Nakamura vs Stockfish, public match 8/23

[Tord Romstad]

Sure, but certainly in game 2 it seems pretty clear at which move he decides to go for a win instead of contenting himself with a draw. It might be that SF would have found some way to break open the position before reaching a 50-move draw, but I kind of doubt it.

Reading about this game on the Internet, I feel like I was watching an entirely different game than everybody else. At the time Nakamura played 115... f5, SF was literally two moves away from breaking open the kingside by Re3 followed by g4, a maneuver it had slowly been preparing over the last dozen moves or so. Would it have been better to defend passively than playing f5? Quite possibly, but given the circumstances, f5 seems like a very reasonable move to play to me. When you are exhausted after more than 100 moves of play, you are beginning to run short on time, you are faced with a superficially scary-looking idea like this (even if it isn't theoretically dangerous -- not having analysed the position, I don't really know), and the computer program you use to assist you in analysing the position believes that the attack you fear is indeed dangerous, it is perfectly natural to panic and think you need to get some counterplay before it's too late.

Nakamura himself (on Twitter) seems to be the only one who shared my feelings about the position:

Rybka was saying that in the 2nd game if I did not go f5, white goes Re3 and g4 with an advantage of 0.9. Clearly, Stockfish is better.

It is also notable (from the same Twitter discussion) that while everybody else likes to criticise SF's play in the second game, Nakamura appears to be more critical about the first game:

Stockfish like all computers is a great defender, but it made a few positional errors especially in game 1 albeit it not serious.

[syzygy]

Sure, but certainly in game 2 it seems pretty clear at which move he decides to go for a win instead of contenting himself with a draw. It might be that SF would have found some way to break open the position before reaching a 50-move draw, but I kind of doubt it.

Reading about this game on the Internet, I feel like I was watching an entirely different game than everybody else. At the time Nakamura played 115... f5, SF was literally two moves away from breaking open the kingside by Re3 followed by g4, a maneuver it had slowly been preparing over the last dozen moves or so. Would it have been better to defend passively than playing f5?

OK, if white was about to break open the position then I withdraw what I said.

Nakamura himself (on Twitter) seems to be the only one who shared my feelings about the position:

Rybka was saying that in the 2nd game if I did not go f5, white goes Re3 and g4 with an advantage of 0.9. Clearly, Stockfish is better.

So Nakamura did not play f5 in an attempt to win, which was my (patzer) impression from going through the moves.

[styx]

And we really don't know what the engine ratings are relative to humans. If Stockfish is really 500 elo stronger than Nakamura, we would expect Naka to score only 5 points out of 100 and I have to believe he would fare better than that.

Naka is not a "complete idiot" but his temperament is to fight and that was his undoing.

keep in mind that in all four games nakamura had advantages

so these games are only a proof, that it is incredible hard to beat a top chess engine. it does not tell anything about stockfishs real ELO value

[Robert Flesher]

Nakamura could have drawn all four, but he prodded and pushed, looking for wins that were not there. Respect to Naka!

I don't think he had any chance to draw the match ...
I find it highly unlikely that in a perhaps historically significant match of man vs machine...he had chances to draw against a 3300 engine (possibly proving human can be equal to a machine), and simply threw them away.
If that's true, he's either incredibly conceited or a complete idiot...(both of which I doubt)

I followed the match, all 11 hours of it. Game 2 would have been drawn by either repetition or the 50 move rule had Naka chosen not to press. This was fairly obvious. The other loss was also petering out into a draw but Naka gambled and lost. If this was straight up chess, without assistance or odds, I'd agree that splitting the points is unlikely.

And we really don't know what the engine ratings are relative to humans. If Stockfish is really 500 elo stronger than Nakamura, we would expect Naka to score only 5 points out of 100 and I have to believe he would fare better than that.

Naka is not a "complete idiot" but his temperament is to fight and that was his undoing.

I cannot believe the praise Naka is getting for the games he HAD a computer to assist him. Who is to say if it was not Ryka that allowed him to draw one of the two game with all the pieces on the board. Then it was two pawn odds games ( not chess), come on people wake up. Make the games regular time controls at normal chess and he would be crushed. On more than one occasion Naka has stated this himself.

[lucasart]

All this Cyborg non sense is based on the fallacious assumption that:

elo(human+computer) > max(elo(computer),elo(human))

Only naivety or arrogance can explain such a belief. So much for correspondance chess "titles"…

One more we learn the hard reality, which is more like:

elo(human+computer) <= min(elo(computer),elo(human))

[Dirt]

Reading about this game on the Internet, I feel like I was watching an entirely different game than everybody else. At the time Nakamura played 115... f5, SF was literally two moves away from breaking open the kingside by Re3 followed by g4, a maneuver it had slowly been preparing over the last dozen moves or so.

I think Rybka let him down there. On the other hand, Rybka was probably the reason he traded off the dark square bishops earlier, which was wrongly criticized by the commentators. You win some and you lose some.

Interesting games that deserved more coverage. A big thank you to Nakamura.

[lucasart]

should be *max* in both inequalities.

[Uri Blass]

All this Cyborg non sense is based on the fallacious assumption that:

elo(human+computer) > max(elo(computer),elo(human))

Only naivety or arrogance can explain such a belief. So much for correspondance chess "titles"…

Common sense can explain this assumption and I think that rybka with no help could lose 2-0 against stockfish and not 1.5:0.5 considering the hardware advantage of stockfish.

[Laskos]

All this Cyborg non sense is based on the fallacious assumption that:

elo(human+computer) > max(elo(computer),elo(human))

Only naivety or arrogance can explain such a belief. So much for correspondance chess "titles"…

The top of the rating list for correspondence chess players (ICCF) is Joop J. van Oosterom, a billionaire. That says a lot.

One more we learn the hard reality, which is more like:

elo(human+computer) <= max(elo(computer),elo(human))

[Uri Blass]

Joop J. van Oosterom is not the best player in correspondence chess.

He was the best player but in the last tournament he lost 2 games and quit correspondence chess

https://www.iccf.com/event?id=19150

I agree that the level of most correspondence chess players is not stronger than pure engines and simply usually serious chess players do not invest time in correspondence chess to prove that they are stronger than engines when there is no money to earn from it.

Note that a billionaire can always be number 1 in correspondence chess in case that he is interested in being number 1 simply by hiring the best advisors to help him.
The best advisors can be humans(50 years ago) or computers or a combination of them(today).