We are reaching the Max Odds that a top engine can give the top 3 GM's

[Chessqueen]

Okay Thanks for clarifying, but because the b1 or g1 Knight odds is so great for his level as we saw previously, at least he should allow Komodo to pick its first move

Well, with b1 off we wouldn't choose 1.e4, but because Chris committed to respond 1...Nf6 (instead of the "best" 1...d5) it made 1.e4 a good move. I think that after 1.e4 Nf6 (with either knight off) White can't complain about his opening move.

Yes, basically the idea was an Alekhine of the form e4 Nf3 e5 Nd5 where the engine is pretty much committed to going immediately on the offensive while the human sits back and holds, or tries to hold. I find that quite a good dynamic, also telling for the engine style. In the event of the b1-lack, it’s what we got.

This might not mean much, and I am not as strong as Chrisw, but I beat Stockfish 13 with Rook Odds TC 15'+1" one thread for Stockfish intel i7 3.40 Ghz

[pgn][Event "Computer chess game"]
[Site "MININT-UB2PIMJ"]
[Date "2021.06.02"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Stockfish_21052415_x64_bmi2"]
[Black "ChessQueen"]
[Result "0-1"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[Time "13:16:30"]
[WhiteElo "3500"]
[TimeControl "900+1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w Kkq - 0 1"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "79"]



1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. O-O O-O 6. c3 d6 7. Bg5 Bg4 8.
b4 Bb6 9. h3 Bxf3 10. Qxf3 h6 11. Bxf6 Qxf6 12. Qxf6 gxf6 13. Nd2 a5 14. b5
Ne7 15. Nf3 a4 16. d4 a3 17. Bb3 Ng6 18. g3 c6 19. dxe5 Nxe5 20. Nxe5 fxe5
21. Rd1 Bc5 22. Bc4 cxb5 23. Bd5 Rfb8 24. Rb1 Ra5 25. Rb3 Kg7 26. Kf1 Kg6
27. h4 h5 28. Ke2 f5 29. Kf1 f4 30. gxf4 exf4 31. Ke2 f3+ 32. Kxf3 Rf8+ 33.
Kg3 Rxf2 34. Rb1 Rc2 35. e5 Rxc3+ 36. Bf3 dxe5 37. Kg2 Rc2+ 38. Kg3 Rxa2
39. Rc1 Rb2 40. Bxb7 {White resigns} *[/pgn]

[Chessqueen]

Dragon resigns. Congratulations! According to Dragon, Black only made two significantly non-optimal moves in the whole game, neither of which put the win in jeopardy. Did you actually average under a minute per move (it's okay if you took longer, it wasn't a rule, just your estimate)? That's a very high level of play for just one minute per move. Anyway if you still want to play the game with g1 off, I'm willing.
[/quote]

Okay, we can play mirror Alekhine. I need a couple of days to recover, that was quite the stressy session.

When did we begin? Ten days ago? Fifty moves, five a day, so, in theory that’s two hours of awake time per move. In practice moves were in surges, where I’ld worked out where the game was going, then there’s 18 hours or so. Obviously I’m not thinking position all that time, but I can chew over general principles, in this case: defence principles. I liked Ne5, Qe8, light squares. I think e6 was a mistake. Pawn could perfectly well have stayed on e7, and I basically had a tactical defence of g6, namely the f-file.
After that I figured as long as Q stayed connected to Bg7, I ought to be able to manoeuvre around the strong centre with the nuisance knights and you’ld just run out of possibilities. Er, wrong.
Nf3+ was a shot at being okay by getting rid of your Bb2, but again wrong, and against defensive principles, I got careless and started mixing it tactically, which is absolutely dumb thing to do. However, again I figured B back to g7 and all would be defendable again. But.
Well, but. Fortunately, by temptation or not, and possibly just running out of possibilities, you went for the Bg6+ line and Q vs RBN-centre pawns which I was very confident would be a win.
On reflection, especially after e6, much of the game was quite predictable and much of it was forced. White had to press. Black had to try and make fortresses where everything defends everything and nothing is hanging and human doesn’t have to keeping thinking tactical. Then we come down to space and mobility (white had in spades) against one more defensive piece (and a centre). QRBB is a very formidable combination of pieces of course. Curious how e6 played such a key part for both sides, then finally becoming the decisive pawn.

So, yes, mirror Alekhine, couple of days break.

[/quote]

Okay are you starting from move 3 or move 4 like in the previous game, but with the g1 Knight missing this time?

[pgn] [Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2021.05.16"]
[Round "1"]
[White "KomodoDragon2 MCTS"]
[Black "Whittington, Chris"]
[Result "*"]
[Annotator "Kaufman,Larry"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "7"]
[EventDate "2021.??.??"]

{[#]} 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Nf3 Bg4[/pgn]

[lkaufman]

Dragon resigns. Congratulations! According to Dragon, Black only made two significantly non-optimal moves in the whole game, neither of which put the win in jeopardy. Did you actually average under a minute per move (it's okay if you took longer, it wasn't a rule, just your estimate)? That's a very high level of play for just one minute per move. Anyway if you still want to play the game with g1 off, I'm willing.

Okay, we can play mirror Alekhine. I need a couple of days to recover, that was quite the stressy session.

When did we begin? Ten days ago? Fifty moves, five a day, so, in theory that’s two hours of awake time per move. In practice moves were in surges, where I’ld worked out where the game was going, then there’s 18 hours or so. Obviously I’m not thinking position all that time, but I can chew over general principles, in this case: defence principles. I liked Ne5, Qe8, light squares. I think e6 was a mistake. Pawn could perfectly well have stayed on e7, and I basically had a tactical defence of g6, namely the f-file.
After that I figured as long as Q stayed connected to Bg7, I ought to be able to manoeuvre around the strong centre with the nuisance knights and you’ld just run out of possibilities. Er, wrong.
Nf3+ was a shot at being okay by getting rid of your Bb2, but again wrong, and against defensive principles, I got careless and started mixing it tactically, which is absolutely dumb thing to do. However, again I figured B back to g7 and all would be defendable again. But.
Well, but. Fortunately, by temptation or not, and possibly just running out of possibilities, you went for the Bg6+ line and Q vs RBN-centre pawns which I was very confident would be a win.
On reflection, especially after e6, much of the game was quite predictable and much of it was forced. White had to press. Black had to try and make fortresses where everything defends everything and nothing is hanging and human doesn’t have to keeping thinking tactical. Then we come down to space and mobility (white had in spades) against one more defensive piece (and a centre). QRBB is a very formidable combination of pieces of course. Curious how e6 played such a key part for both sides, then finally becoming the decisive pawn.

So, yes, mirror Alekhine, couple of days break.

[/quote]

Okay are you starting from move 3 this time, Are you ready to rumble ?
[/quote]

We started at move 2 last time. I expect it will still go 2.e5 Nd5 but that's not stipulated. I can start whenever Chris is ready. I think we'll probably be having a "real" knight odds Rapid match soon with an IM or GM, so I consider this "practice" for such a match. Hopefully we learn how to set problems for the human, either by adjusting parameters or modifying the short opening book.

[Chessqueen]

Dragon resigns. Congratulations! According to Dragon, Black only made two significantly non-optimal moves in the whole game, neither of which put the win in jeopardy. Did you actually average under a minute per move (it's okay if you took longer, it wasn't a rule, just your estimate)? That's a very high level of play for just one minute per move. Anyway if you still want to play the game with g1 off, I'm willing.

Okay, we can play mirror Alekhine. I need a couple of days to recover, that was quite the stressy session.

When did we begin? Ten days ago? Fifty moves, five a day, so, in theory that’s two hours of awake time per move. In practice moves were in surges, where I’ld worked out where the game was going, then there’s 18 hours or so. Obviously I’m not thinking position all that time, but I can chew over general principles, in this case: defence principles. I liked Ne5, Qe8, light squares. I think e6 was a mistake. Pawn could perfectly well have stayed on e7, and I basically had a tactical defence of g6, namely the f-file.
After that I figured as long as Q stayed connected to Bg7, I ought to be able to manoeuvre around the strong centre with the nuisance knights and you’ld just run out of possibilities. Er, wrong.
Nf3+ was a shot at being okay by getting rid of your Bb2, but again wrong, and against defensive principles, I got careless and started mixing it tactically, which is absolutely dumb thing to do. However, again I figured B back to g7 and all would be defendable again. But.
Well, but. Fortunately, by temptation or not, and possibly just running out of possibilities, you went for the Bg6+ line and Q vs RBN-centre pawns which I was very confident would be a win.
On reflection, especially after e6, much of the game was quite predictable and much of it was forced. White had to press. Black had to try and make fortresses where everything defends everything and nothing is hanging and human doesn’t have to keeping thinking tactical. Then we come down to space and mobility (white had in spades) against one more defensive piece (and a centre). QRBB is a very formidable combination of pieces of course. Curious how e6 played such a key part for both sides, then finally becoming the decisive pawn.

So, yes, mirror Alekhine, couple of days break.

Okay are you starting from move 3 this time, Are you ready to rumble ?
[/quote]

We started at move 2 last time. I expect it will still go 2.e5 Nd5 but that's not stipulated. I can start whenever Chris is ready. I think we'll probably be having a "real" knight odds Rapid match soon with an IM or GM, so I consider this "practice" for such a match. Hopefully we learn how to set problems for the human, either by adjusting parameters or modifying the short opening book.
[/quote]

Have you done some testing against other engines rated around 2415 with Knight Odds, but with different contempt than = 150. I believe that Komodo Dragon2 MCTS can perform better by changing the contempt a little to make it more aggressive and it could scare any human and make them blunder more.

[lkaufman]

Dragon resigns. Congratulations! According to Dragon, Black only made two significantly non-optimal moves in the whole game, neither of which put the win in jeopardy. Did you actually average under a minute per move (it's okay if you took longer, it wasn't a rule, just your estimate)? That's a very high level of play for just one minute per move. Anyway if you still want to play the game with g1 off, I'm willing.

Okay, we can play mirror Alekhine. I need a couple of days to recover, that was quite the stressy session.

When did we begin? Ten days ago? Fifty moves, five a day, so, in theory that’s two hours of awake time per move. In practice moves were in surges, where I’ld worked out where the game was going, then there’s 18 hours or so. Obviously I’m not thinking position all that time, but I can chew over general principles, in this case: defence principles. I liked Ne5, Qe8, light squares. I think e6 was a mistake. Pawn could perfectly well have stayed on e7, and I basically had a tactical defence of g6, namely the f-file.
After that I figured as long as Q stayed connected to Bg7, I ought to be able to manoeuvre around the strong centre with the nuisance knights and you’ld just run out of possibilities. Er, wrong.
Nf3+ was a shot at being okay by getting rid of your Bb2, but again wrong, and against defensive principles, I got careless and started mixing it tactically, which is absolutely dumb thing to do. However, again I figured B back to g7 and all would be defendable again. But.
Well, but. Fortunately, by temptation or not, and possibly just running out of possibilities, you went for the Bg6+ line and Q vs RBN-centre pawns which I was very confident would be a win.
On reflection, especially after e6, much of the game was quite predictable and much of it was forced. White had to press. Black had to try and make fortresses where everything defends everything and nothing is hanging and human doesn’t have to keeping thinking tactical. Then we come down to space and mobility (white had in spades) against one more defensive piece (and a centre). QRBB is a very formidable combination of pieces of course. Curious how e6 played such a key part for both sides, then finally becoming the decisive pawn.

So, yes, mirror Alekhine, couple of days break.

Okay are you starting from move 3 this time, Are you ready to rumble ?

We started at move 2 last time. I expect it will still go 2.e5 Nd5 but that's not stipulated. I can start whenever Chris is ready. I think we'll probably be having a "real" knight odds Rapid match soon with an IM or GM, so I consider this "practice" for such a match. Hopefully we learn how to set problems for the human, either by adjusting parameters or modifying the short opening book.
[/quote]

Have you done some testing against other engines rated around 2415 with Knight Odds, but with different contempt than = 150. I believe that Komodo Dragon2 MCTS can perform better by changing the contempt a little to make it more aggressive and it could scare any human and for them to blunder more.
[/quote]

150 is too high a value for Contempt against engines, even at knight odds, but against humans I sometimes use 175 or even 200 depending on the time limit and opponent. It also seems that with MCTS Contempt should be higher than without it for handicap play.

[Chessqueen]

Dragon resigns. Congratulations! According to Dragon, Black only made two significantly non-optimal moves in the whole game, neither of which put the win in jeopardy. Did you actually average under a minute per move (it's okay if you took longer, it wasn't a rule, just your estimate)? That's a very high level of play for just one minute per move. Anyway if you still want to play the game with g1 off, I'm willing.

Okay, we can play mirror Alekhine. I need a couple of days to recover, that was quite the stressy session.

When did we begin? Ten days ago? Fifty moves, five a day, so, in theory that’s two hours of awake time per move. In practice moves were in surges, where I’ld worked out where the game was going, then there’s 18 hours or so. Obviously I’m not thinking position all that time, but I can chew over general principles, in this case: defence principles. I liked Ne5, Qe8, light squares. I think e6 was a mistake. Pawn could perfectly well have stayed on e7, and I basically had a tactical defence of g6, namely the f-file.
After that I figured as long as Q stayed connected to Bg7, I ought to be able to manoeuvre around the strong centre with the nuisance knights and you’ld just run out of possibilities. Er, wrong.
Nf3+ was a shot at being okay by getting rid of your Bb2, but again wrong, and against defensive principles, I got careless and started mixing it tactically, which is absolutely dumb thing to do. However, again I figured B back to g7 and all would be defendable again. But.
Well, but. Fortunately, by temptation or not, and possibly just running out of possibilities, you went for the Bg6+ line and Q vs RBN-centre pawns which I was very confident would be a win.
On reflection, especially after e6, much of the game was quite predictable and much of it was forced. White had to press. Black had to try and make fortresses where everything defends everything and nothing is hanging and human doesn’t have to keeping thinking tactical. Then we come down to space and mobility (white had in spades) against one more defensive piece (and a centre). QRBB is a very formidable combination of pieces of course. Curious how e6 played such a key part for both sides, then finally becoming the decisive pawn.

So, yes, mirror Alekhine, couple of days break.

Okay are you starting from move 3 this time, Are you ready to rumble ?

We started at move 2 last time. I expect it will still go 2.e5 Nd5 but that's not stipulated. I can start whenever Chris is ready. I think we'll probably be having a "real" knight odds Rapid match soon with an IM or GM, so I consider this "practice" for such a match. Hopefully we learn how to set problems for the human, either by adjusting parameters or modifying the short opening book.

Have you done some testing against other engines rated around 2415 with Knight Odds, but with different contempt than = 150. I believe that Komodo Dragon2 MCTS can perform better by changing the contempt a little to make it more aggressive and it could scare any human and for them to blunder more.
[/quote]

150 is too high a value for Contempt against engines, even at knight odds, but against humans I sometimes use 175 or even 200 depending on the time limit and opponent. It also seems that with MCTS Contempt should be higher than without it for handicap play.
[/quote]

I might be wrong to assume, but unless you use more threads and your most powerful computer with this opening Chrisw is still my favorite to win.

[pgn] [Event "Knight Odds Match"]
[Site "talkchess"]
[Date "2021.05.20"]
[Round "1"]
[White "KomodoDragon2 MCTS"]
[Black "Whittington, Chris"]
[Result "*"]
[Annotator "Kaufman,Larry"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "5"]
[EventDate "2021.06.04"]


1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 *[/pgn]

[Chessqueen]

Dragon resigns. Congratulations! According to Dragon, Black only made two significantly non-optimal moves in the whole game, neither of which put the win in jeopardy. Did you actually average under a minute per move (it's okay if you took longer, it wasn't a rule, just your estimate)? That's a very high level of play for just one minute per move. Anyway if you still want to play the game with g1 off, I'm willing.

Okay, we can play mirror Alekhine. I need a couple of days to recover, that was quite the stressy session.

When did we begin? Ten days ago? Fifty moves, five a day, so, in theory that’s two hours of awake time per move. In practice moves were in surges, where I’ld worked out where the game was going, then there’s 18 hours or so. Obviously I’m not thinking position all that time, but I can chew over general principles, in this case: defence principles. I liked Ne5, Qe8, light squares. I think e6 was a mistake. Pawn could perfectly well have stayed on e7, and I basically had a tactical defence of g6, namely the f-file.
After that I figured as long as Q stayed connected to Bg7, I ought to be able to manoeuvre around the strong centre with the nuisance knights and you’ld just run out of possibilities. Er, wrong.
Nf3+ was a shot at being okay by getting rid of your Bb2, but again wrong, and against defensive principles, I got careless and started mixing it tactically, which is absolutely dumb thing to do. However, again I figured B back to g7 and all would be defendable again. But.
Well, but. Fortunately, by temptation or not, and possibly just running out of possibilities, you went for the Bg6+ line and Q vs RBN-centre pawns which I was very confident would be a win.
On reflection, especially after e6, much of the game was quite predictable and much of it was forced. White had to press. Black had to try and make fortresses where everything defends everything and nothing is hanging and human doesn’t have to keeping thinking tactical. Then we come down to space and mobility (white had in spades) against one more defensive piece (and a centre). QRBB is a very formidable combination of pieces of course. Curious how e6 played such a key part for both sides, then finally becoming the decisive pawn.

So, yes, mirror Alekhine, couple of days break.

Okay are you starting from move 3 this time, Are you ready to rumble ?

We started at move 2 last time. I expect it will still go 2.e5 Nd5 but that's not stipulated. I can start whenever Chris is ready. I think we'll probably be having a "real" knight odds Rapid match soon with an IM or GM, so I consider this "practice" for such a match. Hopefully we learn how to set problems for the human, either by adjusting parameters or modifying the short opening book.

Have you done some testing against other engines rated around 2415 with Knight Odds, but with different contempt than = 150. I believe that Komodo Dragon2 MCTS can perform better by changing the contempt a little to make it more aggressive and it could scare any human and for them to blunder more.

150 is too high a value for Contempt against engines, even at knight odds, but against humans I sometimes use 175 or even 200 depending on the time limit and opponent. It also seems that with MCTS Contempt should be higher than without it for handicap play.
[/quote]

I might be wrong to assume, but unless you use more threads and your most powerful computer with this opening Chrisw is still my favorite to win. This is the longest few days of rest that I ever known, it could have been stated 4 or 5 days rest before the next game start . I just noticed that if you remove the bishop on c1 the normal Alekhene variation will be chosen by either Stockfish 13 or Komodo

[pgn] [Event "Knight Odds Match"]
[Site "talkchess"]
[Date "2021.05.20"]
[Round "1"]
[White "KomodoDragon2 MCTS"]
[Black "Whittington, Chris"]
[Result "*"]
[Annotator "Kaufman,Larry"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "5"]
[EventDate "2021.06.04"]


1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 *
[/quote]

I just noticed that if you remove the bishop on c1 the normal Alekhene variation will be chosen by either Stockfish 13 or Komodo

[d]rnbqkb1r/pppppppp/8/3nP3/8/8/PPPP1PPP/RN1QKBNR w KQkq - 0 1 [/pgn]

[Chessqueen]

I just noticed that if you remove the bishop on c1 the normal Alekhine variation will be chosen by either Stockfish 13 or Komodo
[d]rnbqkb1r/pppppppp/8/3nP3/8/8/PPPP1PPP/RN1QKBNR w KQkq - 0 1

[lkaufman]

[pgn]
[Event "knight odds match"]
[Site "Bethesda"]
[Date "2021.06.04"]
[Round "2"]
[White "KomodoDragon2"]
[Black "Whittington, Chris"]
[Result "*"]
[Annotator "Kaufman,Larry"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "3"]
[TimeControl "180+2"]

{2048MB, Hiarcs14zlBook.ctg, laptop i9} 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 * [/pgn]

Chris might want more time off before resuming, but I'll go ahead and post the first move here. No hurry to respond. He is not required to play 2...Nd5, he can choose 2...Ng8 as well (some strong human players have played this in normal chess!).

[Chessqueen]

[pgn]
[Event "knight odds match"]
[Site "Bethesda"]
[Date "2021.06.04"]
[Round "2"]
[White "KomodoDragon2"]
[Black "Whittington, Chris"]
[Result "*"]
[Annotator "Kaufman,Larry"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "3"]
[TimeControl "180+2"]

{2048MB, Hiarcs14zlBook.ctg, laptop i9} 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 * [/pgn]

Chris might want more time off before resuming, but I'll go ahead and post the first move here. No hurry to respond. He is not required to play 2...Nd5, he can choose 2...Ng8 as well (some strong human players have played this in normal chess!).

Is it Okay with Chrisw to use an Opening Book.ctg , but really I do NOT believe it makes any difference since Top engines can create better variation from any position than any Human can.