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lkaufman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:26 pm We are planning to start a weekly series of matches on chess.com. Each week Komodo would face some titled human opponent on chess.com for a rapid or blitz handicap match, details to be decided. We might use regular Komodo some times, MCTS version other times. The current plan is for this to happen on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern time. There won't generally be any chess.com tv coverage, although of course they are welcome to do so. You simply observe the games of "playkomodo". The first opponent, for next Wednesday (Aug. 21), is my son, I.M. Raymond Kaufman, who tied for first place in the Canadian Open last year. Probably three hours total time. Some weeks I may play against Komodo myself. Any titled players who would like to volunteer to play in one of these events let us know here. In general it would just be for fun, although we can find some prize money for GMs. Ideas for handicaps are welcome, but please remember that it has to be something that can be specified as a pgn, we won't have the ability to do things that require special rules beyond what a pgn can specify. One idea I want to include is chess960 with knight odds, but it has to be one of the 18 positions that allow normal castling on both sides since chess960 isn't set up to allow for changing the start position currently.

Nay Lin Tun wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 5:40 am I guess, you are the only titled player here.
Most of us are like 1200-1300.
You would be lucky if you find some 2000+ in here.

mwyoung wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 5:49 am

lkaufman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:26 pm We are planning to start a weekly series of matches on chess.com. Each week Komodo would face some titled human opponent on chess.com for a rapid or blitz handicap match, details to be decided. We might use regular Komodo some times, MCTS version other times. The current plan is for this to happen on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern time. There won't generally be any chess.com tv coverage, although of course they are welcome to do so. You simply observe the games of "playkomodo". The first opponent, for next Wednesday (Aug. 21), is my son, I.M. Raymond Kaufman, who tied for first place in the Canadian Open last year. Probably three hours total time. Some weeks I may play against Komodo myself. Any titled players who would like to volunteer to play in one of these events let us know here. In general it would just be for fun, although we can find some prize money for GMs. Ideas for handicaps are welcome, but please remember that it has to be something that can be specified as a pgn, we won't have the ability to do things that require special rules beyond what a pgn can specify. One idea I want to include is chess960 with knight odds, but it has to be one of the 18 positions that allow normal castling on both sides since chess960 isn't set up to allow for changing the start position currently.

Very nice!!

Any planned updates to Komodo for the series?

lkaufman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:26 pm We are planning to start a weekly series of matches on chess.com. Each week Komodo would face some titled human opponent on chess.com for a rapid or blitz handicap match, details to be decided. We might use regular Komodo some times, MCTS version other times. The current plan is for this to happen on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern time. There won't generally be any chess.com tv coverage, although of course they are welcome to do so. You simply observe the games of "playkomodo". The first opponent, for next Wednesday (Aug. 21), is my son, I.M. Raymond Kaufman, who tied for first place in the Canadian Open last year. Probably three hours total time. Some weeks I may play against Komodo myself. Any titled players who would like to volunteer to play in one of these events let us know here. In general it would just be for fun, although we can find some prize money for GMs. Ideas for handicaps are welcome, but please remember that it has to be something that can be specified as a pgn, we won't have the ability to do things that require special rules beyond what a pgn can specify. One idea I want to include is chess960 with knight odds, but it has to be one of the 18 positions that allow normal castling on both sides since chess960 isn't set up to allow for changing the start position currently.

Ovyron wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 1:15 pm Are takeback handicaps ruled out?

BrendanJNorman wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 4:05 pm

lkaufman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:26 pm We are planning to start a weekly series of matches on chess.com. Each week Komodo would face some titled human opponent on chess.com for a rapid or blitz handicap match, details to be decided. We might use regular Komodo some times, MCTS version other times. The current plan is for this to happen on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern time. There won't generally be any chess.com tv coverage, although of course they are welcome to do so. You simply observe the games of "playkomodo". The first opponent, for next Wednesday (Aug. 21), is my son, I.M. Raymond Kaufman, who tied for first place in the Canadian Open last year. Probably three hours total time. Some weeks I may play against Komodo myself. Any titled players who would like to volunteer to play in one of these events let us know here. In general it would just be for fun, although we can find some prize money for GMs. Ideas for handicaps are welcome, but please remember that it has to be something that can be specified as a pgn, we won't have the ability to do things that require special rules beyond what a pgn can specify. One idea I want to include is chess960 with knight odds, but it has to be one of the 18 positions that allow normal castling on both sides since chess960 isn't set up to allow for changing the start position currently.

Also going to use some high Dynamism and Contempt sometimes too? I think that'll be fun...nobody will be strong enough to exploit the slight drop in strength, and the highly tactical nature will likely blow away the human in spectacular fashion.

lkaufman wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 5:52 pm

BrendanJNorman wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 4:05 pm

lkaufman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:26 pm We are planning to start a weekly series of matches on chess.com. Each week Komodo would face some titled human opponent on chess.com for a rapid or blitz handicap match, details to be decided. We might use regular Komodo some times, MCTS version other times. The current plan is for this to happen on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern time. There won't generally be any chess.com tv coverage, although of course they are welcome to do so. You simply observe the games of "playkomodo". The first opponent, for next Wednesday (Aug. 21), is my son, I.M. Raymond Kaufman, who tied for first place in the Canadian Open last year. Probably three hours total time. Some weeks I may play against Komodo myself. Any titled players who would like to volunteer to play in one of these events let us know here. In general it would just be for fun, although we can find some prize money for GMs. Ideas for handicaps are welcome, but please remember that it has to be something that can be specified as a pgn, we won't have the ability to do things that require special rules beyond what a pgn can specify. One idea I want to include is chess960 with knight odds, but it has to be one of the 18 positions that allow normal castling on both sides since chess960 isn't set up to allow for changing the start position currently.

Also going to use some high Dynamism and Contempt sometimes too? I think that'll be fun...nobody will be strong enough to exploit the slight drop in strength, and the highly tactical nature will likely blow away the human in spectacular fashion.

If we use regular Komodo, we always raise Contempt for handicap games, and King Safety (which is part of Dynamism) is higher in current version. For MCTS, some "Contempt" is effectively built-in, as the assumption that the opponent won't always play the "best" response raises our expected score.