About queen for a bishop handicap by nakamura.

[Uri Blass]

There are many blitz games when nakamura beat botez when he sacrificed his queen in the opening for a bishop and won.

I wonder what is your opinion of this handicap and if it is more than rook handicap or less than rook handicap.
Based on the value of pieces it is bigger than rook handicap but I think that practically it is not and I wonder what is your opinion.

The problem is that it is more easy to play when you have more pieces and with queen for a bishop advantage it is not the case.

[Fritz 0]

I think that a Queen for a Bishop is significantly bigger handicap than a Rook. Those games are 3+0, right? Nakamura is a blitz/bullet monster, that's why he is able to win that. At longer time controls he wouldn't stand a chance.

[Uri Blass]

I know that nakamura is very strong blitz player but it does not seem clear for me that full rook advantage is practically better than a queen for a bishop inspite of the evaluation of the engines.

Maybe it is but it something that need to be tested and I suspect that it is harder to find a plan to win when you do not have more pieces than the opponent.

[fen]rn1qkb1r/pp3ppp/2p5/3pp3/6n1/3PP1P1/PPP2PBP/RNB1K1NR w KQkq - 0 7 [/fen]

[fen]rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w Kkq - 8 9 [/fen]

[Fritz 0]

It's harder to activate a Rook in the middlegame, while a Qeen is ready for action from the opening.

[lkaufman]

There are many blitz games when nakamura beat botez when he sacrificed his queen in the opening for a bishop and won.

I wonder what is your opinion of this handicap and if it is more than rook handicap or less than rook handicap.
Based on the value of pieces it is bigger than rook handicap but I think that practically it is not and I wonder what is your opinion.

The problem is that it is more easy to play when you have more pieces and with queen for a bishop advantage it is not the case.

I am sure that queen for bishop is a much bigger handicap than rook. It's quite easy for a much stronger player to develop an attack when missing a rook, but without his queen (even for a bishop) it is almost impossible to attack. I would agree than queen for bishop is a smaller handicap than two knights (both nominally six points by normal count) for the reason you mention, but two knights is WAY more than rook odds.
Regarding the Nakamura-Botez games, two questions: 1. Roughly what percentage of points were scored by Nakamura? (You say he won many games, but maybe he lost even more?) 2. Did he just give away queen for bishop more or less at random, or was there often some other compensation involved?
Also, are there other pairings where Nakamura has played a lot of games giving some normal handicap to a specific reasonably strong player? At 3 minute chess with no inc, I would guess he could give rook odds to an average FM and knight odds to an average IM; he just has to last long enough to win on time. With even a one second increment it is much harder.
I think it would be an exciting and reasonably close match for Komodo Dragon to give Nakamura knight odds (g1) at 3 min no inc. chess. I say this because Dragon is about even with GM Alex Lenderman at those odds at 5' + 3", and it's not obvious whether Nakamura with 3' only plays better or worse than Lenderman with 5' + 3".

[Uri Blass]

Namamura won almost every game



I can see here 242 wins 14 losses and 4 draws before the last win by nakamura that means +243 =4 -14.

Games are 3 minutes with no increasement.

I see that in the last games nakamura captured an additional pawn but I saw also games when he did not capture another pawn for the queen
see

[lkaufman]

Namamura won almost every game



I can see here 242 wins 14 losses and 4 draws before the last win by nakamura that means +243 =4 -14.

Games are 3 minutes with no increasement.

I see that in the last games nakamura captured an additional pawn but I saw also games when he did not capture another pawn for the queen
see

Based on looking at those links, I think you are misinterpreting what is going on. This is not a match against Botez; "Botez Gambit" is just a slang reference to blundering your queen. I think that Hikaru probably set up a new account, starting at some low rating, and committed to giving up his queen in the opening every game, sometimes for a bishop, sometimes for a bishop (or knight) plus pawn, sometimes for a rook. His goal was to see how high a rating he could achieve giving this handicap at 3' no inc. chess. The final rating after hundreds of games was apparently 2306. So if we assume that the average handicap was queen for minor piece plus pawn, that would be his rating under these conditions. Even queen for minor plus pawn is clearly more than rook odds, so probably he would get about 2400 or a bit more giving rook odds at 3' + 0".

Did you actually see any games against Botez herself? I didn't notice any.

[Uri Blass]

It is possible that I misinterpreted what was going on.

In any case I think that the final number may be too low considering the small number of losses.

[Uri Blass]

Note that I got to this discussion from the following discussion

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-you- ... 6450957590

I claimed that I am sure 1700 fide rated players are going to win if their opponent start without the queen assuming you do not talk about blitz or faster time control so

I got the reply
"Go watch the Nakamura Botez Speedrun series — he’s not starting out without his Queen, but he is giving it away quite early in the game and still beating IMs by the end."

I searched in google for these series and thought wrongly that they are about games between Nakamura and Botez.

Note that I doubt if Nakamura played against IMs in these games but even if he did it then
it is clearly not the same because of the following:
1)Nakamura played 3 0 blitz in these games.
2)It seems that Nakamura decided to get even piece and a pawn for the queen at the end and not only a piece.

[Fritz 0]

There are many blitz games when nakamura beat botez when he sacrificed his queen in the opening for a bishop and won.

I wonder what is your opinion of this handicap and if it is more than rook handicap or less than rook handicap.
Based on the value of pieces it is bigger than rook handicap but I think that practically it is not and I wonder what is your opinion.

The problem is that it is more easy to play when you have more pieces and with queen for a bishop advantage it is not the case.

I am sure that queen for bishop is a much bigger handicap than rook. It's quite easy for a much stronger player to develop an attack when missing a rook, but without his queen (even for a bishop) it is almost impossible to attack. I would agree than queen for bishop is a smaller handicap than two knights (both nominally six points by normal count) for the reason you mention, but two knights is WAY more than rook odds.
Regarding the Nakamura-Botez games, two questions: 1. Roughly what percentage of points were scored by Nakamura? (You say he won many games, but maybe he lost even more?) 2. Did he just give away queen for bishop more or less at random, or was there often some other compensation involved?
Also, are there other pairings where Nakamura has played a lot of games giving some normal handicap to a specific reasonably strong player? At 3 minute chess with no inc, I would guess he could give rook odds to an average FM and knight odds to an average IM; he just has to last long enough to win on time. With even a one second increment it is much harder.
I think it would be an exciting and reasonably close match for Komodo Dragon to give Nakamura knight odds (g1) at 3 min no inc. chess. I say this because Dragon is about even with GM Alex Lenderman at those odds at 5' + 3", and it's not obvious whether Nakamura with 3' only plays better or worse than Lenderman with 5' + 3".

At 3+0 I would bet on Lenderman (if I had to), but at 3+1 I would bet on Nakamura. I don't have a rationale for this, it is just my feeling. Maybe an explanation would be that 3+1 is about 4 minutes total per game, and 5+3 is about 8 minutes per game, that is, one doubling, so probably not much more than 100 Elo difference (even at those fast time controls), while rating difference between Nakamura and Lenderman is 200 points or so.

I have a theory, totally unsuported by any data, just by mu feeling and limited personal experience, that, for example, 8 vs. 4 minutes is a much bigger rating difference than 60 vs. 30. I believe that linear increase per time doubling, which is probably correct for computers, can not be appiled to humans without respect to particular time controls.

For that reason, I believe that 3+2 to 15+10 is about 300 Elo difference, and 15+10 to 90+30 is about 200.