guys at one site for example. In the 2v1. I'm gonna remove the probability of the save on a 2v1 cause we CAN acknowledge that a person will save and dismiss it. Write it off.
Now based on round info and time left, there should be approx a 60% chance you know which site the T will be in. 50% based on the statistical odds odds (Its either going to be A or B, which is a cointoss) and an approximate 10% based on round knowledge, wether or not it was eco round, etc. (called the implied odds).
This is giving an approximate 3/2 odds on the CTs picking the correct bombsite. The fact that there are two CTs and one T will also give us a 2:1 target to target ratio. This puts the CTs at 82.5 % to win the round assuming they pick the correct bombsite,are covering the same position, and that the players are of the same skill/carry similar weaponry.
We could also add in the factor that the T is probably injured from the previous firefight, an advantage that plays again to the CT's favor, as they together sporting a potential 200 HP total.
THIS in turn can be reduced because approx 70% of the frags in competitive are headshots, negating the T's weakened staus.
I havn't even gotten into the fact that there are 3 ways into eacb bombsite, wether the bomb is up/ down, boosts increasing reaction time, flashbangs, roundtime or previous rounds, and really I just rhymed off that list of variables. I could spend a lot of time predicting what SHOULD happen, and to be honest, I think it'd be pretty damn accurate.
The problem is, None of it really matters. I could come up with a number I feel is accurate to 8 signifigant figures, and still find it completely irrelivant. (as you stated)
The bottom line is that this is intuitive to almost all competitive players. You ever stop to think how complicated it is to throw a pen to your friend? or a football outside? There are a thousand variables and imlied trajectories that are summed up into one set of motions done without any real concious calculation at all. Yet there are thousands of golfers every year that pay thousands of dollars to be able to swing a club the same way every time. Is it a mind set problem? Or is it the inability to translate the thought process and translate it into basic motor skills.
We could both sit down and read 100 golf magazines, anayzing all the factors, calculating probabilites and both go out to the driving range. We'd probably preform close to the same, assuming we were of the same skill to begin with.
Now if I were to read all the technical aspects of the books, learn the probabilities, and fully understand them I should fundamentally come out ahead of a guy who's been just hitting golf balls the entire time that I was reading.
Will this be the case?
I just don't see what I should be taking from this that isn't a natural procedure already. Understanding and predicting is a HUGE part of cs, don't get me wrong, but the concious effort really seems like a waste OF time.
Not trying to downplay your story, just find that the ends don't really justify the means. My apologies if i missed the mark entirely. :P
Sorry, I didnt read your whole comment...
I think there was a disclaimer at the top of the article though. Thanks for the input anyways, it's greatly appreciated you took the time to write that and i'm happy for you. But nonetheless, i'm not here to argue a point or make a generalization
.
In fact, did you not notice that I never gave the "answer" to my own example/question?
Again, atleast you took your time in reading it.
Cheers!
Although, I do appreciate the article and there has no doubt been a lot of thought put into it, the ideas in it can not really be put to practical use.
It's as if you're trying to get technical with basic motor functions. The moment an individual tries to consciously think about this sort of thing, it is going to mess him up. #42's example was great. I know how to throw a football without having to think about it. Of course, outside conditions apply such as wind and the like, but do I really need to have a technical gameplan regarding this? No, all I need to consciously be aware of is that I am going to throw the football and hit my mark.
Nonetheless, it was an interesting read and I look forward to more articles. Thanks baka.
Every one of you above who spoke out against the baka's comparison between CS and chess has raised issue with this article in particular. Perhaps the correllation is not so strong in the area of probability, but - as baka has illustrated - it is strong enough in other areas to be useful in this thoughtful examination of the game we play.
if i could read about how to swing in the books and watching some videos on how the pros doing it i would learn faster than u who only practice by urself. Gimme 2 weeks of studying, 2 weeks of practicing and i think i will be better than u that practice for 4 weeks. imo
btw are they 120 zeros?
However, understand that throughout this whole article, I never gave answers or even suggestions. I simply raised questions and offered insight.
Everyone else, thanks for reading and thanks for thinking. That's the only purpose this article serves.
Cheers,
Michael "baka" Lau
#47:
I think there is, I didnt double check though... :p
first off all. kasparov for many chess players wasn´t the grestest player of all time. but indeed your american player Bobby Fischer. World Champion in 1972.
second. in comparison Cs to chess. Well, for those who played chess, and study the game. we all know that position was the most important part of the game. the squares you have in your control gives the opponent less space to play.
in counter-strike position is the equally (for me) the most important aspect of the game. this knowledge of the game to put you always in better position than your opponent gives all the advantage! Just see that almost teams that bring nem setups and position in the CT side always have good results. if you want to see some examples, just see bootman´s playbooks. some of them. like the titans and rival, when they shined!
Robert James (Bobby's real name) was never the greatest player of all time. He was however the first American to win the FIDE. The only reason why people think he was the best was because Gary Kaspparov himself stated that during Robert's prime, the skill gap between him and his opponent was the widest ever.
Not to mention during his title match against Karpov, he laid some of the most horrendous conditions and still lost.
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