An idea for new Handicap games for dragon

[Uri Blass]

The idea is the following:

Everybody who want to compete pay some fixed money for the competition(let say 100$ for a game) and choose handicap that he likes to try in controlled conditions to prevent cheating and time control of 15+10.

Dragon is white but play without part of the pieces or the pawns based on the choice of the opponent.

The person who won against dragon with the smallest handicap win the competition and get all the money that humans paid in the year.

For example
If after a year we have 20 games of people who tried to play with different handicap(the same human may play more than one game) than the winner is the human who won with the samllest handicap and get 2000$.(if he played 2 games then of course the total money neto he won is practically 2000-200=1800$)

If more than one person won with the same handicap then the winner is the human who played first.

The question is if the dragon team is interested in this type of competition.
The question is also how to decide what is the smallest handicap (for examples if pawns a2,b2,c2,d2 is smaller than knight b1.

A possible way is simply to give some fixed chess engine with 1 core and 1024 mbytes hash to analyze and use the score of it after 1,000,000,000 nodes to decide what is the bigger handicap.

[lkaufman]

The idea is the following:

Everybody who want to compete pay some fixed money for the competition(let say 100$ for a game) and choose handicap that he likes to try in controlled conditions to prevent cheating and time control of 15+10.

Dragon is white but play without part of the pieces or the pawns based on the choice of the opponent.

The person who won against dragon with the smallest handicap win the competition and get all the money that humans paid in the year.

For example
If after a year we have 20 games of people who tried to play with different handicap(the same human may play more than one game) than the winner is the human who won with the samllest handicap and get 2000$.(if he played 2 games then of course the total money neto he won is practically 2000-200=1800$)

If more than one person won with the same handicap then the winner is the human who played first.

The question is if the dragon team is interested in this type of competition.
The question is also how to decide what is the smallest handicap (for examples if pawns a2,b2,c2,d2 is smaller than knight b1.

A possible way is simply to give some fixed chess engine with 1 core and 1024 mbytes hash to analyze and use the score of it after 1,000,000,000 nodes to decide what is the bigger handicap.

Aside from details, the idea of having strong players compete to see who can win at the smallest handicap is appealing. The biggest problem is that there is just an enormous gap between two pawn handicap and knight handicap. As we've seen, at two (White) pawn handicaps, the biggest ones except f2/g2, even Hikaru Nakamura lost badly (6.5 to 1.5 in Rapid, 15' + 10"). But at knight odds, even players in the 2200 to 2300 range such as both myself and my son Ray are quite competitive with Dragon at Rapid or even at slow Blitz levels. Two Black pawns is an intermediate step, especially c7 + f7, but even that is far from knight odds. Three (White) pawn handicaps are possible but the positions are really getting far away from normal chess. Knight for pawn as we did with GM Lenderman is an option, as is Exchange plus "a" pawn (with "a" rook and "b" knight off). Also the ordering of the handicaps may depend on which engine is chosen for the task, they each have their preferences, which may differ from what humans excel at.

[Chessqueen]

The idea is the following:

Everybody who want to compete pay some fixed money for the competition(let say 100$ for a game) and choose handicap that he likes to try in controlled conditions to prevent cheating and time control of 15+10.

Dragon is white but play without part of the pieces or the pawns based on the choice of the opponent.

The person who won against dragon with the smallest handicap win the competition and get all the money that humans paid in the year.

For example
If after a year we have 20 games of people who tried to play with different handicap(the same human may play more than one game) than the winner is the human who won with the samllest handicap and get 2000$.(if he played 2 games then of course the total money neto he won is practically 2000-200=1800$)

If more than one person won with the same handicap then the winner is the human who played first.

The question is if the dragon team is interested in this type of competition.
The question is also how to decide what is the smallest handicap (for examples if pawns a2,b2,c2,d2 is smaller than knight b1.

A possible way is simply to give some fixed chess engine with 1 core and 1024 mbytes hash to analyze and use the score of it after 1,000,000,000 nodes to decide what is the bigger handicap.

Aside from details, the idea of having strong players compete to see who can win at the smallest handicap is appealing. The biggest problem is that there is just an enormous gap between two pawn handicap and knight handicap. As we've seen, at two (White) pawn handicaps, the biggest ones except f2/g2, even Hikaru Nakamura lost badly (6.5 to 1.5 in Rapid, 15' + 10"). But at knight odds, even players in the 2200 to 2300 range such as both myself and my son Ray are quite competitive with Dragon at Rapid or even at slow Blitz levels. Two Black pawns is an intermediate step, especially c7 + f7, but even that is far from knight odds. Three (White) pawn handicaps are possible but the positions are really getting far away from normal chess. Knight for pawn as we did with GM Lenderman is an option, as is Exchange plus "a" pawn (with "a" rook and "b" knight off). Also the ordering of the handicaps may depend on which engine is chosen for the task, they each have their preferences, which may differ from what humans excel at.

I still believe that Dragon should NOT use endgame tablebases against Humans, since Dragon pure calculating power is better than most humans endgame knowledge. And to get more people involved the entry fee should be lower $50.00

[Nordlandia]

There is a immense difference between two pawns and knight odds. Is there any tertiary intermediate odds configuration.

Something that fits between two pawns and knight odds.

[JJJ]

Another Idea, White got a queen instead of knight and bishop. It could be less than knight handicap but more than 2 pawns handicap.

[Uri Blass]

Of course you can change the opening position in many ways but I prefer simply removing part of the pieces of one side.

1)There are many possibilities of removing 2 pawns and not every 2 pawns are the same
It is possible also to remove 2 black pawns.

2)I agree that the order of handicaps may depend on which engine is chosen for the task but part of the competition between humans can be also choosing the right handicap.

I think that we should have a table of size of handicap for every case of removing 1 white pawn or 2 white pawns
or 1 black pawns or 2 black pawns(total number of cases is 8+8+28+28=72).

3)I think that it is possible to have a competition between humans in winning with knight handicap about the fastest time control that they can win and same for bigger handicaps(at time control of 0.015'+0.01'' that is 1000 times faster than 15'+10'' I believe no human can win even with a queen handicap and it is possible to decide that the time control has to be proportional to 15'+10'' to prevent discussions if 20'+5'' is faster or slower than 15'+10'').

[lkaufman]

Of course you can change the opening position in many ways but I prefer simply removing part of the pieces of one side.

1)There are many possibilities of removing 2 pawns and not every 2 pawns are the same
It is possible also to remove 2 black pawns.

2)I agree that the order of handicaps may depend on which engine is chosen for the task but part of the competition between humans can be also choosing the right handicap.

I think that we should have a table of size of handicap for every case of removing 1 white pawn or 2 white pawns
or 1 black pawns or 2 black pawns(total number of cases is 8+8+28+28=72).

3)I think that it is possible to have a competition between humans in winning with knight handicap about the fastest time control that they can win and same for bigger handicaps(at time control of 0.015'+0.01'' that is 1000 times faster than 15'+10'' I believe no human can win even with a queen handicap and it is possible to decide that the time control has to be proportional to 15'+10'' to prevent discussions if 20'+5'' is faster or slower than 15'+10'').

I think the best way is to just select a few of the two pawn handicaps that form a clear unambiguous progression from largest to smallest, perhaps by just using knight and bishop pawns, since center pawns change the game too much by opening lines for multiple pieces, and rook's pawns are only something like half pawns in part due to the immediate activity of the otherwise hard-to-use rook. Obviously the largest handicap is f7 + g7, since Black cannot avoid the loss of castling rights after 1.e4. This is still less than knight odds, but not way less. Then comes c7+f7, which is also quite a large handicap. Then I would go to b7 + f7. After that we can switch colors and go to f2 + g2, the largest White two pawn handicap. Then c2 + f2, the one that was a huge problem for Komodo back in 2015 against a low-rated GM but not for Dragon in 2020 vs Hikaru. Maybe b2 + c2 after that, and then next should be the largest single pawn, the traditional "pawn and move", f7. No one will get past that.

[Chessqueen]

Of course you can change the opening position in many ways but I prefer simply removing part of the pieces of one side.

1)There are many possibilities of removing 2 pawns and not every 2 pawns are the same
It is possible also to remove 2 black pawns.

2)I agree that the order of handicaps may depend on which engine is chosen for the task but part of the competition between humans can be also choosing the right handicap.

I think that we should have a table of size of handicap for every case of removing 1 white pawn or 2 white pawns
or 1 black pawns or 2 black pawns(total number of cases is 8+8+28+28=72).

3)I think that it is possible to have a competition between humans in winning with knight handicap about the fastest time control that they can win and same for bigger handicaps(at time control of 0.015'+0.01'' that is 1000 times faster than 15'+10'' I believe no human can win even with a queen handicap and it is possible to decide that the time control has to be proportional to 15'+10'' to prevent discussions if 20'+5'' is faster or slower than 15'+10'').

I think the best way is to just select a few of the two pawn handicaps that form a clear unambiguous progression from largest to smallest, perhaps by just using knight and bishop pawns, since center pawns change the game too much by opening lines for multiple pieces, and rook's pawns are only something like half pawns in part due to the immediate activity of the otherwise hard-to-use rook. Obviously the largest handicap is f7 + g7, since Black cannot avoid the loss of castling rights after 1.e4. This is still less than knight odds, but not way less. Then comes c7+f7, which is also quite a large handicap. Then I would go to b7 + f7. After that we can switch colors and go to f2 + g2, the largest White two pawn handicap. Then c2 + f2, the one that was a huge problem for Komodo back in 2015 against a low-rated GM but not for Dragon in 2020 vs Hikaru. Maybe b2 + c2 after that, and then next should be the largest single pawn, the traditional "pawn and move", f7. No one will get past that.

I believe that the same 2 two pawns Odds without endgame tablebases given to Nakamura by just increasing the time control a little by 20 Minutes + 10 sec increment to either GM SO or Nakamura should be more than equal.

[lkaufman]

Of course you can change the opening position in many ways but I prefer simply removing part of the pieces of one side.

1)There are many possibilities of removing 2 pawns and not every 2 pawns are the same
It is possible also to remove 2 black pawns.

2)I agree that the order of handicaps may depend on which engine is chosen for the task but part of the competition between humans can be also choosing the right handicap.

I think that we should have a table of size of handicap for every case of removing 1 white pawn or 2 white pawns
or 1 black pawns or 2 black pawns(total number of cases is 8+8+28+28=72).

3)I think that it is possible to have a competition between humans in winning with knight handicap about the fastest time control that they can win and same for bigger handicaps(at time control of 0.015'+0.01'' that is 1000 times faster than 15'+10'' I believe no human can win even with a queen handicap and it is possible to decide that the time control has to be proportional to 15'+10'' to prevent discussions if 20'+5'' is faster or slower than 15'+10'').

I think the best way is to just select a few of the two pawn handicaps that form a clear unambiguous progression from largest to smallest, perhaps by just using knight and bishop pawns, since center pawns change the game too much by opening lines for multiple pieces, and rook's pawns are only something like half pawns in part due to the immediate activity of the otherwise hard-to-use rook. Obviously the largest handicap is f7 + g7, since Black cannot avoid the loss of castling rights after 1.e4. This is still less than knight odds, but not way less. Then comes c7+f7, which is also quite a large handicap. Then I would go to b7 + f7. After that we can switch colors and go to f2 + g2, the largest White two pawn handicap. Then c2 + f2, the one that was a huge problem for Komodo back in 2015 against a low-rated GM but not for Dragon in 2020 vs Hikaru. Maybe b2 + c2 after that, and then next should be the largest single pawn, the traditional "pawn and move", f7. No one will get past that.

I believe that the same 2 two pawns Odds without endgame tablebases given to Nakamura by just increasing the time control a little by 20 Minutes + 10 sec increment to either GM SO or Nakamura should be more than equal.

I can't recall a single game with a human in which tablebases made any difference. In handicap games where endgames are likely to be bad for the engine they are probably not helpful, because the engine will avoid some lost but difficult endgame (such as rook vs. queen for example) and choose something the human can win more easily. TBs are only worth a few elo against other super strong engines. If we don't use TBs, it won't be to help the human! With more time, no distractions, and more incentive to prepare, I agree that Naka or So would have a decent chance at the same two pawn handicaps.

[Marcus9]

I'd like to see a human win a match (not a single game), with faster time control but the same odd. However, I doubt that such a competition can be created, I believe few would really be interested, unless it becomes popular like with the komodo challange, up to play against komodo boss, even without money.
Then choose the same handicap, like knight odd, and choose a list of TC faster and faster.