Yes, indeed, Komodo at +4.67 after 8 minutes on my lowly notebook sees the threat as decisive. 8 moves are too much. Can you find something decisive, say more than +3.60, for 7 moves? I have tried several positions similar to yours after 7 moves with no better than +3.60, but a pawn is lost directly. Would mean roughly 150-170 ELO points per move, so against a 2200 FM 6-7 moves, against 2500 GM 4-5 moves, against 2700 GM 3-4 moves. The problem remains of repeated opening schemes by the human, maybe having forced simplifications and easy draws, if not wins. Still, an interesting handicap, but I am not sure what impression it leaves on the public. Maybe it's better to have a set of "normal" opening N-movers with no decisive tactical shots. But 2 varied pawns (one of them a2 or h2) seem a surer bet against a 2500 GM as the perceived achievement.Darrel Briley wrote:Laskos wrote:No, I should have made it clearer, this is just a guess, then, after trying several more positions, it still was the best. I have no proof whatsoever.lkaufman wrote:How did you determine that this is the maximum achievement with eight moves? I'm not saying that you are wrong, just wondered how you can be sure. With 9 moves White can get a plus 6, pretty much resignable for Black. If only the final position of the White pieces has to be in the first four ranks rather than the individual moves. White can achieve plus 6 with 8 moves.Laskos wrote:[Neither does Komodo, it gives less than 2 important pawns and a bit more than f7 pawn. However, maximum achievement in 8 moves (not beyond 4th rank) is almost twice as large, somewhere at 3 pawns, between 2 important pawns and a knight. This 8-mover position
[D]rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/2PPPP2/2NB1N2/PP4PP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 0 1[/D] is evaluated by Komodo at +3.15 on my lowly netbook after 6 minutes, with e5 best move. Without any handicap games testing, it's apparently some 1000 ELO points handicap. The rule of thumb seems to be a bit more than 100 ELO points for each available additional move of his choice to GM. I don't see how to prepare Komodo against repeated opening "scheme" of GM if the moves are at his choice. Maybe it's better to start with a set of strong N-mover positions, say N=6 in case of a 2500 GM, similar to the strong one shown for 8 moves.
These are very interesting "initiative" handicaps, maybe with two small snags. First, it's harder to assess for the general public the value of the handicap, compared to say 2 pawns. Second, if successful for Komodo, one can argue that engines are pretty dumb and materialistic, they have difficulty overcoming material disadvantages, as shown in the previous 2 matches, but they don't care too much about positional asymmetries.
[D]rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/2BPPB2/2N2N2/PPP1QPPP/2KR3R w kq -
1. e4
2. d4
3. nf3
4. nc3
5. Bc4
6. Bf4
7. Qe2
8. 0-0-0
(Individual moves)
I don't have Komodo to check this postion, but it may well be 6+ already. I don't know if you specified that Bishops can't come to the 4th rank, but if they can it's over. Bxf7+ is threatened...
DB
EDIT:
The 7-mover
[D]rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/2BPPB2/2N2N2/PPP1QPPP/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 1
rose to +3.90 after half an hour, with a lost d-pawn. Seems too much again.