syzygy wrote:
In an easily won position a top GM should certainly be able to play perfectly. I believe that knight odds is sufficient for a position to be "easily won" in this sense.
if a computer playing a top gm at knight odds can get the score down from 3 to 2 before the super gm can get it up from 3 to 4, the computer will win. currently a computer cannot do that. how do you know it will never be able to do that. ?
Engine scores are not physical measurements that can be forced up or down simply by throwing enough computer cycles against them.
If a position is won, you don't even have to play any moves to get the score up (from you point of view). Just let the opponent computer think long enough and its score will eventually drop to mate. Making the computer stronger will only make it realise more quickly how hopelessly lost it is.
So if in a particular position the computer today cannot get the score down from 3 to 2, then a future computer in that same position will not be able to get the score down from 23 to 22.
99% of the time the problem is the HUMAN will get the score down from 3 to 2, then from 2 to 1, and eventually to lost.
If that were true, also a GM would still have a chance to draw the game when behind a knight without compensation. In reality, even Carlsen resigns in such a position when playing a decent GM.
Why do you assume perfect play by the human?
Because I am assuming a the human is a healthy Carlsen playing at a reasonable time control.
So you ASSUME he plays perfectly when healthy and at a reasonable time control? One can have a computer go over several of his games to verify that is not the case.
Yes, at knight odds. Do you not understand the difference between perfect play at knight odds (or in KRK for that matter) and perfect play from the opening position?
Knight odds is a long way from KRK. GM's lose at knight odds in blitz. An FM lost at knight odds in 45+15. There is a lot of play in the position. The engine finds ideas the human doesn't consider.
In 6 games would a 2500 win 6-0 against current top engines? His comments after the match would be worth hearing.
syzygy wrote:
And why might the GM be able to avoid half point / full point mistakes when playing with knight odds? Because having that extra knight means he can use it to continuously improve his position without taking risks (i.e. allowing complications). And because Nakamura might just know what he is talking about. But even if knight odds would turn out to be insufficient, it is clear that queen odds is more than sufficient. So there is definitely an upper bound.
Movsesian has an inferior-but-comparable positional understanding to that of Nakamura. Before his match he was very confidant White couldn't lose getting pawn odds.
Of the 12 GM's I approached about playing a 2-pawn odds match, rated 2400-2700, all but one thought it would be an easy win for the GM.
Laskos wrote:I don't know what rigorous proof can exist for that. Larry, me and Ronald gave you many possible plausible, common sense educated guesses, and often an educated guess (sometimes a "model") is much more than just lamenting that "there is no proof so we are completely ignorant on the issue". To have a measure of the value of the "models" we proposed, I can put my money on the future human world champion rated above FIDE 2700 winning a match of 10 games against 32 men tablebases at Knight odds.
I'd be happy to take the bet, but since that won't ever happen, it would be pointless...
Not only won't it happen, it wouldn't prove anything, anyhow. There a many ways to play with a 32 man tablebase that wouldn't optimize the winning chances.
The 32-man tablebase would only tell the engine that EVERYTHING LOSES
syzygy wrote:Yes, at knight odds. Do you not understand the difference between perfect play at knight odds (or in KRK for that matter) and perfect play from the opening position?
Knight odds is a long way from KRK. GM's lose at knight odds in blitz. An FM lost at knight odds in 45+15. There is a lot of play in the position. The engine finds ideas the human doesn't consider.
I have no problem accepting that a GM loses at knight odds in blitz. But he loses mostly to himself, as he makes mistakes that his practically near-perfect opponent takes advantage of.
Give the GM more time and he will make fewer and fewer mistakes, while the engine opponent continues to be practically near-perfect.
I say practically near-perfect, because top engines are so much better at chess than humans that for most games it does not really matter whether the engine is actually perfect or not. (If the engine blunders in 1% of the games, that is unlikely to make the difference for the question whether knight odds favour the human or the perfect or near-perfect engine.)
In 6 games would a 2500 win 6-0 against current top engines? His comments after the match would be worth hearing.
3,5 - 2,5 suffices. So if the GM drops half a point at 5 instances during the match, he still comes out on top.
syzygy wrote:Yes, at knight odds. Do you not understand the difference between perfect play at knight odds (or in KRK for that matter) and perfect play from the opening position?
Knight odds is a long way from KRK. GM's lose at knight odds in blitz. An FM lost at knight odds in 45+15. There is a lot of play in the position. The engine finds ideas the human doesn't consider.
I have no problem accepting that a GM loses at knight odds in blitz. But he loses mostly to himself, as he makes mistakes that his practically near-perfect opponent takes advantage of.
Give the GM more time and he will make fewer and fewer mistakes, while the engine opponent continues to be practically near-perfect.
I say practically near-perfect, because top engines are so much better at chess than humans that for most games it does not really matter whether the engine is actually perfect or not. (If the engine blunders in 1% of the games, that is unlikely to make the difference for the question whether knight odds favour the human or the perfect or near-perfect engine.)
In 6 games would a 2500 win 6-0 against current top engines? His comments after the match would be worth hearing.
3,5 - 2,5 suffices. So if the GM drops half a point at 5 instances during the match, he still comes out on top.
In twelve official (45' + 15") knight odds games Komodo performed a bit below 2000 FIDE. So I would expect a 2500 FIDE GM to score about 95% taking knight odds from Komodo today, as that is what he should score against an opponent slightly below 2000 in normal chess.
Dirt wrote:Not only won't it happen, it wouldn't prove anything, anyhow. There a many ways to play with a 32 man tablebase that wouldn't optimize the winning chances.
The 32-man tablebase would only tell the engine that EVERYTHING LOSES
Dirt wrote:Not only won't it happen, it wouldn't prove anything, anyhow. There a many ways to play with a 32 man tablebase that wouldn't optimize the winning chances.
The 32-man tablebase would only tell the engine that EVERYTHING LOSES
Laskos wrote:I don't know what rigorous proof can exist for that. Larry, me and Ronald gave you many possible plausible, common sense educated guesses, and often an educated guess (sometimes a "model") is much more than just lamenting that "there is no proof so we are completely ignorant on the issue". To have a measure of the value of the "models" we proposed, I can put my money on the future human world champion rated above FIDE 2700 winning a match of 10 games against 32 men tablebases at Knight odds.
I'd be happy to take the bet, but since that won't ever happen, it would be pointless...
Not only won't it happen, it wouldn't prove anything, anyhow. There a many ways to play with a 32 man tablebase that wouldn't optimize the winning chances.
The 32-man tablebase would only tell the engine that EVERYTHING LOSES
If you are clever it tells you much more. IE which path would be the hardest to defend against. I'd expect a 32 piece EGTB program to still do significant searches to try to make it hard on the human. IE perhaps find a line where at ply 40 there is only one correct response to win, or other such ideas that are not being done today.
I suspect there are a ton of undiscovered ways to exploit this data that we have not considered much. Bruce Moreland and I spent some time with KRP vs KR, and there are potential tricks to try there, but the game hardly ever comes up, and the tricks are only important when it is drawn anyway, so the potential Elo gain was pretty much zero. I've seen the basic "swindle mode" in Crafty win a few drawn endings against humans (including a GM). But with 31 piece files (one piece is missing in the current topic) there is probably a LOT of information to be mined from it.
