$20,000 ICUC - a report on wins

[Thomas A. Anderson]

Using a blacklist wouldn't be less arbitrary than having a whitelist / set of starting positions. If you vote for the Marshall, a very next candidate is the Berlin Wall. Whats next? Petroff? French exchange? Semi-Slav-Moskau-System, ... And how to avoid move transpositions finding it way to the blacklisted positions directly or some moves afterwards? Defining openings for a whitelist seems easier, but still is hard enough. Especially when you try to find positions not only with low draw rates, but also balanced chances. Securing balanced chances would be easier by playing the position twice again each opponent with switched colours. Having a set of positions large enough to make preparation very, very effortful, and using a kind of randomness for the selection... for each game induvidually or for all games in the same round. Just brainstorming.

[carldaman]

Why not use thematic openings that would, of course, leave out the Marshall and other troublesome boring/drawish openings?

Mainly, because (without thousands of engine games to back it up), the decision about which openings to label as boring/drawish, would be somewhat arbitrary.

Also, there's the thing about not every edgy opening being equal. Depending on what the chances are for a sound defence, getting an opening against a strong or a weak opponent would en up making all the difference.

The only way to make it fair, would be to play a thematic tour, like those in correspondence chess. But of course, you know what the opening is going to be, in advance.

Perhaps the thematic opening(s) could be randomly drawn from a pool of such pre-selected lines.

[Ozymandias]

Using a blacklist wouldn't be less arbitrary than having a whitelist / set of starting positions. If you vote for the Marshall, a very next candidate is the Berlin Wall. Whats next? Petroff? French exchange? Semi-Slav-Moskau-System, ... And how to avoid move transpositions finding it way to the blacklisted positions directly or some moves afterwards? Defining openings for a whitelist seems easier, but still is hard enough. Especially when you try to find positions not only with low draw rates, but also balanced chances. Securing balanced chances would be easier by playing the position twice again each opponent with switched colours. Having a set of positions large enough to make preparation very, very effortful, and using a kind of randomness for the selection... for each game induvidually or for all games in the same round. Just brainstorming.

You raise some valid points. As long as a we don't have 27-men pieces available, there's no way to guarantee, that the position after 11... c6, is a draw, so yes, to a certain extent, saying that this position is solved, is arbitrary. But focusing on the game aspect of chess, I think it's quite safe to say so. More than 3 years ago, in the ICFB, it was already being chosen as the favourite weapon of choice for black, and I remember my last game against Alvin, when I also used it. Even though I played poorly against his a3 anti-Marshall, a draw was achieved, and that was back then, with much less theory on any of the various anti-Marshall attempts, with weaker engines and weaker HW. Believe me, if someone found a way to crack that nut, I'd be popping champagne, but I don't see anyone trying anymore. The other defences you mention, may also prove to be impregnable, but they'd need a longer track record.

If we look trough the history of engine-driven opening theory, we see a trend. Back in the golden days, everything was about the poisoned pawn. (Curiously enough, the fact that most of the games revolved around this position, was the very reason why, the chess professionals scoffed at Playchess engine games, as a serious source for their databases.) But after a long fight, 6 Bg5 was found to be a draw, so people turned their heads towards the English Attack, and that lasted quite some time, although not nearly as long. When 8 ...h5 seemed to improve black chances, people then sifted their focus towards the Queen's Gambit, (more or less around the same time that the Marshall was also "refuting" e4 Nf3). Strides were made in the Anti-Meran Gambit, specially with the Botvirnnik Variation, in a relatively short period of time. After that, the only thing worth mentioning is the Giuoco Pianissimo, which we can also agree is a draw, if played correctly.

And where does this all leave us? In a barren land where white desperately tries to find an edge where none exists. As with the Marshall, if someone finds a completely novel way of making the initial tempo worth a damn, that bottle of champagne is waiting.

Perhaps the thematic opening(s) could be randomly drawn from a pool of such pre-selected lines.

If you can propose a transparent, tamper-free random system, I'm up for it.

[OtherVoices]

I went quickly through the comments, but there is nothing much to react to. All these things are obvious. Draw death is already here. There is not much play left. And you are right, next time the worst players may decide about top places, or mouseslip, disconnects etc. Of course, collusions and prearranged results as well. I may not play any more events in the future, as the joy is out. It is noone fault, simply the engines become so strong, that they can draw a game on their own. And no longer a human is able to improve or suggest anything which they don't already see.

Patrik Schoupal a.k.a. etaoinshrdlu

[Ozymandias]

I went quickly through the comments, but there is nothing much to react to. All these things are obvious. Draw death is already here. There is not much play left. And you are right, next time the worst players may decide about top places, or mouseslip, disconnects etc. Of course, collusions and prearranged results as well. I may not play any more events in the future, as the joy is out. It is noone fault, simply the engines become so strong, that they can draw a game on their own. And no longer a human is able to improve or suggest anything which they don't already see.

Patrik Schoupal a.k.a. etaoinshrdlu

I think that there's some middle ground, to be found, between such a pessimistic statement, and one as complacent as this one:

although I agree with much that you say I will not stop playing freestyle [...] as it's much fun for me

Unnamed voice

But of course, for any solution to be found, we'd need two things we're currently lacking:
- Active contributions from the interested players
- Any kind of contribution from the organisation

Regarding this last aspect, I can't help but point out how Arno insisted, that the place and time for discussions was NOT the tournament chat, he made that abundantly clear; but the thing is, when we're between tournaments, where's everybody? Himself included?

[Thomas A. Anderson]

But of course, for any solution to be found, we'd need two things we're currently lacking:
- Active contributions from the interested players
- Any kind of contribution from the organisation

Regarding this last aspect, I can't help but point out how Arno insisted, that the place and time for discussions was NOT the tournament chat, he made that abundantly clear; but the thing is, when we're between tournaments, where's everybody? Himself included?

That's a good question. I my answer on this is, that only very few people have an serious interest to change anything. The engine players and the organisators didn't feel much pressure to change anything I guess. Considering such an tournament as a special form of their daily business of playing at IC tournaments. When you can enjoy this tournaments, you have no issue with draw rates. So we are down to very few people, that feel the need for change, and this are the ones that are not satisfied by watching engine games as a spectator, the kind of centaurs that didn't act as an operator between two, three or even more machines simulating the three-brain-concept. When I read Partiks conclusion, this group can be reduced even more, because on of my main pleasures has been to watch the games of etaoinshrdlu, Regina, LordSirKnight, ... where I can find nice moves and strategies, that are not "obvisious", because engines they are first choice. Loosing this players would lower my motivation to play tournaments significantly, but if the organisers are fine with this development, it's hard to avoid. Btw. Arno personally is one of the biggest protagonist of our issue.

[Ozymandias]

only very few people have an serious interest to change anything. The engine players and the organisators didn't feel much pressure to change anything I guess. Considering such an tournament as a special form of their daily business of playing at IC tournaments. When you can enjoy this tournaments, you have no issue with draw rates. So we are down to very few people, that feel the need for change, and this are the ones that are not satisfied by watching engine games as a spectator, the kind of centaurs that didn't act as an operator between two, three or even more machines simulating the three-brain-concept.

That’s a pertinent distinction, I think some engine players (e.g. Thomas) are also displeased, but in genereal, an accurate description. If more players were to ask for change, IC probably would heed their petitions, but they aren’t. I see several reasons why this is so:
- We’re talking about a hobby that only entertains a few hundreds, in the whole world.
- Some don’t see the draw problem as a problem per se, but consider it the result of a lack of innovation, on the part of the players involved. (Arno has been vocal, in the past, as a subscriber of this particular POV, whether this actually reflects his thinking or he’s just deflecting, that’s for him to know).
- Among the ones who acknowledge the problem, there’s some who just give up, others who don’t want to make their opinion public (for whatever reason) and those who see an opportunity to take advantage of the situation.
- Differences in the approach that could be taken, towards eliminating the problem, can be discouraging. Just re-read the thread, and you’ll see that we’re about the only two recurring participants. The rest presented their proposal, but didn’t really follow through with the discussion. We’re an opinionated club, if you’re just trying to convince the others about your take on the matter, we as a group, won’t move forward.

When I read Partiks conclusion, this group can be reduced even more, because on of my main pleasures has been to watch the games of etaoinshrdlu, Regina, LordSirKnight, ... where I can find nice moves and strategies, that are not "obvisious", because engines they are first choice. Loosing this players would lower my motivation to play tournaments significantly, but if the organisers are fine with this development, it's hard to avoid.

I don't care about my opponent, as long as the game can be won, it makes it interesting enough for me. But when we're dealing with a clear draw, what's the point of having one player or another, across "the table"?

Arno personally is one of the biggest protagonist of our issue.

You mean by being absent or potentially if he weren't? Or both?

[mateinfour]

Hello Juan,

I see you have taken a private e-mail below and posted it on here which i don't like at all.

As for me being complacent you could not be further form the truth.

lthough I agree with much that you say I will not stop playing freestyle [...] as it's much fun for me

Unnamed voice

[Nelson Hernandez]

Juan,

If you consider that the opening position is a draw that by definition means there are no forced, winning lines available. Meaning: there is no such thing as a "winning" move, unless you consider a winning move the obverse of a losing move.

In any given position you can play 1) an optimal move, which gets you to a forced outcome as efficiently as possible, 2) a suboptimal move, which does not change the outcome but is not the most efficient path, or 3) an inferior move, which knocks a draw to a loss or a win to a draw or loss.

So, as you have often said, if nobody makes an inferior move the draw outcome is inevitable.

If players have made strong enough hardware+software arrangements they will rarely make inferior moves no matter what fair opening position you throw at them. Nothing can be done about that.

However the tournament could abate the draw-rate somewhat by making life as difficult as possible for players lacking competitive resources. You mentioned the possibility of different openings being prescribed or proscribed. That is certainly a viable possibility, especially if the openings were issued with no preparation at all and selected based on some set of principles which might be transparent, black box, or something in-between.

Not having participated in the last tournament I am a bit rusty on how the mechanics would work. For example if you have predetermined starting positions how would that work with the various chess entities and the Infinity client? If such questions could be answered then something reasonable could be surely be worked out if Arno expressed interest.

[Ozymandias]

Hello Juan,

I see you have taken a private e-mail below and posted it on here which i don't like at all.

As for me being complacent you could not be further form the truth.

I went quickly through the comments, but there is nothing much to react to. All these things are obvious. Draw death is already here. There is not much play left. And you are right, next time the worst players may decide about top places, or mouseslip, disconnects etc. Of course, collusions and prearranged results as well. I may not play any more events in the future, as the joy is out. It is noone fault, simply the engines become so strong, that they can draw a game on their own. And no longer a human is able to improve or suggest anything which they don't already see.

Patrik Schoupal a.k.a. etaoinshrdlu

I think that there's some middle ground, to be found, between such a pessimistic statement, and one as complacent as this one:

although I agree with much that you say I will not stop playing freestyle [...] as it's much fun for me

Mark Eldridge a.k.a. mateinfour

I'm sorry you didn't like it, but I left all the info that could serve as a hint, protecting your identity; now that you've come forward yourself, I can edit the quote to reflect authorship.

As for being complacent, you're right. This is probably the most treacherous false friend I've seen. Usually meanings differ so much, that you know, just from the context, that the word isn't what you thought, but in this case the meaning is the same as in Spanish, except that it refers to oneself in english (and not others). Thirty years reading, twenty writing, and I always had this one wrong!

the tournament could abate the draw-rate somewhat by making life as difficult as possible for players lacking competitive resources. You mentioned the possibility of different openings being prescribed or proscribed. That is certainly a viable possibility, especially if the openings were issued with no preparation at all and selected based on some set of principles which might be transparent, black box, or something in-between.

Not having participated in the last tournament I am a bit rusty on how the mechanics would work. For example if you have predetermined starting positions how would that work with the various chess entities and the Infinity client? If such questions could be answered then something reasonable could be surely be worked out if Arno expressed interest.

This is the kind of contribution I was expecting all along, someone who sees the problem clearly and points out to the most effective solutions, in an orderly manner. As you say in the part I bolded, it's all contingent on Arno having something to say on the matter.

Addressing your doubts, start with a set-up position is between the capabilities of the IC software, although it sometimes causes troubles. This might need to be looked into, if it were to be widely used.