Firscher was right about FischerRandom

[pohl4711]

I was the first to jump on the Chess324 bandwagon, and it does indeed have many advantages over chess960. But humans are only playing 960, not 324, and I don't see much likelihood of that changing, especially now that a full tour of 960 has been announced. It is not desirable for engines and humans to be playing two different games.

Enginechess is right now already hard to understand for humans. So, IMO it makes no sense, let engines play chaotic Chess960, but playing normal chess, using my UHO-openings. For humans, UHO games are much better to understand, because of the normal structures.

And Chess960 without pawn-moves, giving white an advantage, will give 90%+ draws, when engines play it. So, it makes no sense at all.

[CornfedForever]

Too much of an edge for White and the patterns that help chess players understand the game better...are missing. Just a sideshow. Of course, chess players are 'whores' when it comes to some rich dude waving $$$$ under their noses.

White's edge is not larger on average than in standard chess, maybe a bit smaller overall, though of course a few positions are clearly more favorable for White (but none are anywhere near winning)

At this moment, with 1 game still being played, I count 10 wins for White and 1 Win for Black.

[CornfedForever]

Too much of an edge for White and the patterns that help chess players understand the game better...are missing. Just a sideshow. Of course, chess players are 'whores' when it comes to some rich dude waving $$$$ under their noses.

White's edge is not larger on average than in standard chess, maybe a bit smaller overall, though of course a few positions are clearly more favorable for White (but none are anywhere near winning)

At this moment, with 1 game still being played, I count 10 wins for White and 1 Win for Black.

That game has ended. It's now 11 White wins 1 Black win.

I think you get my point though - where things like patterns are largely removed from the game (not just memory) the 'First Serve' (to use the tennis analogy) gains even more importance. Engine chess might be one thing, but we are talking about human chess here.

[lkaufman]

Too much of an edge for White and the patterns that help chess players understand the game better...are missing. Just a sideshow. Of course, chess players are 'whores' when it comes to some rich dude waving $$$$ under their noses.

White's edge is not larger on average than in standard chess, maybe a bit smaller overall, though of course a few positions are clearly more favorable for White (but none are anywhere near winning)

At this moment, with 1 game still being played, I count 10 wins for White and 1 Win for Black.

That game has ended. It's now 11 White wins 1 Black win.

I think you get my point though - where things like patterns are largely removed from the game (not just memory) the 'First Serve' (to use the tennis analogy) gains even more importance. Engine chess might be one thing, but we are talking about human chess here.

I'm not sure which games you are counting, you must be including some rapid games. I count 16 completed games at the classical time limit (including playoff matches for fifth thru eighth place, maybe you missed them?). A few were drawn, but some of those were agreed drawn in lost positions just to clinch the minimatch, so they should be counted as wins for the side with the winning advantage. The remaining draws were all probably winning for one side or the other at some stage (according to SF 16) but the winning side failed to convert. If we also count those as wins for the side that should have won (which is logical if we are talking about White vs Black), the score was only 9 to 7 in White's favor, way less than the nearly 2 to 1 ratio of White to Black wins typical of top level human events. So this isn't an issue. But the fact that not a single game stayed within drawing margins from start to finish is just remarkable, and an extremely powerful argument for 960 in human events. Frankly I was a bit afraid that at classical time limits, 960 would be nearly as drawish as classical chess at this top level, but I'm very happy to be proved wrong!

I will admit that the very variable White advantage is an argument against this format. The ideal format in my thinking would be a double round robin at the slowest time control that permits two rounds per day, probably one hour plus 30" increment. Colors would reverse for the second game with the same start position so it wouldn't matter how much advantage White had, with only a short supervised break between rounds so the players couldn't consult engines (or friends who used engines). Although the time limit would be faster than true classical events, there would be no need for Rapid playoffs (except perhaps to break a tie at the end of the event) so the average time limit would be similar to this event.

But this doesn't help us for engine events. It looks like 960 is here to stay, with a FIDE World title, a year round circuit for top players, and substantial money behind it. It may not be the best possible solution to the twin problems of engine prep and excessive draws, but it seems to work well enough and has been accepted by the chess Elite. So I think we need to find a way to run chess 960 engine events that is as close as possible to just playing chess960 while cutting the draw rate between top engines to some acceptable figure like 70% or so. Ideally it should be by some simple rule or rules rather than an arbitrary list of opening moves that people will always argue about. It should be a rule that doesn't require rewriting engines but just modifies the start position somehow. I don't have a favorite proposal yet, but examples would be that Black can't castle or can only castle to a specified side, or White starts with a knight randomly developed (perhaps towards the center), something that increases White's advantage but not past the 1.00 win/draw line.

[CornfedForever]

That game has ended. It's now 11 White wins 1 Black win.

I think you get my point though - where things like patterns are largely removed from the game (not just memory) the 'First Serve' (to use the tennis analogy) gains even more importance. Engine chess might be one thing, but we are talking about human chess here.

I'm not sure which games you are counting, you must be including some rapid games.....

....I will admit that the very variable White advantage is an argument against this format. The ideal format in my thinking would be a double round robin at the slowest time control that permits two rounds per day, probably one hour plus 30" increment. Colors would reverse for the second game with the same start position so it wouldn't matter how much advantage White had, with only a short supervised break between rounds so the players couldn't consult engines (or friends who used engines). Although the time limit would be faster than true classical events, there would be no need for Rapid playoffs (except perhaps to break a tie at the end of the event) so the average time limit would be similar to this event.

Yes, I see now when looking at the chess.com results during a break from work I did not see the full results to that point.
It was actually White: 12 Wins, 4 Losses and 6 draws at that point.
Then of course came the fast blitz and armageddon where Black won all 3.

Listening to the commentary of the non-blitz games, the commentators were often talking about how much of an edge White was getting out of the openings. Even Fabi in the post interview noted how fortunate he was to have White in an important game because black starts off so badly and may be losing. So yes, I think the only rational thing would be alternating colors with the same position.

If there is a 'draw problem' at the highest level, it has next to nothing to do with the nature of the classical game itself.

[lkaufman]

That game has ended. It's now 11 White wins 1 Black win.

I think you get my point though - where things like patterns are largely removed from the game (not just memory) the 'First Serve' (to use the tennis analogy) gains even more importance. Engine chess might be one thing, but we are talking about human chess here.

I'm not sure which games you are counting, you must be including some rapid games.....

....I will admit that the very variable White advantage is an argument against this format. The ideal format in my thinking would be a double round robin at the slowest time control that permits two rounds per day, probably one hour plus 30" increment. Colors would reverse for the second game with the same start position so it wouldn't matter how much advantage White had, with only a short supervised break between rounds so the players couldn't consult engines (or friends who used engines). Although the time limit would be faster than true classical events, there would be no need for Rapid playoffs (except perhaps to break a tie at the end of the event) so the average time limit would be similar to this event.

Yes, I see now when looking at the chess.com results during a break from work I did not see the full results to that point.
It was actually White: 12 Wins, 4 Losses and 6 draws at that point.
Then of course came the fast blitz and armageddon where Black won all 3.

Listening to the commentary of the non-blitz games, the commentators were often talking about how much of an edge White was getting out of the openings. Even Fabi in the post interview noted how fortunate he was to have White in an important game because black starts off so badly and may be losing. So yes, I think the only rational thing would be alternating colors with the same position.

If there is a 'draw problem' at the highest level, it has next to nothing to do with the nature of the classical game itself.

The highest eval (SF 16) I saw after 1 move per side in any of the Classical time limit games was 0.57 (most were around 0.30 or so), which is only 4/7 of the way to losing if you trust SF. White also has about 0.30 in normal chess. It's a very significant advantage, but in standard chess the ways to draw are well known, whereas in 960 they are not (or at least the human players can't memorize them all). That's why the huge difference in draw percentages. It's just well known that after 1.e4 the Berlin and Marshall are almost worked out to draws, and avoiding them by the Italian or other first moves also allows forced lines that are surely drawn with careful play. In Rapid or faster games these drawn positions are often lost to simple tactics, but at classical time limits they are usually held. Of course White can forget about an opening edge and play something wild trying to win, but that's basically conceding a handicap to the opponent if he plays for a tiny edge with White. Of course if you offer a huge scoring or financial incentive to avoid draws then the percentage will drop, but only because players will play bad moves just to exit book early, which to me is much worse than just assigning random openings or randomized start positions. Classical chess worked very well until recently, but now everything is worked out by computers and it's no longer a game between humans if they play correct openings.

[pohl4711]

But this doesn't help us for engine events. It looks like 960 is here to stay, with a FIDE World title, a year round circuit for top players, and substantial money behind it. It may not be the best possible solution to the twin problems of engine prep and excessive draws, but it seems to work well enough and has been accepted by the chess Elite. So I think we need to find a way to run chess 960 engine events that is as close as possible to just playing chess960 while cutting the draw rate between top engines to some acceptable figure like 70% or so. Ideally it should be by some simple rule or rules rather than an arbitrary list of opening moves that people will always argue about. It should be a rule that doesn't require rewriting engines but just modifies the start position somehow. I don't have a favorite proposal yet, but examples would be that Black can't castle or can only castle to a specified side, or White starts with a knight randomly developed (perhaps towards the center), something that increases White's advantage but not past the 1.00 win/draw line.

Did you consider DFRC?
There are more than 900000 different starting positions. If anybody would evaluate them all, there would be definitly a lot of DFRC-positions with a measureable advantage for white. (No, I will not do this, for me, my unbalanced Chess324 openings are fine and IMHO the Fischer castling-rules not only look stupid in some positions, but also adding any new rules to enginechess is a bad idea (because it is not needed (again my unbalanced Chess324 openings...) and some engines can not handle it).

You find DFRC (epd only) on Stockfish-Github:
https://github.com/official-stockfish/b ... gs.epd.zip

[towforce]

If there is a 'draw problem' at the highest level, it has next to nothing to do with the nature of the classical game itself.

Hmmmm... "the nature of the classical game itself" seems to be that it's a drawn game, and with enough expertise a player can get a draw.

[lkaufman]

If there is a 'draw problem' at the highest level, it has next to nothing to do with the nature of the classical game itself.

Hmmmm... "the nature of the classical game itself" seems to be that it's a drawn game, and with enough expertise a player can get a draw.

To be more precise, the problem is not that it is drawn with perfect play, but that the drawing margin is too wide. GO with the proper integer Komi (6 or 7 maybe depending on rules) is also theoretically drawn, but the margin is so slim that it is fully playable even with today's super engines. Chess could also be like this with some changes, either to rules or to initial position (and Armageddon rule).

[lkaufman]

But this doesn't help us for engine events. It looks like 960 is here to stay, with a FIDE World title, a year round circuit for top players, and substantial money behind it. It may not be the best possible solution to the twin problems of engine prep and excessive draws, but it seems to work well enough and has been accepted by the chess Elite. So I think we need to find a way to run chess 960 engine events that is as close as possible to just playing chess960 while cutting the draw rate between top engines to some acceptable figure like 70% or so. Ideally it should be by some simple rule or rules rather than an arbitrary list of opening moves that people will always argue about. It should be a rule that doesn't require rewriting engines but just modifies the start position somehow. I don't have a favorite proposal yet, but examples would be that Black can't castle or can only castle to a specified side, or White starts with a knight randomly developed (perhaps towards the center), something that increases White's advantage but not past the 1.00 win/draw line.

Did you consider DFRC?
There are more than 900000 different starting positions. If anybody would evaluate them all, there would be definitly a lot of DFRC-positions with a measureable advantage for white. (No, I will not do this, for me, my unbalanced Chess324 openings are fine and IMHO the Fischer castling-rules not only look stupid in some positions, but also adding any new rules to enginechess is a bad idea (because it is not needed (again my unbalanced Chess324 openings...) and some engines can not handle it).

You find DFRC (epd only) on Stockfish-Github:
https://github.com/official-stockfish/b ... gs.epd.zip

DFRC is not a useful game because many positions are not just "advantage" for White but easily won at high level. Of course they could be filtered out. We don't need huge numbers of positions for tournaments or rating lists, 960 is plenty, but we do need ones with evals closer to (but preferably below) 1. Your 324 openings do this, and that is the best we have right now, but it's not the game humans are playing (unfortunately). Maybe some subset of DFRC with a simple rule to define the subset might accomplish what I'm aiming for, I might give that some thought.