Ah, forgot about that, I deselected the 50 move rule too in the GUI.lkaufman wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:31 pmWait a minute, no draws? I thought this version eliminated draws by stalemate, bare king, and rep, but not fifty move rule. Surely there should be some fifty move rule draws in forty games? Unless the engine was just forfeiting players for repeating, rather than forcing them to play moves that did not repeat. It would be just incredible if my three rule changes reduced the draw percentage to less than 2%, rather I should say unbelievable. Or is this version calling fifty move rule draws wins for Black (my alternate proposal)?Laskos wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:51 pmThanks, seems to be playing relatively fine, but I saw only 2-3 games. In 40 games 2 min + 2 s versus 1 min + 1 s the score was 27:13 (only wins and losses, as it should be), in line with the Elo gain for doubling time control of the Standard Chess. So, the game is playable and is sensitive to the strength.MTaktikos wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:17 pmNo the eval is not specially tweaked for this variant.Laskos wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 4:16 pm
Thanks, seems to work now. Will check for some properties, interesting. Does the engine know something how to play it, or it plays as usual, only discovering that it lost/won at the last move? I have no time looking at PGNs and games.
I mean, the eval has to be changed due to such adjudication rules, otherwise it will play dumb, unrepresentative games. I don't have time to look at the code, games and PGNs, just left it play 40 games at 2:1 time odds, to see the sensitivity of the game to strength.
But I have seen Fairy Stockfish playing other 8x8 variants without tweaked eval, and nevertheless it plays much stronger (> 400 Elo) than known variant engines, which themselves play at superhuman level. Therefore I don't assume that it will play dumb
P.S. After this weekend I will try to change variants.cpp so that Fairy Stockfish can be tested also for Armageddon chess
AlphaZero No Castling Chess
Moderators: hgm, Rebel, chrisw
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Re: AlphaZero No Castling Chess
Last edited by Laskos on Fri Dec 06, 2019 9:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: AlphaZero No Castling Chess
I think I deselected the 50-move rule in the GUI too. When I will be at my PC home, will re-do the match.MTaktikos wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 8:43 pmNo, the 50 move rule draws remain possible.Wait a minute, no draws? I thought this version eliminated draws by stalemate, bare king, and rep, but not fifty move rule. Surely there should be some fifty move rule draws in forty games? Unless the engine was just forfeiting players for repeating, rather than forcing them to play moves that did not repeat. It would be just incredible if my three rule changes reduced the draw percentage to less than 2%, rather I should say unbelievable. Or is this version calling fifty move rule draws wins for Black (my alternate proposal)?
But: a single repetition is a loss, this rule may become decisive. I think about a scenario where the stronger side builds a fortress and presses the weaker side in a smaller area, where it is forced to make a repetition before it's 50 moves are over. Would be a very interesting Zugzwang scenario, wouldn't it?
(My hardware, an older AMD 8350, is not fast enough to make serious tests with the engine)
P.S. Cann't wait to see Stefan Pohl's new work. After the weekend I will have the time to implement something for his Armageddon variant. Hope some day there will exist also a "Fairy Leela" project, through Stefan's advices I learned how to use the Lc0 engine with my GPU
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Re: AlphaZero No Castling Chess
I got it working, but I think something is wrong. I see it repeating multiple times and only eventually varying, isn't it supposed to refuse to repeat even once? If it sees that playing the normally best move would force a repetition, shouldn't it choose an otherwise inferior but not clearly losing move? Is there some step I could be overlooking in the setup? I am selecting the "larry" variant. How about the adjudication rules, should they remain as default for fifty move and rep rule claims?MTaktikos wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 8:43 pmNo, the 50 move rule draws remain possible.Wait a minute, no draws? I thought this version eliminated draws by stalemate, bare king, and rep, but not fifty move rule. Surely there should be some fifty move rule draws in forty games? Unless the engine was just forfeiting players for repeating, rather than forcing them to play moves that did not repeat. It would be just incredible if my three rule changes reduced the draw percentage to less than 2%, rather I should say unbelievable. Or is this version calling fifty move rule draws wins for Black (my alternate proposal)?
But: a single repetition is a loss, this rule may become decisive. I think about a scenario where the stronger side builds a fortress and presses the weaker side in a smaller area, where it is forced to make a repetition before it's 50 moves are over. Would be a very interesting Zugzwang scenario, wouldn't it?
(My hardware, an older AMD 8350, is not fast enough to make serious tests with the engine)
P.S. Cann't wait to see Stefan Pohl's new work. After the weekend I will have the time to implement something for his Armageddon variant. Hope some day there will exist also a "Fairy Leela" project, through Stefan's advices I learned how to use the Lc0 engine with my GPU
Komodo rules!
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Re: AlphaZero No Castling Chess
In my new openings (coming until X-mas), which are a new variant of Armageddon, Komodo analyzed all endposition of the opening-lines. And only a small evel-intervall was taken for filtering good lines out of the pool.
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Re: AlphaZero No Castling Chess
My new openigns are a new variant of Armageddon and well be released soon (before X-mas). The work is almost done, I just have to write the documentation and design the website-section. So, perhaps you should wait for the release...
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Re: AlphaZero No Castling Chess
Yes, it is supposed to decide the player with the first repetition as defeated.
With the Winboard GUI I could reproduce the behavior you mentioned, and also some games where a bare king was on the board. After long debugging, it became clear that in the matches the Winboard GUI had switched to usual chess!
A provisional solution was to go to the menu Engine/Engine #1 settings/UCI_variant and chose here larry instead of chess; the same was to be done with Engine #2 settings.
The first game in the match the rules of your chess variant weren't violated, but after a while Winboard switched silently to chess again (argh!)
The only sure way that I found to play the Larrychess variant was to turn the Analysis Mode on and to make manually the moves suggested by the engine.
BTW I have the question which Winboard version used Kai Laskos for his test.
@ Kai: Was it the Winboard Alien version?
_____________________
https://github.com/mtaktikos?tab=repositories
https://github.com/mtaktikos?tab=repositories
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Re: AlphaZero No Castling Chess
No, your attached Winboard. I deselected the GUI 50-move and 3-fold rules, was not watching the games much, and assumed it was fine, so I messed up that experiment. When this morning I was more careful, the things didn't work out. So, I quit for now, as it seems Winboard overwrites the adjudication rules.
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Re: AlphaZero No Castling Chess
I built an opening suite with Komodo on 4 threads and Variety option, almost 500 different 5-movers (the unique starting position is set to no Black castling):lkaufman wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 5:25 pmI was involved with this idea too at the time, along with variants of it such as Black can only castle long, or white can only castle short while Black can only castle long. The pure version you tested seems to favor White too much even with Black winning draws. A more aesthetic version that might be more balanced (perhaps a bit in Black's favor between engines) would be that White can castle normally, but neither player can castle on the same side as his opponent has done. But this requires new programming, not so trivial to test. My subjective opinion as a GM is that the pure version you tested would be seen as too favorable for White (even with the Armageddon rule) for human play.Laskos wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:46 pmAh, sorry, I didn't know. So, I re-discovered this morning meddling about handicaps your proposal. Seeing your results, it seems a viable proposal, if Kramnik thinks no castling at all is a viable proposal. I am not sure how many top GMs share Kramnik's view.pohl4711 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 1:13 pmYou have an even simpler modification? That is my NBC-Armageddon openings idea. Not yours. I released it in August 2019, with 4 openings-sets. And announced it here on talkchess.
https://www.sp-cc.de/armageddon-openings.htm
From my website:
Level 2: NBC (= No Black Castling): White can castle to both sides, black is not allowed to castle. Line: 1. Na3 Nh6 2. Nb1 Rg8 3. Na3 Rh8 4. Nb1 Ng8 5. Nc3 Na6 6. Nb1 Rb8 7. Na3 Ra8 8. Nb1 Nb8
Level 2 (NBC) testing:
NBC_Armageddon_IM_4moves:
White Wins: 296 (59.2 %), Black Wins: 204 (40.8 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %) White Score: 59.2 %, Black Score: 40.8 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3477 500 (+304,= 0,-196), 60.8 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+196,= 0,-304), 39.2 % (Elo-spreading: 77 Elo)
NBC_Armageddon_SuperGM_4moves:
White Wins: 284 (56.8 %), Black Wins: 216 (43.2 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %), White Score: 56.8 %, Black Score: 43.2 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3451 500 (+286,= 0,-214), 57.2 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+214,= 0,-286), 42.8 % (Elo-spreading: 51 Elo)
NBC_Armageddon_FEOBOS:
White Wins: 287 (57.4 %), Black Wins: 213 (42.6 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %)m, White Score: 57.4 %, Black Score: 42.6 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3490 500 (+313,= 0,-187), 62.6 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+187,= 0,-313), 37.4 % (Elo-spreading: 90 Elo)
NBC_Armageddon_6pawnplies:
White Wins: 277 (55.4 %), Black Wins: 223 (44.6 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %), White Score: 55.4 %, Black Score: 44.6 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3473 500 (+301,= 0,-199), 60.2 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+199,= 0,-301), 39.8 % (Elo-spreading: 73 Elo)
Thanks for opening suites too! These are from normal human and computer games? I guess the openings will be somewhat different if one side doesn't castle, maybe I will build with Lc0 and Komodo some short opening suites which are played for this variant.
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=235 ... 1942827279
The pure No Black Castling seems balanced with that Armageddon scoring in Komodo self-matches at different time controls from this suite, for example:
60+0.6
White wins: 101/200
Draws: 94/200
Black Wins: 5/200
240+2.4
White wins: 20/40
Draws: 18/40
Black Wins: 2/40
But if you feel that it is too much an advantage for White, maybe I am missing something with these engine matches (Lc0 also sees it as pretty balanced).
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Re: AlphaZero No Castling Chess
Wow, that's a surprise, rather different result from what S. Pohl got, but he used "normal" openings so I think your result is more likely correct. I don't think you are "missing something", it's just that humans much prefer to attack than to try to hold a bad position, and so nearly every GM would rather play White in this scenario, and most likely White would score well over 50%. Engines can't replicate human behavior perfectly yet, and so such simulations are only a rough guide to what would happen with human play. But your result is quite significant, it may mean that this variant is ideal for correspondence or engine vs engine matches, and perhaps even with human OTB play White's advantage would be within acceptable bounds given that the players always play two game sets. But then tie scores become likely again!Laskos wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2019 7:36 pmI built an opening suite with Komodo on 4 threads and Variety option, almost 500 different 5-movers (the unique starting position is set to no Black castling):lkaufman wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 5:25 pmI was involved with this idea too at the time, along with variants of it such as Black can only castle long, or white can only castle short while Black can only castle long. The pure version you tested seems to favor White too much even with Black winning draws. A more aesthetic version that might be more balanced (perhaps a bit in Black's favor between engines) would be that White can castle normally, but neither player can castle on the same side as his opponent has done. But this requires new programming, not so trivial to test. My subjective opinion as a GM is that the pure version you tested would be seen as too favorable for White (even with the Armageddon rule) for human play.Laskos wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:46 pmAh, sorry, I didn't know. So, I re-discovered this morning meddling about handicaps your proposal. Seeing your results, it seems a viable proposal, if Kramnik thinks no castling at all is a viable proposal. I am not sure how many top GMs share Kramnik's view.pohl4711 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 1:13 pmYou have an even simpler modification? That is my NBC-Armageddon openings idea. Not yours. I released it in August 2019, with 4 openings-sets. And announced it here on talkchess.
https://www.sp-cc.de/armageddon-openings.htm
From my website:
Level 2: NBC (= No Black Castling): White can castle to both sides, black is not allowed to castle. Line: 1. Na3 Nh6 2. Nb1 Rg8 3. Na3 Rh8 4. Nb1 Ng8 5. Nc3 Na6 6. Nb1 Rb8 7. Na3 Ra8 8. Nb1 Nb8
Level 2 (NBC) testing:
NBC_Armageddon_IM_4moves:
White Wins: 296 (59.2 %), Black Wins: 204 (40.8 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %) White Score: 59.2 %, Black Score: 40.8 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3477 500 (+304,= 0,-196), 60.8 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+196,= 0,-304), 39.2 % (Elo-spreading: 77 Elo)
NBC_Armageddon_SuperGM_4moves:
White Wins: 284 (56.8 %), Black Wins: 216 (43.2 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %), White Score: 56.8 %, Black Score: 43.2 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3451 500 (+286,= 0,-214), 57.2 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+214,= 0,-286), 42.8 % (Elo-spreading: 51 Elo)
NBC_Armageddon_FEOBOS:
White Wins: 287 (57.4 %), Black Wins: 213 (42.6 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %)m, White Score: 57.4 %, Black Score: 42.6 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3490 500 (+313,= 0,-187), 62.6 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+187,= 0,-313), 37.4 % (Elo-spreading: 90 Elo)
NBC_Armageddon_6pawnplies:
White Wins: 277 (55.4 %), Black Wins: 223 (44.6 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %), White Score: 55.4 %, Black Score: 44.6 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3473 500 (+301,= 0,-199), 60.2 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+199,= 0,-301), 39.8 % (Elo-spreading: 73 Elo)
Thanks for opening suites too! These are from normal human and computer games? I guess the openings will be somewhat different if one side doesn't castle, maybe I will build with Lc0 and Komodo some short opening suites which are played for this variant.
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=235 ... 1942827279
The pure No Black Castling seems balanced with that Armageddon scoring in Komodo self-matches at different time controls from this suite, for example:
60+0.6
White wins: 101/200
Draws: 94/200
Black Wins: 5/200
240+2.4
White wins: 20/40
Draws: 18/40
Black Wins: 2/40
But if you feel that it is too much an advantage for White, maybe I am missing something with these engine matches (Lc0 also sees it as pretty balanced).
Well, one point you may have missed is that if the engines were aware that draws counted as Black wins and modified to play accordingly, White would surely have won at least a few of the drawn games, so I would say that the result does show some White advantage, but perhaps not too much. Humans would avoid anything looking even somewhat drawish as White, preferring an unclear attack to a small endgame plus.
Komodo rules!
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Re: AlphaZero No Castling Chess
Ah, forgot to specify:lkaufman wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2019 7:54 pmWow, that's a surprise, rather different result from what S. Pohl got, but he used "normal" openings so I think your result is more likely correct. I don't think you are "missing something", it's just that humans much prefer to attack than to try to hold a bad position, and so nearly every GM would rather play White in this scenario, and most likely White would score well over 50%. Engines can't replicate human behavior perfectly yet, and so such simulations are only a rough guide to what would happen with human play. But your result is quite significant, it may mean that this variant is ideal for correspondence or engine vs engine matches, and perhaps even with human OTB play White's advantage would be within acceptable bounds given that the players always play two game sets. But then tie scores become likely again!Laskos wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2019 7:36 pmI built an opening suite with Komodo on 4 threads and Variety option, almost 500 different 5-movers (the unique starting position is set to no Black castling):lkaufman wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 5:25 pmI was involved with this idea too at the time, along with variants of it such as Black can only castle long, or white can only castle short while Black can only castle long. The pure version you tested seems to favor White too much even with Black winning draws. A more aesthetic version that might be more balanced (perhaps a bit in Black's favor between engines) would be that White can castle normally, but neither player can castle on the same side as his opponent has done. But this requires new programming, not so trivial to test. My subjective opinion as a GM is that the pure version you tested would be seen as too favorable for White (even with the Armageddon rule) for human play.Laskos wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:46 pmAh, sorry, I didn't know. So, I re-discovered this morning meddling about handicaps your proposal. Seeing your results, it seems a viable proposal, if Kramnik thinks no castling at all is a viable proposal. I am not sure how many top GMs share Kramnik's view.pohl4711 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 1:13 pmYou have an even simpler modification? That is my NBC-Armageddon openings idea. Not yours. I released it in August 2019, with 4 openings-sets. And announced it here on talkchess.
https://www.sp-cc.de/armageddon-openings.htm
From my website:
Level 2: NBC (= No Black Castling): White can castle to both sides, black is not allowed to castle. Line: 1. Na3 Nh6 2. Nb1 Rg8 3. Na3 Rh8 4. Nb1 Ng8 5. Nc3 Na6 6. Nb1 Rb8 7. Na3 Ra8 8. Nb1 Nb8
Level 2 (NBC) testing:
NBC_Armageddon_IM_4moves:
White Wins: 296 (59.2 %), Black Wins: 204 (40.8 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %) White Score: 59.2 %, Black Score: 40.8 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3477 500 (+304,= 0,-196), 60.8 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+196,= 0,-304), 39.2 % (Elo-spreading: 77 Elo)
NBC_Armageddon_SuperGM_4moves:
White Wins: 284 (56.8 %), Black Wins: 216 (43.2 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %), White Score: 56.8 %, Black Score: 43.2 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3451 500 (+286,= 0,-214), 57.2 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+214,= 0,-286), 42.8 % (Elo-spreading: 51 Elo)
NBC_Armageddon_FEOBOS:
White Wins: 287 (57.4 %), Black Wins: 213 (42.6 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %)m, White Score: 57.4 %, Black Score: 42.6 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3490 500 (+313,= 0,-187), 62.6 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+187,= 0,-313), 37.4 % (Elo-spreading: 90 Elo)
NBC_Armageddon_6pawnplies:
White Wins: 277 (55.4 %), Black Wins: 223 (44.6 %), Draws: 0 (0.0 %), White Score: 55.4 %, Black Score: 44.6 %
1 SF 190728 (half time) : 3473 500 (+301,= 0,-199), 60.2 %
2 Komodo 13.01 : 3400 500 (+199,= 0,-301), 39.8 % (Elo-spreading: 73 Elo)
Thanks for opening suites too! These are from normal human and computer games? I guess the openings will be somewhat different if one side doesn't castle, maybe I will build with Lc0 and Komodo some short opening suites which are played for this variant.
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=235 ... 1942827279
The pure No Black Castling seems balanced with that Armageddon scoring in Komodo self-matches at different time controls from this suite, for example:
60+0.6
White wins: 101/200
Draws: 94/200
Black Wins: 5/200
240+2.4
White wins: 20/40
Draws: 18/40
Black Wins: 2/40
But if you feel that it is too much an advantage for White, maybe I am missing something with these engine matches (Lc0 also sees it as pretty balanced).
Well, one point you may have missed is that if the engines were aware that draws counted as Black wins and modified to play accordingly, White would surely have won at least a few of the drawn games, so I would say that the result does show some White advantage, but perhaps not too much. Humans would avoid anything looking even somewhat drawish as White, preferring an unclear attack to a small endgame plus.
I used
Contempt = 25
White Contempt = True
Does that make sense to you? I am not sure how Black behaves in this case, maybe you can tell me. My goal was that White would chase Wins, Black would chase Draws and Wins.