Cursed win at TCEC

[syzygy]

If one side can prove to have an unavoidable checkmate, the game should not end with a draw. It simply feels wrong. Checkmates should take precedence.

But you seem to be alone in this: http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62175

[Laskos]

Some people commenting in this thread must apply for jobs as lawyers or jurors in some countryside court. This passion for details of legalistic matters and the deepness of these details make me nostalgic of Rybka/Vasik threads.

[Ralph Stoesser]

If one side can prove to have an unavoidable checkmate, the game should not end with a draw. It simply feels wrong. Checkmates should take precedence.

But you seem to be alone in this: http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62175

That one is about the clock, right? No flag fell issues in what we talk about here, so no need to mention that the clock should take priority in such a case. That of course feels absolutely right for most people, because we all know that our time on earth is limited. When our time is over we are not able to complete tasks in the future. That's somehow logical....

FIDE is not the ruler for engine competitions. FIDE rules are made for humans exclusively. No piece of software will ever be able to follow article 4.1, because software neither have two hands nor one. So we are somewhat free to do what we want with the FIDE rule set. That seems to be a new message for some people, and for sure it is a good message, so I think it's worth to mention it again here.

[Ralph Stoesser]

Some people commenting in this thread must apply for jobs as lawyers or jurors in some countryside court. This passion for details of legalistic matters and the deepness of these details make me nostalgic of Rybka/Vasik threads.

[MikeB]

Actually Stockfish has that knowledge, all its need is that little check box to be unchecked to false. If the operator knew the 50 move rule was not going to follow FIDE 50 move rule, the setting should, have been false. So either way , it is operator error.

But then you get the problem that 50-move rule draws that happen with 6 pieces still on the board are thought by the engine to be a win. But these 6-piece positions are not TB-adjudicated by TCEC, so they have to be won over the board and that will not work (even with the 50-move rule disabled the losing engine will make sure to keep the draw).

So what TCEC would need are 5-piece tables that ignore the 50-move rule, and custom-built 6-piece tables that do take into account the 50-move rule as long as the 50 moves happen before a conversion to a 5-piece position. This is not a very satisfactory situation.

The same applies to ICCF but with 5 replaced by 6: they need 6-piece tables that ignore the 50-move rule and custom-built 7-piece tables that take into account the 50-move rule as long as the 50 moves happen before a conversion to a 6-piece position.

Good point , it does sound a whole lot simpler just to follow the FIDE rules that govern the way most people play chess...why start start adjudicating draws (what people would consider to be a draw) as wins in the first place?
Using a faulty automated adjudicator is a little absurd in the first place.

Just wait a little until cutechess can handle 6 piece tb adjucation and that problem will disappear. There is already a pull request under review.

It may be technically easier to follow the 50 move draw rule in all cases, but many people feel that would be against the main objectives of the game of chess (See article 1.1 - 1.3 FIDE rules for reference). If one side can prove to have an unavoidable checkmate, the game should not end with a draw. It simply feels wrong. Checkmates should take precedence.

I'm fine with that as long as that is well communicated in advance and understood, and obviously the appropriate settings , i.e, "setoption name Syzygy50MoveRule value false" are used and it is obvious they were not.

[syzygy]

It may be technically easier to follow the 50 move draw rule in all cases, but many people feel that would be against the main objectives of the game of chess (See article 1.1 - 1.3 FIDE rules for reference). If one side can prove to have an unavoidable checkmate, the game should not end with a draw. It simply feels wrong. Checkmates should take precedence.

I'm fine with that as long as that is well communicated in advance and understood, and obviously the appropriate settings , i.e, "setoption name Syzygy50MoveRule value false" are used and it is obvious they were not.

I am looking forward to the discussion after a game has ended in a 50-move draw with 6 pieces left on the board which is shown to be a "win" by TBs. I guess such a draw will have to be manually corrected to a win?

I am also looking forward to the discussion after a game has ended in a 50-move draw with 7 pieces left on the board which is shown to be a "win" by the Lomonosov TBs. I guess such a draw will have to be manually corrected as well?

I am even more looking forward to the discussion after a game has ended in a 50-move draw with 10 pieces left on the board which is shown to be a "win" by running finalgen for two weeks. I guess such a draw will have to be manually corrected too?

The "unavoidable checkmate" concept is simply broken.

[Ralph Stoesser]

I can't see why it should be broken. It's not the question if someone may be able to show that a checkmate is unavoidable. That someone has to be the engine that plays, and as long as the adjucation tb is state of the art there will be no problem. I would call that progress.

[syzygy]

I can't see why it should be broken. It's not the question if someone may be able to show that a checkmate is unavoidable. That someone has to be the engine that plays, and as long as the adjucation tb is state of the art there will be no problem. I would call that progress.

It has to be the engine that plays?

In game 17, both engines were able to show that the position was a draw.

How will you modify your condition now to make it fit your ideal?

In the time loss example white was able to show that the position was a win. Why should he not have been awarded the win?

And do you realise that you are skewing the game rules in favour of the side making the prediction that it can mate (no matter the time it would take him or the number of moves it would take him) over the side that actually tries to play out the win over the board (but then runs into a 50-move draw or runs out of time)?

[Ralph Stoesser]

I can't see why it should be broken. It's not the question if someone may be able to show that a checkmate is unavoidable. That someone has to be the engine that plays, and as long as the adjucation tb is state of the art there will be no problem. I would call that progress.

It has to be the engine that plays?

In game 17, both engines were able to show that the position was a draw.

How will you modify your condition now to make it fit your ideal?

In the time loss example white was able to show that the position was a win. Why should he not have been awarded the win?

And do you realise that you are skewing the game rules in favour of the side making the prediction that it can mate (no matter the time it would take him or the number of moves it would take him) over the side that actually tries to play out the win over the board (but then runs into a 50-move draw or runs out of time)?

I have absolutely no idea why you still think somebody and especially me would want to change FIDE rules? They are fine, nearly perfect, for ever, written in golden letters. We are talking about engine tournaments. FIDE rules do not apply in that case.

Then there are the TCEC rules, in particular the TB adjucation rule. There is obviously something broken. Game 17 shouldn't have been adjucated as a win, because both engines are playing with a TB setup that includes the 50 move draw rule, but the adjucation system doesn't. That wrong adjucation (actually there are two cases) should have been manually corrected.

In the end we would of course like to have an adjucation system that would be fair without any invention from a tournament director.

My wish for the next TCEC tournament would be:

Cutechess with 6 piece TB adjucation but without 50 move draw rule restriction. All engines playing with the same TB setup, also without 50 move draw rule restriction (or without TB at all). No other changes. Especially no changes in FIDE tournaments where humans are involved. Lol.

Now what exactly would be the problem with this setup?

[syzygy]

I can't see why it should be broken. It's not the question if someone may be able to show that a checkmate is unavoidable. That someone has to be the engine that plays, and as long as the adjucation tb is state of the art there will be no problem. I would call that progress.

It has to be the engine that plays?

In game 17, both engines were able to show that the position was a draw.

How will you modify your condition now to make it fit your ideal?

In the time loss example white was able to show that the position was a win. Why should he not have been awarded the win?

And do you realise that you are skewing the game rules in favour of the side making the prediction that it can mate (no matter the time it would take him or the number of moves it would take him) over the side that actually tries to play out the win over the board (but then runs into a 50-move draw or runs out of time)?

I have absolutely no idea why you still think somebody and especially me would want to change FIDE rules? They are fine, nearly perfect, for ever, written in golden letters. We are talking about engine tournaments. FIDE rules do not apply in that case.

Where did I mention FIDE?

Then there are the TCEC rules, in particular the TB adjucation rule. There is obviously something broken. Game 17 shouldn't have been adjucated as a win, because both engines are playing with a TB setup that includes the 50 move draw rule, but the adjucation system doesn't. That wrong adjucation (actually there are two cases) should have been manually corrected.

OK, it wasn't obvious to me that you were in agreement all along.

In the end we would of course like to have an adjucation system that would be fair without any invention from a tournament director.

I don't think correcting an adjudication result once or at most twice per season is a big deal. But of course it is nicer if the automatic adjudication system gets fixed.

My wish for the next TCEC tournament would be:

Cutechess with 6 piece TB adjucation but without 50 move draw rule restriction. All engines playing with the same TB setup, also without 50 move draw rule restriction (or without TB at all). No other changes. Especially no changes in FIDE tournaments where humans are involved. Lol.

Now what exactly would be the problem with this setup?

One problem is that this is unfair to engines that do not use TBs. They rely on the 50-move rule being applied in all positions.

Separately from the 50-move rule, I personally don't think 6-piece TB adjudication is a good idea if one of the engines does not use TBs. There are many 6-piece positions that (some) engines are not able to play correctly, so adjudicating those is helping TB-less engines too much. This problem also exists for 5-piece positions, but to a much smaller extent.

The best solution in my eyes is to replace TB adjudication with a request to authors of engines that use TBs to greatly limit thinking time on TB positions. Alternatively, TCEC could artificially limit their thinking time (as suggested by HGM), but that requires changes in cutechess and might be tricky to get right. Of course without TB adjudication the 50-move rule obviously continues to be in place.