Kramnik and AlphaZero: How to Rethink Chess(chess.com)
chess.com
Kramnik and AlphaZero: How to Rethink Chess
https://www.chess.com/article/view/no-castling-chess-kramnik-alphazero
86 comments
> pawn cannot move two steps in the first move
Does this add much variation to the game or does it slightly delay getting into the same positions we already know? Not castling is interesting though but would change the game quite dramatically, perhaps even making it slightly more predictable? I'm unsure. Interesting concepts.
Does this add much variation to the game or does it slightly delay getting into the same positions we already know? Not castling is interesting though but would change the game quite dramatically, perhaps even making it slightly more predictable? I'm unsure. Interesting concepts.
Pieces are ranked by power because of their reach. Chess is not continuous-time (I have this theory that the tactical essence of football-soccer is continuous-time chess) which makes it very awkward. There's also a lot of literature on chess openings, which means a lot would need to be re-discovered).
I find chess very frustrating because I can analyze positions but almost always get thwarted because of misreading tempo. But honestly maybe I don't have a high enough IQ to play chess.
I find chess very frustrating because I can analyze positions but almost always get thwarted because of misreading tempo. But honestly maybe I don't have a high enough IQ to play chess.
I highly doubt that your chess acumen is tied to IQ. AlphaZero can probably beat every chess player, past or present, yet you would trounce it in a whole range of intelligence tests.
Perhaps just try counting the moves, and look for counters at each step? Most pro chess players think in patterns anyways, subset of moves that obtain a predefined position on the board. Then the game is more about rock, paper, scissors, where you try to guess the opponent’s pattern and employ a counter-pattern.
Perhaps just try counting the moves, and look for counters at each step? Most pro chess players think in patterns anyways, subset of moves that obtain a predefined position on the board. Then the game is more about rock, paper, scissors, where you try to guess the opponent’s pattern and employ a counter-pattern.
IQ is largely pseudoscience. It is tied to chess in the same sense it is tied to most other things, as a baseline filter: IQ below 80 means one can hardly do anything at a high level, beyond that it has almost no meaning.
This is not what any of the science says. IQ is the most studied psychometric in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-...
Or a more gentle summary: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Taleb:_IQ_is_a_pseudoscientific_...
Or a more gentle summary: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Taleb:_IQ_is_a_pseudoscientific_...
Also here's an actual study on chess and IQ.
https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2019-vaci.pdf
> most “achievements” linked to IQ are measured in circular stuff s.a. bureaucratic or academic success, things for test takers and salary earners in structured jobs that resemble the tests
This is the point of the test. That people who do well on this test, do well at their job.
>Psychologists do not realize that the effect of IQ (if any, ignoring circularity) is smaller than the difference between IQ tests for the same individual.
This is actually evidence that IQ tests are measuring something that is even more predictive. Say I use an MRI and I'm able to predict schizophrenia far better than chance. The argument that the MRI I used was faulty and sometimes returned back false results is not evidence that my test is bogus, but evidence that it's even more powerful because it worked well despite the machine being wonky.
> if you want to detect how someone fares at a task, say loan sharking, tennis playing, or random matrix theory, make him/her do that task; we don’t need theoretical exams for a real world function by probability-challenged psychologists
This is referencing industrial psychology research. What he's referring to is a work-sample test, and IQ tests are equally predictive. With IQ tests outperforming when the jobs requirements are less defined, and work sample tests outperforming when the job is more defined.(think startup wear many hats lot of on the job learning vs enterprise DBA)
He also makes an argument that iq is less predictive of success at higher levels which isn't the case and is based on some bad research. (They measured childhood IQs instead of adult IQs)
Most of the article is a collection of strawmen, ad hominems, and just plain weird whatboutism. (just because the high IQ janitors score better than low IQ professors doesn't really tell us whether or not IQ is pseudo scientific)
https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2019-vaci.pdf
> most “achievements” linked to IQ are measured in circular stuff s.a. bureaucratic or academic success, things for test takers and salary earners in structured jobs that resemble the tests
This is the point of the test. That people who do well on this test, do well at their job.
>Psychologists do not realize that the effect of IQ (if any, ignoring circularity) is smaller than the difference between IQ tests for the same individual.
This is actually evidence that IQ tests are measuring something that is even more predictive. Say I use an MRI and I'm able to predict schizophrenia far better than chance. The argument that the MRI I used was faulty and sometimes returned back false results is not evidence that my test is bogus, but evidence that it's even more powerful because it worked well despite the machine being wonky.
> if you want to detect how someone fares at a task, say loan sharking, tennis playing, or random matrix theory, make him/her do that task; we don’t need theoretical exams for a real world function by probability-challenged psychologists
This is referencing industrial psychology research. What he's referring to is a work-sample test, and IQ tests are equally predictive. With IQ tests outperforming when the jobs requirements are less defined, and work sample tests outperforming when the job is more defined.(think startup wear many hats lot of on the job learning vs enterprise DBA)
He also makes an argument that iq is less predictive of success at higher levels which isn't the case and is based on some bad research. (They measured childhood IQs instead of adult IQs)
Most of the article is a collection of strawmen, ad hominems, and just plain weird whatboutism. (just because the high IQ janitors score better than low IQ professors doesn't really tell us whether or not IQ is pseudo scientific)
> I have this theory that the tactical essence of football-soccer is continuous-time chess
Heh, I've been called crazy by chess players for saying that out loud. Glad I'm not the only one.
I also think basketball/handball tactics are a lot like checkers.
Heh, I've been called crazy by chess players for saying that out loud. Glad I'm not the only one.
I also think basketball/handball tactics are a lot like checkers.
I have always assumed that the 'no two step in first move' is the reason of structure of all the _Indian defenses_: first move is a knight move followed by Bishop fianchetto. Most pawn moves are a single step pawn move.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Defence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Defence
As (western) children we played without the two steps, we didn't know about the rule. I think it was too much to remember, that pieces could have special behavior at the start of a game.
Amazing! I also learned chess with the same rule when I was a kid. I didn't know it was known as Indian chess! Except, in some variations, castling was allowed. Also, another variation allowed two different pawns to move a single square on "Move 1" for both Black and White.
(I'm from Bangladesh)
(I'm from Bangladesh)
> The no-castling restriction means that players cannot rely on memorized patterns; they are forced to think creatively from the beginning.
It's not obvious that this is true at all. Once top-level players have played no-castling-chess as much as they've played ordinary chess, I don't see why they wouldn't have just as many patterns memorised.
It's not obvious that this is true at all. Once top-level players have played no-castling-chess as much as they've played ordinary chess, I don't see why they wouldn't have just as many patterns memorised.
I think the article is saying castling makes for intrinsically more predictable patterns.
This makes sense. It’s such a good idea to castle, players pretty much always do. That should indicate it is cutting off lots of uncontrolled variations.
Moving the king to a safe place is going to make threats have a narrower set of possibilities.
I see no reason, in principle, why such a rule change shouldn’t have a dramatic effect on the number of feasible strategies.
This makes sense. It’s such a good idea to castle, players pretty much always do. That should indicate it is cutting off lots of uncontrolled variations.
Moving the king to a safe place is going to make threats have a narrower set of possibilities.
I see no reason, in principle, why such a rule change shouldn’t have a dramatic effect on the number of feasible strategies.
I believe the underlying assumption is that castling dominates (in a loose sense) the strategy space for both white and black, and tends towards draw-heavy game play.
The evidence for the claim that no-castling would fix this is alpha go's performance against itself under no-castle rules.
The evidence for the claim that no-castling would fix this is alpha go's performance against itself under no-castle rules.
While it is true that eventually, the patterns would be recognized and we'd have the same problem, I think the gambit (to use a chess term) Kramnik is making here is that for the current form of chess, it took us hundreds of years of practice, experience, and study to get to this point. Before we reached this stage, chess was, as Kramnik is arguing, more exciting and entertaining.
This time around the adjustment period would no doubt be significantly shorter for a couple of reasons:
1) Computer-aided analysis will greatly accelerate the evaluation of new openings and positions
2) This change does not really affect end-game theory, so that part doesn't change
This time around the adjustment period would no doubt be significantly shorter for a couple of reasons:
1) Computer-aided analysis will greatly accelerate the evaluation of new openings and positions
2) This change does not really affect end-game theory, so that part doesn't change
It just removes a large swathe of current possible lines I guess. Analysis through an engine becomes tough, for example, because it might produce a line which hinges on castling at some point in the future (this restriction is obviously lifted once both players have moved their kings). I don't think it'll produce amazingly creative chess, it's true, but it may produce more interesting opening games?
> Analysis through an engine becomes tough, for example, because it might produce a line which hinges on castling at some point in the future (this restriction is obviously lifted once both players have moved their kings)
This is only true for the brief period until someone modifies an engine to train on the new ruleset.
This is only true for the brief period until someone modifies an engine to train on the new ruleset.
Analysis through an engine is trivial with a 'hack' of inputing an artificial chain of fixed moves in the beginning. No-castling chess rules are exactly equivalent to ordinary chess rules after both players move both knights, move both rooks, and return them to the original positions.
The idea is incredibly simple. Basically: Don't allow castling. And the claim is that if you don't allow castling, it's basically impossible to set up a "drawish" defense. You have to attack or die.
In fact, it's so simple that it's sort of hard to believe. They've done tons of analysis with a retrained-from-the-ground-up AlphaZero and are convinced of it, so I definitely think it's worth a try, and look forward to see its effect.
If it does turn out to be true, it will be kind of amazing how one simple rule tweak affected the highest level of Chess play.
In fact, it's so simple that it's sort of hard to believe. They've done tons of analysis with a retrained-from-the-ground-up AlphaZero and are convinced of it, so I definitely think it's worth a try, and look forward to see its effect.
If it does turn out to be true, it will be kind of amazing how one simple rule tweak affected the highest level of Chess play.
The first no-castling match has already taken place earlier this month as part of the London Chess Classic
https://www.londonchessclassic.com/press/lcc19_pr5.htm
The current castling rule was an innovation of the Italians when the game was brought in from India. It, along with pawns moving two squares on their first move, ushered in the Italian School of Chess, known for its slashing attacks, sparkling sacrifices and all out aggression.
However, the Indian form of the game did have something like castling, the king could move from its start square to g2, where a fianchetto'ed bishop would normally sit.
https://www.londonchessclassic.com/press/lcc19_pr5.htm
The current castling rule was an innovation of the Italians when the game was brought in from India. It, along with pawns moving two squares on their first move, ushered in the Italian School of Chess, known for its slashing attacks, sparkling sacrifices and all out aggression.
However, the Indian form of the game did have something like castling, the king could move from its start square to g2, where a fianchetto'ed bishop would normally sit.
>known for its slashing attacks, sparkling sacrifices and all out aggression
Interestingly this goes against the entire point of the article, that castling results in defensive play which results in draws.
Interestingly this goes against the entire point of the article, that castling results in defensive play which results in draws.
They haven't rethought chess though. They've merely invented a game called chess' and the suggestion that it opens up "new possibilities" is because it's a new game. Of course every micro-variant of chess is going to open up new vistas, the challenge is this, is it better (how do we define better?) than the original chess? I think they're confusing novelty for the qualities their seeking.
The better chess has already been invented and it's called go. And the top human player of that has called it a day in the face of machine learning advancements (wrongly I think). Also I think go is a much more obvious and flexible game to tweak, if you so wanted.
The better chess has already been invented and it's called go. And the top human player of that has called it a day in the face of machine learning advancements (wrongly I think). Also I think go is a much more obvious and flexible game to tweak, if you so wanted.
> Of course every micro-variant of chess is going to open up new vistas, the challenge is this, is it better (how do we define better?) than the original chess?
They talk about that specifically. The claim is that at the moment, one grandmaster, unilaterally, can play in such a way as the result will be an inconclusive draw with a very high probability. I say "unilaterally" because even if the other grandmaster they're playing wants a higher-risk-higher-reward game, they can't force the game that way. Such games certainly require a lot of skill, but they're very boring to play and to watch.
"Better" in this case means more entertaining; and specifically, the claim is that with the king in the center, it's not possible to "bunker down" and play a very static, defensive version of chess.
It is not however, a completely new game. All the skills regarding pins, forced sacrifices, open files, and so on still hold. It's the same as if both players been forced early in the game to not be able to castle: the basic game is the same, but certain "boring" states are hard to get to.
I do agree that the whole thing about opening book seems a bit overblown to me: obviously getting rid of castling means you have to mostly throw out the current "book"; but surely a new one will be written.
I'd always thought another way to make tournaments more interesting would be to take a page from wrestling. In wrestling matches, each player takes a turn starting from a disadvantaged position, where it should be easier for the other person to pin them. They get points if they manage to break out of the position while avoiding the pin. Having some games start "in the middle" after an early "blunder" by one side would make things more interesting as well.
They talk about that specifically. The claim is that at the moment, one grandmaster, unilaterally, can play in such a way as the result will be an inconclusive draw with a very high probability. I say "unilaterally" because even if the other grandmaster they're playing wants a higher-risk-higher-reward game, they can't force the game that way. Such games certainly require a lot of skill, but they're very boring to play and to watch.
"Better" in this case means more entertaining; and specifically, the claim is that with the king in the center, it's not possible to "bunker down" and play a very static, defensive version of chess.
It is not however, a completely new game. All the skills regarding pins, forced sacrifices, open files, and so on still hold. It's the same as if both players been forced early in the game to not be able to castle: the basic game is the same, but certain "boring" states are hard to get to.
I do agree that the whole thing about opening book seems a bit overblown to me: obviously getting rid of castling means you have to mostly throw out the current "book"; but surely a new one will be written.
I'd always thought another way to make tournaments more interesting would be to take a page from wrestling. In wrestling matches, each player takes a turn starting from a disadvantaged position, where it should be easier for the other person to pin them. They get points if they manage to break out of the position while avoiding the pin. Having some games start "in the middle" after an early "blunder" by one side would make things more interesting as well.
>I do agree that the whole thing about opening book seems a bit overblown to me: obviously getting rid of castling means you have to mostly throw out the current "book"; but surely a new one will be written.
That's what I thought too.
Kramnik said "For example, the openings seem to be more complicated in the AlphaZero no-castling games,"
Assuming it is more complicated, I wonder what that means in terms of the number of openings someone will have to learn? I'm going to take a wild guess and say there will be more than standard chess.
If it takes off, I guess time will tell what effect it has on the game after everyone memorises the main lines and variations.
That's what I thought too.
Kramnik said "For example, the openings seem to be more complicated in the AlphaZero no-castling games,"
Assuming it is more complicated, I wonder what that means in terms of the number of openings someone will have to learn? I'm going to take a wild guess and say there will be more than standard chess.
If it takes off, I guess time will tell what effect it has on the game after everyone memorises the main lines and variations.
> "Better" in this case means more entertaining; and specifically, the claim is that with the king in the center, it's not possible to "bunker down" and play a very static, defensive version of chess.
> I do agree that the whole thing about opening book seems a bit overblown to me: obviously getting rid of castling means you have to mostly throw out the current "book"; but surely a new one will be written.
This is my point. I wasn't denigrating the effort to make chess more entertaining. I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment.
I'm really not trying to troll you by suggesting that a more entertaining variant of chess is go. I mean, if we have to stick with the current set of pieces and how they move then I think that Fischer Random (Chess960) or something like it is the obvious improvement to go for. NoCastlingChess to me is a strange route to go down. Of course novelty makes an old form less jaded but that I'm not convinced it's intrinsically more entertaining – if it were shouldn't we ditch boring old chess?
> I do agree that the whole thing about opening book seems a bit overblown to me: obviously getting rid of castling means you have to mostly throw out the current "book"; but surely a new one will be written.
This is my point. I wasn't denigrating the effort to make chess more entertaining. I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment.
I'm really not trying to troll you by suggesting that a more entertaining variant of chess is go. I mean, if we have to stick with the current set of pieces and how they move then I think that Fischer Random (Chess960) or something like it is the obvious improvement to go for. NoCastlingChess to me is a strange route to go down. Of course novelty makes an old form less jaded but that I'm not convinced it's intrinsically more entertaining – if it were shouldn't we ditch boring old chess?
> I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment.
Well I'm afraid you're missing the main point of the change; but since I've said it twice now (and you've actually quoted me once), I'm not sure how to explain it any better. It's not primarily change for change sake; but rather, the entire class of possible games changes from "safe, boring, and almost always a draw" into "dangerous, dynamic, and someone almost always wins". At least, that's what I understood from the article.
EDIT: As an example, consider the shot clock in basketball [1]. From Wikipedia:
> The NBA had problems attracting fans (and positive media coverage) before the shot clock's inception. Teams in the lead were running out the clock, passing the ball incessantly. The trailing team could do nothing but commit fouls to recover possession following the free throw. Frequent low-scoring games with many fouls bored fans.
The introduction of the shot clock in basketball wasn't simply change for change sake; it forced teams to actually have a more active, interesting game.
Kramnik is claiming that the same thing has happened now to professional chess: the vast majority of games are boring draws. And he furthermore claims that when they trained AlphaZero from scratch without castling, the games were in fact much more dynamic and more interesting, not just different.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_clock
Well I'm afraid you're missing the main point of the change; but since I've said it twice now (and you've actually quoted me once), I'm not sure how to explain it any better. It's not primarily change for change sake; but rather, the entire class of possible games changes from "safe, boring, and almost always a draw" into "dangerous, dynamic, and someone almost always wins". At least, that's what I understood from the article.
EDIT: As an example, consider the shot clock in basketball [1]. From Wikipedia:
> The NBA had problems attracting fans (and positive media coverage) before the shot clock's inception. Teams in the lead were running out the clock, passing the ball incessantly. The trailing team could do nothing but commit fouls to recover possession following the free throw. Frequent low-scoring games with many fouls bored fans.
The introduction of the shot clock in basketball wasn't simply change for change sake; it forced teams to actually have a more active, interesting game.
Kramnik is claiming that the same thing has happened now to professional chess: the vast majority of games are boring draws. And he furthermore claims that when they trained AlphaZero from scratch without castling, the games were in fact much more dynamic and more interesting, not just different.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_clock
I promise you I'm not – if I may copy my reply to a sibling comment of yours:
“What I'm arguing is that disallowing castling totally changes the opening book and that a lot of the supposed increased "entertainment" being felt by Kramnik is the delight in having an a plethora of opening lines to explore (opening lines having long being exhausted by humans and machines in trad. chess). The fact that it leads to games which are more exciting because the king is more exposed is a small bonus – notice most of the article talks about all the changes you have to make to opening theory owing to the fact that you can't castle.
My argument is that Kramnik is not recognising that most of the entertainment value comes from the fact that this is a new game (granted that it is an existing game tweaked), not that it forces more aggressive less draw-y games.
Which is why I suggested, either go for a lot more novelty and combinatorial complexity within the game (Fischer960) or drastically overhaul the game (but in my opinion that has been done, and the game is called go).
You can disagree with my opinion but it's not as if I'm not understanding what being said to me, it's just that I disagree with what's being said to me.”
F.T.A.
> The win/loss percentages for both White and Black are similar to classical chess
So just as many draws?
> suggesting that the no-castling variant should be quite playable without favoring a particular player. Preventing the king from retreating to a safe distance means that
Ok, so the game isn't broken
> all of the pieces have to engage in the melee, making the play more dynamic and entertaining, with a number of original patterns.
I'm saying that it is the original patterns where Kramnik is getting most of the dopamine boost from
---
Does that clear things up?
“What I'm arguing is that disallowing castling totally changes the opening book and that a lot of the supposed increased "entertainment" being felt by Kramnik is the delight in having an a plethora of opening lines to explore (opening lines having long being exhausted by humans and machines in trad. chess). The fact that it leads to games which are more exciting because the king is more exposed is a small bonus – notice most of the article talks about all the changes you have to make to opening theory owing to the fact that you can't castle.
My argument is that Kramnik is not recognising that most of the entertainment value comes from the fact that this is a new game (granted that it is an existing game tweaked), not that it forces more aggressive less draw-y games.
Which is why I suggested, either go for a lot more novelty and combinatorial complexity within the game (Fischer960) or drastically overhaul the game (but in my opinion that has been done, and the game is called go).
You can disagree with my opinion but it's not as if I'm not understanding what being said to me, it's just that I disagree with what's being said to me.”
F.T.A.
> The win/loss percentages for both White and Black are similar to classical chess
So just as many draws?
> suggesting that the no-castling variant should be quite playable without favoring a particular player. Preventing the king from retreating to a safe distance means that
Ok, so the game isn't broken
> all of the pieces have to engage in the melee, making the play more dynamic and entertaining, with a number of original patterns.
I'm saying that it is the original patterns where Kramnik is getting most of the dopamine boost from
---
Does that clear things up?
> > The win/loss percentages for both White and Black are similar to classical chess
> So just as many draws?
Right, we interpret that differently. He said "win/loss" ratio, not "win/loss/draw" ratio. It's possible your interpretation is correct, but I think the full sentence favors my interpretation:
> suggesting that the no-castling variant should be quite playable without favoring a particular player.
The question he's trying to answer is, "Does a lack of castling make it harder for Black (or White) to win?" And the answer is, "No; Black and White still win about the same percentage of the time, so removing castling will not suddenly make it harder for Black (or white) to win." The draw ratio isn't important to answering the question, and isn't mentioned, so I assume he wasn't saying that the draw ratio was the same.
> I'm saying that it is the original patterns where Kramnik is getting most of the dopamine boost from
That's possible, but it doesn't necessarily follow, even if your interpretation about the draw percentage is true. A draw after a dynamic and unpredicatable battle down to a pair of kings is a lot more interesting than a draw after a "trench battle" of small moves.
But in any case, time will tell. :-)
> So just as many draws?
Right, we interpret that differently. He said "win/loss" ratio, not "win/loss/draw" ratio. It's possible your interpretation is correct, but I think the full sentence favors my interpretation:
> suggesting that the no-castling variant should be quite playable without favoring a particular player.
The question he's trying to answer is, "Does a lack of castling make it harder for Black (or White) to win?" And the answer is, "No; Black and White still win about the same percentage of the time, so removing castling will not suddenly make it harder for Black (or white) to win." The draw ratio isn't important to answering the question, and isn't mentioned, so I assume he wasn't saying that the draw ratio was the same.
> I'm saying that it is the original patterns where Kramnik is getting most of the dopamine boost from
That's possible, but it doesn't necessarily follow, even if your interpretation about the draw percentage is true. A draw after a dynamic and unpredicatable battle down to a pair of kings is a lot more interesting than a draw after a "trench battle" of small moves.
But in any case, time will tell. :-)
Look, no worries. A straight-forward interpretation of the article favours your reading of it for sure.
I know it's bad form around here to complain about downvoting but god damn I'd like to know why I got downvoted so much for the opinions I expressed :(
Oh well, must try harder to be more articulate.
I know it's bad form around here to complain about downvoting but god damn I'd like to know why I got downvoted so much for the opinions I expressed :(
Oh well, must try harder to be more articulate.
I do appreciate you trying to clarify your position.
I don't have a huge amount of experience here, but people seem to value 1) politeness and 2) correct information.
I haven't talked to the people who downvoted you obviously (and in case you didn't know, you can't downvote a direct reply, so it wasn't me). But to me the first reply sort of came off as, "chess sux0rz, just play go". Go is of course a very nice game, but it's very different than chess; seeming to show disdain for all the people who like to play chess and watch chess played fails somewhat on the "politeness" front.
The second reply didn't really articulate well your position, so seemed to be just "repeating the mistake" from the first post, and so failed (it seemed) on the "correctness" front.
I think if your first reply had been more like the previous reply in this thread -- asking whether there actually were fewer draws, and whether the gameplay was actually more "dynamic" or was simply "different" -- or perhaps adding in your take on games played that way; say from the recent exhibition in London, or from analyses of AlphaZero games played under these rules (e.g. [1]) -- it would have been seen more as a contribution than a detraction.
That's my guess anyway. :-)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqmLYlFdBo
I don't have a huge amount of experience here, but people seem to value 1) politeness and 2) correct information.
I haven't talked to the people who downvoted you obviously (and in case you didn't know, you can't downvote a direct reply, so it wasn't me). But to me the first reply sort of came off as, "chess sux0rz, just play go". Go is of course a very nice game, but it's very different than chess; seeming to show disdain for all the people who like to play chess and watch chess played fails somewhat on the "politeness" front.
The second reply didn't really articulate well your position, so seemed to be just "repeating the mistake" from the first post, and so failed (it seemed) on the "correctness" front.
I think if your first reply had been more like the previous reply in this thread -- asking whether there actually were fewer draws, and whether the gameplay was actually more "dynamic" or was simply "different" -- or perhaps adding in your take on games played that way; say from the recent exhibition in London, or from analyses of AlphaZero games played under these rules (e.g. [1]) -- it would have been seen more as a contribution than a detraction.
That's my guess anyway. :-)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqmLYlFdBo
The 99% Invisible podcast did an interesting episode[1] on an even smaller rule change with large ramifications: the back-pass rule. The goalkeeper can no longer hold the ball if it was passed by a teammate. That meant that they had to learn stronger footwork and ended the time-wasting that they could do once their team was ahead. It keeps the game moving and forces everybody to do without the breaks that back-passes used to create regularly.
[1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unsure-footing/
[1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unsure-footing/
> I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment
Is your position that disallowing castling does not lead to less king safety and thus less draws, more mating attacks, piece sacs and complex tactical games? Or is it that you think these things do not contribute to more entertaining games?
Is your position that disallowing castling does not lead to less king safety and thus less draws, more mating attacks, piece sacs and complex tactical games? Or is it that you think these things do not contribute to more entertaining games?
What I'm arguing is that disallowing castling totally changes the opening book and that a lot of the supposed increased "entertainment" being felt by Kramnik is the delight in having an a plethora of opening lines to explore (opening lines having long being exhausted by humans and machines in trad. chess). The fact that it leads to games which are more exciting because the king is more exposed is a small bonus – notice most of the article talks about all the changes you have to make to opening theory owing to the fact that you can't castle.
My argument is that Kramnik is not recognising that most of the entertainment value comes from the fact that this is a new game (granted that it is an existing game tweaked), not that it forces more aggressive less draw-y games.
Which is why I suggested, either go for a lot more novelty and combinatorial complexity within the game (Fischer960) or drastically overhaul the game (but in my opinion that has been done, and the game is called go).
You can disagree with my opinion but it's not as if I'm not understanding what being said to me, it's just that I disagree with what's being said to me.
My argument is that Kramnik is not recognising that most of the entertainment value comes from the fact that this is a new game (granted that it is an existing game tweaked), not that it forces more aggressive less draw-y games.
Which is why I suggested, either go for a lot more novelty and combinatorial complexity within the game (Fischer960) or drastically overhaul the game (but in my opinion that has been done, and the game is called go).
You can disagree with my opinion but it's not as if I'm not understanding what being said to me, it's just that I disagree with what's being said to me.
Chess and Go have completely different feels. They're both abstract representations of combat, but the combat is in no way similar.
Chess feels kind of like a sniper duel. You have two high value pieces (the kings), and the rest form a kind of terrain for them to fight in (although the kings don't literally attack each other). It's all about careful maneuvering so you can take a clear shot at the enemy king. Victory depends on high pressure calculation, with no room for the slightest error. Knowing the terrain in advance (memorizing openings) gives you a big advantage.
Go feels more like a huge bar fight between two criminal gangs. It starts off with just posturing, but the participants move into position and prepare, and eventually the violence breaks out and you get multiple fights. Sometimes fights merge together into a big chaotic brawl. The winner is determined by calculating which side got the best of it after it's all over, and both preparation and fighting skills matter.
Chess feels kind of like a sniper duel. You have two high value pieces (the kings), and the rest form a kind of terrain for them to fight in (although the kings don't literally attack each other). It's all about careful maneuvering so you can take a clear shot at the enemy king. Victory depends on high pressure calculation, with no room for the slightest error. Knowing the terrain in advance (memorizing openings) gives you a big advantage.
Go feels more like a huge bar fight between two criminal gangs. It starts off with just posturing, but the participants move into position and prepare, and eventually the violence breaks out and you get multiple fights. Sometimes fights merge together into a big chaotic brawl. The winner is determined by calculating which side got the best of it after it's all over, and both preparation and fighting skills matter.
thank you for your very figurative analogues, they are fitting quite well imo.
The point you make about chess about having "no room for the slightest error" is also why I never liked it as much as Go (as most westerners, i grew up with chess but then learned Go as adolescent): In Go you are baffled by genius strokes, in chess you are baffled by idiotic strokes (funnily, in both cases it doesn't really matter if it comes from your enemy or yourself). At least that's what my impression is. Opinions may differ :)
The point you make about chess about having "no room for the slightest error" is also why I never liked it as much as Go (as most westerners, i grew up with chess but then learned Go as adolescent): In Go you are baffled by genius strokes, in chess you are baffled by idiotic strokes (funnily, in both cases it doesn't really matter if it comes from your enemy or yourself). At least that's what my impression is. Opinions may differ :)
How would you tweak Go?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_variants#Sunjang_Baduk
Very entertaining variant with a proud history. None of the usual defensive corner forms work.
Very entertaining variant with a proud history. None of the usual defensive corner forms work.
Presumably the reason for changing the rules is to limit the number of draws, because wins and losses are more exciting. As he mentions, high level, full length chess has a rather disappointing percent of games ending in a draw. However, he doesn't even show that alphazero produces less draws in this variant (even the example game is a draw through repetition!). It may be interesting because it's different, but I don't really think Kramnik successfully argues that it's any better.
Yeah, I'd just make a draw an automatic win for Black, who is normally considered to be playing with a slight disadvantage as compared to White, who has the slight advantage of making the first move.
At the top level chess is too easy for either player to force into a draw-like position for this to be fair. If you added some additional advantage for white (e.g. only white can castle) it might work.
Having a game where one player always tries to win and the other player always tries to draw might not really be the effect you want though.
Having a game where one player always tries to win and the other player always tries to draw might not really be the effect you want though.
There is a variant that allows you to take your own pieces https://www.chessvariants.com/difftaking.dir/selfeliminator....
This always attracted me as a concept and seems well received, per link above.
It should increase the branching factor considerably, and complicate its evaluation - not saying good or bad, just is.
This always attracted me as a concept and seems well received, per link above.
It should increase the branching factor considerably, and complicate its evaluation - not saying good or bad, just is.
>It should increase the branching factor considerably
Is branching factor actually that relevant? Just from writing some naive AIs for fun I got the impression that the only thing that actually mattered is how well you can evaluate a position without branching further. Whether you have 40 or 100 (or 1000) moves available, you usually just want to only look at "the best" 10-15 (ideally even less if you can), and how reliable this determining of "the best" is seems like a way larger factor than just how many branches there are in theory.
Is branching factor actually that relevant? Just from writing some naive AIs for fun I got the impression that the only thing that actually mattered is how well you can evaluate a position without branching further. Whether you have 40 or 100 (or 1000) moves available, you usually just want to only look at "the best" 10-15 (ideally even less if you can), and how reliable this determining of "the best" is seems like a way larger factor than just how many branches there are in theory.
If you've done game AI then you're the expert, not me. I threw it in as it seemed relevant.
I dunno. Granted evaluation is key but so is branching, surely, as that is what generates new positions, and their complexity in evaluation as there are more factors to consider.
How does one 'look at "the best" 10-15 [positions]' without culling all the others first, however cheaply? I thought evaluation really was just tree searching (hence branching factor is crucial) with various weights (obviously this is traditional chess evaluation, not fancy NN stuff). I honestly am clueless.
I dunno. Granted evaluation is key but so is branching, surely, as that is what generates new positions, and their complexity in evaluation as there are more factors to consider.
How does one 'look at "the best" 10-15 [positions]' without culling all the others first, however cheaply? I thought evaluation really was just tree searching (hence branching factor is crucial) with various weights (obviously this is traditional chess evaluation, not fancy NN stuff). I honestly am clueless.
> I dunno. Granted evaluation is key but so is branching, surely, as that is what generates new positions, and their complexity in evaluation as there are more factors to consider.
I think this is where the slight issue is. The branching factor of your game is related to but not the same as the branching factor of your search.
> I thought evaluation really was just tree searching (hence branching factor is crucial)
The most basic way would be to play every possible game through to completion, fully exploring the tree. If you have no way of estimating the value of a position you have to try it out and see what happens, and your branching factor of the game is the same as for your search. A small increase in possible moves makes an enormous difference - 5 to 10 for a 10 move game is a 1000x jump.
However, imagine the complete opposite. You have a perfect way of estimating your chance of winning for any particular board move. In that case, you'd just check all the moves you can make right now and not look any deeper in the tree. Going from 5 to 10 is a doubling of positions to check, no matter how many moves in the game.
Because of the exponential here, the number of positions to evaluate per move that you don't explore further is almost negligible (similarly it's easier to just calculate the size of the lowest expanded bit of the tree as that dominates the total).
So, the better you get at evaluating your position without searching, the more deeply you can explore because you're not branching off so much,
I think this is where the slight issue is. The branching factor of your game is related to but not the same as the branching factor of your search.
> I thought evaluation really was just tree searching (hence branching factor is crucial)
The most basic way would be to play every possible game through to completion, fully exploring the tree. If you have no way of estimating the value of a position you have to try it out and see what happens, and your branching factor of the game is the same as for your search. A small increase in possible moves makes an enormous difference - 5 to 10 for a 10 move game is a 1000x jump.
However, imagine the complete opposite. You have a perfect way of estimating your chance of winning for any particular board move. In that case, you'd just check all the moves you can make right now and not look any deeper in the tree. Going from 5 to 10 is a doubling of positions to check, no matter how many moves in the game.
Because of the exponential here, the number of positions to evaluate per move that you don't explore further is almost negligible (similarly it's easier to just calculate the size of the lowest expanded bit of the tree as that dominates the total).
So, the better you get at evaluating your position without searching, the more deeply you can explore because you're not branching off so much,
You do have to cull the others, but the culling isn't what is costly. What is costly is the exponential nature of searching the tree, i.e. if you want to evaluate 3 of your moves in advance, with 50 moves being available every time, you have to generate 50^6 moves, which is pretty fast on a modern CPU, but for 4 moves it's 50^8 which is definitely not that fast anymore. So at some point you have to sacrifice breadth for depth drastically, and as soon as you do that pretty much the only thing that matters is how well you can evaluate positions as they are (without searching further down the tree). Even if you didn't cull searches, at some point you have to stop searching and fundamentally decide what the best move is. If this evaluation isn't good, all your searching didn't do anything.
This is, from my understanding, also the reason why traditional AI approaches struggled so much with Go. Not because Go has so many possible moves, but because given a certain game state it is so difficult to evaluate which player is ahead.
This is, from my understanding, also the reason why traditional AI approaches struggled so much with Go. Not because Go has so many possible moves, but because given a certain game state it is so difficult to evaluate which player is ahead.
It would increase the branching a bit but not much I think.
Taking your own pieces would be sub-optimal choice in every-case other then avoiding mate (at cost of your material), when sacrifice would lead to mating of your opponent.
Gaining positional advantage at cost of anything other than pawn is probably not worth it. AFAIK in high level play gambits are not true gambits as you get the sacrifice back.
Gaining positional advantage at cost of anything other than pawn is probably not worth it. AFAIK in high level play gambits are not true gambits as you get the sacrifice back.
Branching increases because a piece is not constrained by other pieces. A (say) 20% branch increase will increase exponentially through the tree. Branching is probably higher earlier in the game now because there are more otherwise blocking pieces in play.
> Gaining positional advantage at cost of anything other than pawn is probably not worth it
This kind of post makes me want to give up on HN. I have actually played it (albeit a very long time ago) and you are wrong. Please try it.
But even if true, and only a pawn dies, it drastically changes the nature of the game as a white pawn is a barrier to white pieces. Make that barrier permeable and the entire game changes.
> Taking your own pieces would be sub-optimal choice in every-case other then avoiding mate
Or inflicting mate, if you're blocked from that by your own piece. Or opening an attack that otherwise blocked. Or freeing pieces otherwise useless (bishops seem to get this badly, though maybe it's just me - I was never a great player). Any major piece otherwise trapped can now escape by taking any lesser piece of its own that's fenced it in.
It totally changes the game. Position is just as important as pieces, and maybe more at different times.
> Gaining positional advantage at cost of anything other than pawn is probably not worth it
This kind of post makes me want to give up on HN. I have actually played it (albeit a very long time ago) and you are wrong. Please try it.
But even if true, and only a pawn dies, it drastically changes the nature of the game as a white pawn is a barrier to white pieces. Make that barrier permeable and the entire game changes.
> Taking your own pieces would be sub-optimal choice in every-case other then avoiding mate
Or inflicting mate, if you're blocked from that by your own piece. Or opening an attack that otherwise blocked. Or freeing pieces otherwise useless (bishops seem to get this badly, though maybe it's just me - I was never a great player). Any major piece otherwise trapped can now escape by taking any lesser piece of its own that's fenced it in.
It totally changes the game. Position is just as important as pieces, and maybe more at different times.
> This kind of post makes me want to give up on HN. I have actually played it (albeit a very long time ago) and you are wrong. Please try it.
And yet you have not brought up a single example.
It hard to imagine a self sacrifice that would be better than just taking a bad trade.
And yet you have not brought up a single example.
It hard to imagine a self sacrifice that would be better than just taking a bad trade.
"Fischer Random is an interesting format, but it has its drawbacks. In particular, the nontraditional starting positions make it difficult for many amateurs to enjoy the game until more familiar positions are achieved. The same is true for world-class players, as many have confessed to me privately. Finally, it also seems to lack an aesthetic quality found in traditional chess, which makes it less appealing for both players and viewers, even if it does occasionally result in an exciting game."
I'm an amateur who's a fan of the Fisher Random chess variant, and feel it is a tremendous improvement over the enormous amounts of opening memorization that is required in traditional chess, and which is yet another thing that gives computers (who have a perfect memory) an edge over humans.
I'm an amateur who's a fan of the Fisher Random chess variant, and feel it is a tremendous improvement over the enormous amounts of opening memorization that is required in traditional chess, and which is yet another thing that gives computers (who have a perfect memory) an edge over humans.
If you want to read about what chess players (some of them, anyway) think of this, you can visit this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/e2n3df/kramnik_propo...
Game designers usually have to do tons of playtesting to find all the broken strategies in their games. As self-learning AI becomes more accessible, it'll give designers much quicker feedback. I'm curious to see how this will affect the games we play. Maybe someone will discover a new game as deep as Go and Chess!
Consider then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimaa - playable on a standard chess board, but has a combination all explosion of movers larger than go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity
The huge game tree of Arimaa is somewhat misleading, because a lot of moves are just simple transpositions. It's a fun game but it doesn't feel more complex to play than Go.
Note that despite the anti-computer design, classical computer chess techniques (with some clever hand-written heuristics) were enough for computers to exceed humans.
Note that despite the anti-computer design, classical computer chess techniques (with some clever hand-written heuristics) were enough for computers to exceed humans.
For chess variants, it has been possible to describe the rule in Zillions of Games format and get a serviceable AI for playtesting in return.
While we're at it, we can possibly create a new variant every few years with the aid of AlphaZero, to curb the memorisation trap.
Here are the steps:
1. Think of a new rule change;
2. Train AlphaZero for a period of time with the new rule;
3. Validate the viability of the new rule, based on two criteria: a) enough interesting lines discovered by AlphaZero; b) no obvious advantage for either black or white, based on the results of the AlphaZero training games;
4. Make the new rule officially accepted at FIDE for the next N years.
5. Repeat for the next cycle.
Here are the steps:
1. Think of a new rule change;
2. Train AlphaZero for a period of time with the new rule;
3. Validate the viability of the new rule, based on two criteria: a) enough interesting lines discovered by AlphaZero; b) no obvious advantage for either black or white, based on the results of the AlphaZero training games;
4. Make the new rule officially accepted at FIDE for the next N years.
5. Repeat for the next cycle.
Meh. I dont believe we have even come close to finding the best chess strategy for humans and strongly disgagree with the premise of this article that chess strategy for humans is at some kind of ending and we need to change the rules or else it will never get better.
In fact, I have done a lot of research into chess engine theory and believe flaws in the stockfish algorithm directly contrubute to the "boring" chess we see today, since all pros use engines to train now. The old engines cant see lines that alphazero sees which involve long term positional sacrifices, and use a linear evaluation function which in principle can never capture the strong non linearities inherenit in chess. (alphazero uses a non linear evaluation function, which is its nueral net)
Considered as a mathematical space, the universe of possible chess strategies is an extremely large order of infinity. There are also many aspects of time management in relation to the computational complexity of the position which modern engines dont model at all.
I believe that modern engines are overly materialistic and that aggresive positional sacrficies in the style of Tal and alphazero are the future of chess strategy for humans
In fact, I have done a lot of research into chess engine theory and believe flaws in the stockfish algorithm directly contrubute to the "boring" chess we see today, since all pros use engines to train now. The old engines cant see lines that alphazero sees which involve long term positional sacrifices, and use a linear evaluation function which in principle can never capture the strong non linearities inherenit in chess. (alphazero uses a non linear evaluation function, which is its nueral net)
Considered as a mathematical space, the universe of possible chess strategies is an extremely large order of infinity. There are also many aspects of time management in relation to the computational complexity of the position which modern engines dont model at all.
I believe that modern engines are overly materialistic and that aggresive positional sacrficies in the style of Tal and alphazero are the future of chess strategy for humans
To me the whole concept of chess always getting better is a little puzzling. Most games of this type don't change, and therefore don't get better. The point is local challenge, not global optimization. To most, the point of games (and much other human endeavor) is competition for competition's sake, not a search for some maximum of abstract skill.
To avoid chess (real chess, with castling and all that) because AlphaZero exists is like avoiding singing because Taylor Swift exists. Or like avoiding painting because Chagall existed. Or like avoiding Starcraft because Serral exists. Yeah, with a 99.999999% chance, you're not going to exceed the performance of these individuals (or others I could name) in their respective fields. That doesn't take the joy out of learning and growing, at least not for me.
AlphaZero and similar add a few more nines to chess, in terms of the likelihood of being the best-performing entity at that game. But that should hardly make a difference except to maybe the two or three very best human players in the world.
To avoid chess (real chess, with castling and all that) because AlphaZero exists is like avoiding singing because Taylor Swift exists. Or like avoiding painting because Chagall existed. Or like avoiding Starcraft because Serral exists. Yeah, with a 99.999999% chance, you're not going to exceed the performance of these individuals (or others I could name) in their respective fields. That doesn't take the joy out of learning and growing, at least not for me.
AlphaZero and similar add a few more nines to chess, in terms of the likelihood of being the best-performing entity at that game. But that should hardly make a difference except to maybe the two or three very best human players in the world.
I am 1000x more interested in chess engine's and "a search for some maximum of abstract skill" than I am in getting good at chess. During my research into this topic I discovered many facts which led me to conclude that there exist multiple chess strategies which humans can use which are currently unknown and which are far more powerful than anything currently used by grand masters or chess engines. This was all before alphazero was released, and I feel strongly that alphazero proved the hypothesis that chess strategy theory will continue to improve and there is still so much to learn.
Chess theory is "always getting better". This is because chess has the property that the skill curve is so extreme and the game so deep that it is seemingly always possible to continue to improve and find new ideas.
Chess engines play a fundamental role in modern human chess. There is a causal relationship between the state of the art in chess engines and the play styles of the top pro's. This is because better engines can find new idea's in positions previously thought to be completely explored. It happened recently with an alphazero game in a spectacular way iirc
There is a theorem which says that given any chess engine, it's impossible to decide if that chess engine is playing in an optimal way. So when you say "in terms of the likelihood of being the best-performing entity at that game", I think its important to be very precise about what we mean, even though in spirit I agree with that statement =)
I started working on a project to build a chess engine that is specifically designed to beat other chess engines by playing in a non-optimal way specifically tailored to find and exploit bugs in the opposing chess engine code/flaws in its algorithm.
I also once proved that any chess engine based on the principles of stockfish will necessarily contain positions where it can be exploited into making bad moves. If you fixed the algorithm to make it not exploitable in that specific position, the theorem says there would exist another position where it would be exploitable. This is what I call the theory of "exploitative chess engines" (in the sense of maximizing the possible gain), as opposed to ones which attempt to play in an "optimal" way (minimizing the maximum loss)
Chess theory is "always getting better". This is because chess has the property that the skill curve is so extreme and the game so deep that it is seemingly always possible to continue to improve and find new ideas.
Chess engines play a fundamental role in modern human chess. There is a causal relationship between the state of the art in chess engines and the play styles of the top pro's. This is because better engines can find new idea's in positions previously thought to be completely explored. It happened recently with an alphazero game in a spectacular way iirc
There is a theorem which says that given any chess engine, it's impossible to decide if that chess engine is playing in an optimal way. So when you say "in terms of the likelihood of being the best-performing entity at that game", I think its important to be very precise about what we mean, even though in spirit I agree with that statement =)
I started working on a project to build a chess engine that is specifically designed to beat other chess engines by playing in a non-optimal way specifically tailored to find and exploit bugs in the opposing chess engine code/flaws in its algorithm.
I also once proved that any chess engine based on the principles of stockfish will necessarily contain positions where it can be exploited into making bad moves. If you fixed the algorithm to make it not exploitable in that specific position, the theorem says there would exist another position where it would be exploitable. This is what I call the theory of "exploitative chess engines" (in the sense of maximizing the possible gain), as opposed to ones which attempt to play in an "optimal" way (minimizing the maximum loss)
> There is a theorem which says that given any chess engine, it's impossible to decide if that chess engine is playing in an optimal way.
Careful with that formulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice%27s_theorem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game
Several major strategy games, notably checkers, have been formally solved. That does make it possible to prove that some engines for those games behave in an optimal way (although it would still be impossible to verify whether an arbitrary program is equivalent to an optimal engine, because the arbitrary program could do something else first whose outcome couldn't be foreseen by the optimal-engine detector).
Although chess has a higher branching factor and a greater depth in various ways than games that have been solved, nobody has found a theoretical barrier to solving it, which in turn means that we can't rule out the possibility of a proof that a particular engine is optimal.
From the formal computation theory standpoint, the situation is even more extreme: the game tree given the threefold repetition rule is finite, which means that we can immediately write down an explicit game tree brute force engine which is guaranteed to perform optimally in every position. This is probably just a handful of lines of code! While this engine can't actually make a single move in a human timescale, from an algorithmic point of view it plays perfectly and we can be sure of that.
The theorems on undecidability of program behavior don't include time constraints like this because they're established using models of computation like Turing machines, where physical limitations of real computing devices are no issue.
Careful with that formulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice%27s_theorem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game
Several major strategy games, notably checkers, have been formally solved. That does make it possible to prove that some engines for those games behave in an optimal way (although it would still be impossible to verify whether an arbitrary program is equivalent to an optimal engine, because the arbitrary program could do something else first whose outcome couldn't be foreseen by the optimal-engine detector).
Although chess has a higher branching factor and a greater depth in various ways than games that have been solved, nobody has found a theoretical barrier to solving it, which in turn means that we can't rule out the possibility of a proof that a particular engine is optimal.
From the formal computation theory standpoint, the situation is even more extreme: the game tree given the threefold repetition rule is finite, which means that we can immediately write down an explicit game tree brute force engine which is guaranteed to perform optimally in every position. This is probably just a handful of lines of code! While this engine can't actually make a single move in a human timescale, from an algorithmic point of view it plays perfectly and we can be sure of that.
The theorems on undecidability of program behavior don't include time constraints like this because they're established using models of computation like Turing machines, where physical limitations of real computing devices are no issue.
I guess the word "theorem" is a little strong, since it depends on the real world. I stand by the statement that it's literally impossible to decide this in practice. If we are allowed to say in a few lines of code you could formally compare any chess engine to a theoretically optimal one, then obviously it is possible to decide by just comparing.
Without being allowed to compare a given engine to a theoretically optimal one which is based on brute forcing the full game tree, and being careful about the problem statement, I suspect it would be possible to prove something along these lines
I would argue something like: "Gods evaluation function" takes as input a chess position and returns whether the position is a forced win, lose, or draw. The rules of chess are so complicated that to go from a continuous evaluation function to a discrete one like that would require an infinite number of steps (this last statement is the one that needs to fleshed out)
I will stop calling it a theorem until I remember why I started calling it that. This situation exists in many non-linear optimization problems, a subject I find really interesting, and in many cases in practice there is no way to decide if a given solution is optimal. For some reason I thought there was a theorem in non-linear optimization theory that was directly relevant here
Without being allowed to compare a given engine to a theoretically optimal one which is based on brute forcing the full game tree, and being careful about the problem statement, I suspect it would be possible to prove something along these lines
I would argue something like: "Gods evaluation function" takes as input a chess position and returns whether the position is a forced win, lose, or draw. The rules of chess are so complicated that to go from a continuous evaluation function to a discrete one like that would require an infinite number of steps (this last statement is the one that needs to fleshed out)
I will stop calling it a theorem until I remember why I started calling it that. This situation exists in many non-linear optimization problems, a subject I find really interesting, and in many cases in practice there is no way to decide if a given solution is optimal. For some reason I thought there was a theorem in non-linear optimization theory that was directly relevant here
I agree with all your comments about the non-linearity that is extremely obvious in chess is not captured in the current engines everyone uses, which does lead to all the draw's we are seeing. I'm interested in your results from your engines when they're complete!
I find it interesting that both games of this variant between Kramnik and AlphaZero ended in a draw. That suggests to me that we would quickly see the same problem in the variant as we do now. The question would be, how long would it take for humans to catch up? My guess is a couple of years, until the variant has to be changed again (That is, mostly draws in high level competitions).
What are other similar games that have a higher level of variation? Go comes to mind. How about we increase the size of the chess board to 9x9, while keeping the same 8x8 setup? That sounds like a number of variations more than no castling, while still keeping the same feel.
What are other similar games that have a higher level of variation? Go comes to mind. How about we increase the size of the chess board to 9x9, while keeping the same 8x8 setup? That sounds like a number of variations more than no castling, while still keeping the same feel.
Former world-ranked youth chess player here. 100% agree with the desire to reduce draws and get people out of opening theory. Not sure though why Kramnik felt the need to invent a new variant when Chess960 already exists, is thriving, and changes the game far more drastically than no-castling rule.
The post reads more as an submarine advertisement for DeepMind (0) than a serious article for chess players.
[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
The post reads more as an submarine advertisement for DeepMind (0) than a serious article for chess players.
[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
Kramnik briefly addresses this question in the article:
> Fischer Random is an interesting format, but it has its drawbacks. In particular, the nontraditional starting positions make it difficult for many amateurs to enjoy the game until more familiar positions are achieved. The same is true for world-class players, as many have confessed to me privately. Finally, it also seems to lack an aesthetic quality found in traditional chess, which makes it less appealing for both players and viewers, even if it does occasionally result in an exciting game.
(I have no idea if his view would be persuasive to you.)
> Fischer Random is an interesting format, but it has its drawbacks. In particular, the nontraditional starting positions make it difficult for many amateurs to enjoy the game until more familiar positions are achieved. The same is true for world-class players, as many have confessed to me privately. Finally, it also seems to lack an aesthetic quality found in traditional chess, which makes it less appealing for both players and viewers, even if it does occasionally result in an exciting game.
(I have no idea if his view would be persuasive to you.)
Yeah, I don't find these arguments particularly convincing.
> In particular, the nontraditional starting positions make it difficult for many amateurs to enjoy the game until more familiar positions are achieved.
Actually the nontraditional start is part of what makes it fun. It's fresh and forces you to start using your brain from move one. I don't buy the claim that the main enjoyment of chess is due to familiar positions.
> The same is true for world-class players, as many have confessed to me privately.
I can't speak to Kramnik's private conversations, but as a serious player what I can say is that my competitive advantage over an amateur diminishes considerably in Chess960. Perhaps what Kramnik's friends are complaining about is the fact that it's harder for them to win at Chess960 than standard.
> Finally, it also seems to lack an aesthetic quality found in traditional chess, which makes it less appealing for both players and viewers, even if it does occasionally result in an exciting game.
Yeah, there's a difference in aesthetics for sure. But who is to say that it is "worse"? Some piece configurations do feel a bit "ugly" but to me this is more than balanced out by the beauty of new patterns emerging where they weren't expected.
> In particular, the nontraditional starting positions make it difficult for many amateurs to enjoy the game until more familiar positions are achieved.
Actually the nontraditional start is part of what makes it fun. It's fresh and forces you to start using your brain from move one. I don't buy the claim that the main enjoyment of chess is due to familiar positions.
> The same is true for world-class players, as many have confessed to me privately.
I can't speak to Kramnik's private conversations, but as a serious player what I can say is that my competitive advantage over an amateur diminishes considerably in Chess960. Perhaps what Kramnik's friends are complaining about is the fact that it's harder for them to win at Chess960 than standard.
> Finally, it also seems to lack an aesthetic quality found in traditional chess, which makes it less appealing for both players and viewers, even if it does occasionally result in an exciting game.
Yeah, there's a difference in aesthetics for sure. But who is to say that it is "worse"? Some piece configurations do feel a bit "ugly" but to me this is more than balanced out by the beauty of new patterns emerging where they weren't expected.
He does briefly address this as complicated for beginners to enter (which is true). Given that no-castling actually makes the game simpler, its worthwhile to consider it as an alternative.
Sure, if you're pitching this as "a simpler way to learn chess", I can get behind that. Anything to make chess accessible to more people is great in my book.
But he's selling it as a way to save late-stage classical chess from the era of boring draws and endless opening theory. We already have a better solution for that in Chess960.
But he's selling it as a way to save late-stage classical chess from the era of boring draws and endless opening theory. We already have a better solution for that in Chess960.
Part of any games popularity is to have an exciting competitive scene and also have easy entrance for new players. Chess960 solves one of those, no-castling seems like a better solution on both fronts.
Rather than banning castling outright, what if opposite wing castling was the only type of castling allowed? That should also make draws more unlikely.
I guess a submission won't gain traction if you don't mention "AlphaZero" in the title:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21684118
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21684118
I think no-castling just generates a different opening theory, and Chess960's 960 starting positions are also not enough: it should be possible to memorize at least the best white move for each of the 960 positions, and probably the main variation and even more.
The only way to be sure is to have a random chess variant with at least a billion different possible opening starting positions: the conceptually simplest way seems to be to place all pieces completely randomly in the first three ranks (in the same way for each color), while rejecting any position that allows white to make a capture, check or threaten to capture a non-pawn piece on the first move.
The only way to be sure is to have a random chess variant with at least a billion different possible opening starting positions: the conceptually simplest way seems to be to place all pieces completely randomly in the first three ranks (in the same way for each color), while rejecting any position that allows white to make a capture, check or threaten to capture a non-pawn piece on the first move.
> it should be possible to memorize at least the best white move for each of the 960 positions
Seeing how there is no consensus on "best opening" for the normal game of chess, introducing 960 more variations is not going to be a simple case of memorising the "best opening". I would go as far to say that simply introducing 10 new standard opening positions would introduce more than enough complexity to shake up high level play. There's only so much a human can remember once the computer is turned off and you are over the board.
Seeing how there is no consensus on "best opening" for the normal game of chess, introducing 960 more variations is not going to be a simple case of memorising the "best opening". I would go as far to say that simply introducing 10 new standard opening positions would introduce more than enough complexity to shake up high level play. There's only so much a human can remember once the computer is turned off and you are over the board.
Just run the most sophisticated chess engines available 960 times and publish the results.
Even if not the "best" in an absolute sense, the moves those engines find are going to better than the move that an human comes up on the spot.
This means that memorization will still be necessary in Chess960 to be competitive at the highest levels and in fact it's probably going to be worse because memorizing those 960 starting moves sounds far more tedious than memorizing classic opening theory.
Scrabble players can memorize 10K+ word dictionaries in languages they don't know, and since (starting position, move number, chess move) triples can be encoded as words, it should be possible to memorize the main variation found by chess engines for each Chess960 position.
Even if not the "best" in an absolute sense, the moves those engines find are going to better than the move that an human comes up on the spot.
This means that memorization will still be necessary in Chess960 to be competitive at the highest levels and in fact it's probably going to be worse because memorizing those 960 starting moves sounds far more tedious than memorizing classic opening theory.
Scrabble players can memorize 10K+ word dictionaries in languages they don't know, and since (starting position, move number, chess move) triples can be encoded as words, it should be possible to memorize the main variation found by chess engines for each Chess960 position.
But this hinges on there being a computable best opening, which there isn't for standard chess and there won't be for most(all?) starting positions in 960 (chess isn't a solved game). It's also not just an enum of [starting position, move number, chess move], there's also "why is this move strong in this position" which isn't something scrabble players have an equivalent of with just memorising lists of words.
I personally can't imagine any of the current top chess players memorising hundreds of opening lines for all 960 starting positions and then being able to remember them over the board. Only a few players have a mastery of current known chess theory that's just one starting position. I am happy to be proven wrong though when some new chess savant presents themselves.
I personally can't imagine any of the current top chess players memorising hundreds of opening lines for all 960 starting positions and then being able to remember them over the board. Only a few players have a mastery of current known chess theory that's just one starting position. I am happy to be proven wrong though when some new chess savant presents themselves.
All you need is a method to compute the first white move that produces a significantly better win rate than thinking about it during the match, and then memorizing them becomes advantageous, if doing so is feasible.
It doesn't have to be chess engines (although that seems the best approach), it can also be 100 people each spending 10 days analyzing one position per day, or it can be win-rate stats from high-level tournaments once Chess960 is widely played and there is enough data.
It doesn't have to be chess engines (although that seems the best approach), it can also be 100 people each spending 10 days analyzing one position per day, or it can be win-rate stats from high-level tournaments once Chess960 is widely played and there is enough data.
I’m not sure you understand opening theory. It takes years to learn a single opening, and I don’t think any serious player would claim they know all variations/sidelines of a given opening.
There’s no single “best” opening because you can always employ a defence for a specific opening. For example, there’s a trap against the London which is to play 1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 h5. 3. e3...
There’s no single “best” opening because you can always employ a defence for a specific opening. For example, there’s a trap against the London which is to play 1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 h5. 3. e3...
The issue is that people are memorizing lines like 20 moves deep and memorizing strategies which exploit deviations from the known good lines. Even if people committed the same level of memorization in 960, original games would start after move 2 or 3 not move 23.
This is true, but the issue I was concerned about is that memorizing datasets is not fun, so games should be designed so that dataset memorization provides no advantage, so that competitive players aren't forced to waste their life memorizing datasets.
Solving this issue also naturally solves the game variety issue.
As for variety, there is still the risk that chess engines might be able to produce a single long consensus main variation for each 960 position, and so that even if people can only memorize one variation, everyone could memorize and play the same line.
Solving this issue also naturally solves the game variety issue.
As for variety, there is still the risk that chess engines might be able to produce a single long consensus main variation for each 960 position, and so that even if people can only memorize one variation, everyone could memorize and play the same line.
"Just run the most sophisticated chess engines available 960 times and publish the results."
Ok. You've got your first "best" move, and then what?
You still have pretty much a random position after that, and it'll be up to you to think on your feet to win.
Ok. You've got your first "best" move, and then what?
You still have pretty much a random position after that, and it'll be up to you to think on your feet to win.
Is there an adaptive difficulty AlphaZero engine? It would be interesting to learn by playing one set to "try to win 50% of games" as a difficulty.
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I wish he posted the draw percentage.
I wonder about the win rate distribution for colors in Fischer chess vs. No castle chess. Either way, this would have to go through FIDE (to be widely implemented) and they're too corrupt to bring community together and make a significant contribution to the game of chess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_chess
It will be interesting to compare how Alpha Zero learns with the Indian chess rules.