Cursed win at TCEC

[Guenther]

It is not an opinion but a fact. There have not been any 1-1 openings so far.

Rounds 17 and 18 were the same opening and each was won by white. Not unexpected, of course.

Game 25 and 26 could be counted now. That opening looks a bit too 'whitish'.

[Laskos]

It is not an opinion but a fact. There have not been any 1-1 openings so far.

Rounds 17 and 18 were the same opening and each was won by white. Not unexpected, of course.

Game 25 and 26 could be counted now. That opening looks a bit too 'whitish'.

Ideally, for the "resolution" of the match, it's best to have equal number of 1/2-1/2 and 1-1 openings. For TCEC conditions, where draw rate with balanced positions can reach 90%, it almost rigorously proven. So, openings as of now, are a bit too balanced compared to ideal (six 1/2-1/2, one 1-1).

PS Wait, wasn't game 25 draw?

[Guenther]

It is not an opinion but a fact. There have not been any 1-1 openings so far.

Rounds 17 and 18 were the same opening and each was won by white. Not unexpected, of course.

Game 25 and 26 could be counted now. That opening looks a bit too 'whitish'.

Ouch, I mixed the numbers - it seems opening for 27/28 could be a such one.
28 is not yet finished though...

Code: Select all

1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6 3. Nf3 Bg4 4. cxd5 Bxf3 5. gxf3 Qxd5 6. e3 e5 7. Nc3 Bb4 8. Bd2 Bxc3 9. bxc3 Qd6

27: 10. Qb3 +0.81
28: 10. Qb3 +0.87

Let's see if Houdini can win this?

(I want to add that the other openings so far look good and interesting
and are not too disbalanced)

[hgm]

As long as the other program could get a loss from the opening as well.

'Could' is not the same as 'will'. It would be a mistake to use unbalanced openings selected randomly without having the engines play both sides. Even though each of the engine could equally likely draw a losing start position. It will add additional random noise to the result.

[duncan]

If the 50-move rule makes some end-games drawn that otherwise could be won, so what? There are plenty other rules that turn end-games into draws that would have been won if the rule did not exist. Stalemate, for example. All drawn KPK positions would have been wins if stalemate did not exist, and you would have to play until King capture. If we did not have the rule that Bishops would capture only diagonally, but they could capture to any adjacent square, you could checkmate in KBK. And if Bishops could move to the other color, many draws in end-games with unlike Bishops would become wins. And if the board was 9x9, you would not even have unlike Bishops to start with. Repetition draws are annoying too. Why not simply declare the side that causes a repetition the loser? Then even K vs K could still be won with proper play.

If we are not going to change any of those rules, why would the 50-move rule be obnoxious?

(1)50 move rule was made under a misapprehension
(2)it penalises the player in the better position

[hgm]

The stalemate rule punishes the player in the better position, in KPK. That you are allowed to play on with a bare King so that KBK is a draw punishes the player in the better position...

[Ralph Stoesser]

To remove the stalemate rule would be a major change. Most chess studies would be worthless. The character of the game would change too much. Additionally it would result in a change of the FIDE rules, but nobody here proposes to change the FIDE rules. The proposal is to overrule the 50 move rule in case of

1) pure engine competition
2) a tablebase checkmate has been found in current position

That would be a rather mild change that seems apropriate to me. Tablebases which include the 50 move rule make sense as long as humans are involved, for analysis and for standard otb matches where humans participate. In pure engine competition, engines could easily use tablebases without this information. Imho that would make the competition slightly more interesting.

[hgm]

The 50-move rule is a FIDE rule. Proposing not to apply it is changing the FIDE rules.

I don't buy the 'more interesting' argument. The games would still be adjudicated as soon as a tablebase position is reached. They would just receive a different score. What is interesting about that?

Unless you consider it interesting to see if engines would fall into the trap you set up for them by lying about the rules, or, by sheer coincidence would manage to avoid it. If that sort of suspense is the point, we could also before each game designate a randomly chosen piece other than King as the royal piece, and adjudicate an immediate win for whichever side captures that.

Note that this game would never have become a cursed win if Houdini had known that cursed wins would be counted as wins, rather than draws. Abolishing the 50-move rule would not have made any difference when the engines would have been aware of it, rather than being tricked. It still would have ended as a draw. So how would that have been more interesting?

[Ralph Stoesser]

The 50 move draw rule was not created with destroying inevitable checkmates in mind. Humans can't usually calculate that far, so a outright 50 move rule for all cases makes sense as long as humans are involved. But if only KI is involved and one side can prove that it can checkmate in any number of moves, we as humans should be happy and amazed about it. Remember, this game is about checkmate in the end, isn't it?

The TCEC rules are not clear enough in that case. To consider the TCEC decisions unfair or stupid for those cases makes therfore sense. I agree with that. Can you elaborate in detail how and why this game would have ended in case both engines would have used gaviota tablebases for example? I can't.

[Ralph Stoesser]

FIDE rules are made from humans for humans, but not for pure engine competitions. In that sense they stay untouched by this proposal.