Stockfish play very decent giving pawn odds.........

[Ovyron]

Hopefully Carlsen would play with takeback odds, which haven't been explored yet, and which could be the ultimate equalizer (imagine if with 3 takebacks GMs were at the level of engines.)

[Chessqueen]

Hopefully Carlsen would play with takeback odds, which haven't been explored yet, and which could be the ultimate equalizer (imagine if with 3 takebacks GMs were at the level of engines.)

That is interesting, but when will the takeback take effect immediately after the engine show Carlsen that his previous move was faulty, or two or three moves later. My question is if Carlsen need three takeback moves, how many takeback will a master rated player needs at lest 20 or he will need to replay the same game one hundredth time until he draw . I really believe that material odds is much better to level the strength from the very start:roll:

PS: If you are rated between 1500 thru 1700, how many takebacks would you need? Will you be playing until Christmas the same game, so please start a game NOW and let me now around Christmast.

[Ovyron]

My question is if Carlsen need three takeback moves, how many takeback will a master rated player needs at lest 20 or he will need to replay the same game one hundredth time until he draw .

Maybe Carlsen needs 20 to draw. Maybe 100 aren't enough. We can't even start to speculate because this terrain hasn't been explored at all.

Also, as a matter of depth, I can beat Stockfish depth 1 with no takebacks - so there's some Stockfish depth that I can beat with 3 takebacks, and it has some time handicap equivalent (assuming I get 10 fixed minutes per game, and Stockfish gets whatever time it takes it to reach that depth. Which could be 5 seconds/game or something.)

[Uri Blass]

My question is if Carlsen need three takeback moves, how many takeback will a master rated player needs at lest 20 or he will need to replay the same game one hundredth time until he draw .

Maybe Carlsen needs 20 to draw. Maybe 100 aren't enough. We can't even start to speculate because this terrain hasn't been explored at all.

Also, as a matter of depth, I can beat Stockfish depth 1 with no takebacks - so there's some Stockfish depth that I can beat with 3 takebacks, and it has some time handicap equivalent (assuming I get 10 fixed minutes per game, and Stockfish gets whatever time it takes it to reach that depth. Which could be 5 seconds/game or something.)

I think that you need to define the time control and number of take back that you allow that can be also in theory infinite.

The simplest thing against humans is to have a rule that stockfish use the same time that the human use and the human has some limited time.
With fixed 10 minutes per game I guess that part of the humans are going to lose on time even with infinite number of takebacks and I am not sure how many can win(I guess many can get a draw).
The problem is that if the human try to take back too many moves he is going to use more than 10 minutes and lose on time.

The problem is also that I do not know of some interface that support the idea and you also need to modify stockfish to use the same time that the human use and you need interface that allow the human to click take back during his move so it take back both stockfish's last move and the human last move and the interface also know that the human can lose on time.

Note that time that the human use include the time that he used for take back.

Example suppose you play against stockfish.

If after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 it is your move and you use 3 seconds and click take back
then you see the position after 1.e4 e5 Nf3
If after 2 additional seconds you click another take back you get the position after 1.e4 and if you think additional 4 seconds and play 1...c5
then your total time for 1...c5 is 3+2+4=9 seconds and stockfish is going to use 9 seconds for the reply.

[Chessqueen]

My question is if Carlsen need three takeback moves, how many takeback will a master rated player needs at lest 20 or he will need to replay the same game one hundredth time until he draw .

Maybe Carlsen needs 20 to draw. Maybe 100 aren't enough. We can't even start to speculate because this terrain hasn't been explored at all.

Also, as a matter of depth, I can beat Stockfish depth 1 with no takebacks - so there's some Stockfish depth that I can beat with 3 takebacks, and it has some time handicap equivalent (assuming I get 10 fixed minutes per game, and Stockfish gets whatever time it takes it to reach that depth. Which could be 5 seconds/game or something.)

I think that you need to define the time control and number of take back that you allow that can be also in theory infinite.

The simplest thing against humans is to have a rule that stockfish use the same time that the human use and the human has some limited time.
With fixed 10 minutes per game I guess that part of the humans are going to lose on time even with infinite number of takebacks and I am not sure how many can win(I guess many can get a draw).
The problem is that if the human try to take back too many moves he is going to use more than 10 minutes and lose on time.

The problem is also that I do not know of some interface that support the idea and you also need to modify stockfish to use the same time that the human use and you need interface that allow the human to click take back during his move so it take back both stockfish's last move and the human last move and the interface also know that the human can lose on time.

Note that time that the human use include the time that he used for take back.

Example suppose you play against stockfish.

If after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 it is your move and you use 3 seconds and click take back
then you see the position after 1.e4 e5 Nf3
If after 2 additional seconds you click another take back you get the position after 1.e4 and if you think additional 4 seconds and play 1...c5
then your total time for 1...c5 is 3+2+4=9 seconds and stockfish is going to use 9 seconds for the reply.

Uri, another thing that I noticed is that no matter how many takebacks a GM takes against any top engine rated above 3450 the replacement move will always be played at his strength, and either Stockfish, or Komodo will always reply to the human replacement move with a better move since those top engines look at the replacement move by the human player and recalculate the best response to the replacement move made by the human. I will give you an example, I try yesterday a friendly game against my friend Jorge Sammour rated FIDE 2458 and asked him if I can take 15 or 20 takebacks during the game. So he agreed and we played a 30 minutes game and whenever I told him that I would like a takeback to any of my move, I stopped the clock and started the clock after I replaced the move as if the time froze from that moment so my thinking time for the replacement move did not counted at all. I lost the game even after taking 20 takebacks. The explanation is simple whenever I made a replacement move I still made it at my strength and he always found a better move being way way a better player by at least 450 rating points than I am. During the game he did not made a comment at all that was our agreement, but he was taking notes so he could comment later on and told me why my replacement move was still weak or slightly better but not the best one. I am too embarrassed to post the game here, but I learned a lot more than reading an entire book of chess by listening to his explanation and comment after the game. Conclusion by taking x amount of takebacks the human player will NOT defeat the top engine, since the response of the engine will always be superior to the human, and a human can NOT think of hundred of moves every time it calculate, but the engine does every single time.Therefore, takebacks is not the way to defeat a top engine unless you replace your brain with another top engine of equal strength every time you replace your moves.

[lkaufman]

Just by curiosity Larry, if Carslen would agree to play at some handicap, what would you choose ?

For me the most interesting match Komodo vs Carlsen would be at f7 handicap ("pawn and move"), because it has a rich tradition behind it with hundreds of historical games, and because at reasonable time controls I think it would be reasonably balanced. It is basically a 1 1/2 pawn handicap, the missing f7 pawn hurts Black in the opening. White odds plus draw odds plus time odds plus perhaps some takebacks would also be interesting, but I think the result would be more of a test of the opening book than of the engine, unless it's specified to use no opening book, just armageddon settings. Probably still too favorable for Komodo unless huge time odds with no ponder included.

[duncan]

My question is if Carlsen need three takeback moves, how many takeback will a master rated player needs at lest 20 or he will need to replay the same game one hundredth time until he draw .

Maybe Carlsen needs 20 to draw. Maybe 100 aren't enough. We can't even start to speculate because this terrain hasn't been explored at all.

Also, as a matter of depth, I can beat Stockfish depth 1 with no takebacks - so there's some Stockfish depth that I can beat with 3 takebacks, and it has some time handicap equivalent (assuming I get 10 fixed minutes per game, and Stockfish gets whatever time it takes it to reach that depth. Which could be 5 seconds/game or something.)

I think that you need to define the time control and number of take back that you allow that can be also in theory infinite.

The simplest thing against humans is to have a rule that stockfish use the same time that the human use and the human has some limited time.
With fixed 10 minutes per game I guess that part of the humans are going to lose on time even with infinite number of takebacks and I am not sure how many can win(I guess many can get a draw).
The problem is that if the human try to take back too many moves he is going to use more than 10 minutes and lose on time.

The problem is also that I do not know of some interface that support the idea and you also need to modify stockfish to use the same time that the human use and you need interface that allow the human to click take back during his move so it take back both stockfish's last move and the human last move and the interface also know that the human can lose on time.

Note that time that the human use include the time that he used for take back.

Example suppose you play against stockfish.

If after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 it is your move and you use 3 seconds and click take back
then you see the position after 1.e4 e5 Nf3
If after 2 additional seconds you click another take back you get the position after 1.e4 and if you think additional 4 seconds and play 1...c5
then your total time for 1...c5 is 3+2+4=9 seconds and stockfish is going to use 9 seconds for the reply.

Uri, another thing that I noticed is that no matter how many takebacks a GM takes against any top engine rated above 3450 the replacement move will always be played at his strength, and either Stockfish, or Komodo will always reply to the human replacement move with a better move since those top engines look at the replacement move by the human player and recalculate the best response to the replacement move made by the human. I will give you an example, I try yesterday a friendly game against my friend Jorge Sammour rated FIDE 2458 and asked him if I can take 15 or 20 takebacks during the game. So he agreed and we played a 30 minutes game and whenever I told him that I would like a takeback to any of my move, I stopped the clock and started the clock after I replaced the move as if the time froze from that moment so my thinking time for the replacement move did not counted at all. I lost the game even after taking 20 takebacks. The explanation is simple whenever I made a replacement move I still made it at my strength and he always found a better move being way way a better player by at least 450 rating points than I am. During the game he did not made a comment at all that was our agreement, but he was taking notes so he could comment later on and told me why my replacement move was still weak or slightly better but not the best one. I am too embarrassed to post the game here, but I learned a lot more than reading an entire book of chess by listening to his explanation and comment after the game. Conclusion by taking x amount of takebacks the human player will NOT defeat the top engine, since the response of the engine will always be superior to the human, and a human can NOT think of hundred of moves every time it calculate, but the engine does every single time.Therefore, takebacks is not the way to defeat a top engine unless you replace your brain with another top engine of equal strength every time you replace your moves.

If carlsen is better positionally than stockfish but worse tactically, then being allowed to take back his tactical errors, should mean he will win imo.

[Alayan]

Takeback odds with some amount of allowed takebacks are great to fix short-term blunders that the master can understand quickly after seeing the engine reply. It won't fix a long-lasting positional weakness, but it's obvious that takeback odds will noticeably increase the elo performance of any human chess player.

[lkaufman]

Takeback odds with some amount of allowed takebacks are great to fix short-term blunders that the master can understand quickly after seeing the engine reply. It won't fix a long-lasting positional weakness, but it's obvious that takeback odds will noticeably increase the elo performance of any human chess player.

The main problem is that chess isn't easily sorted into two categories, "tactical" and "positional". In general, engines beat top players because they see that they can achieve positional advantages by tactical means. The GM may evaluate the positions as well as or better than the engine, but they cannot see the long narrow variations needed to achieve a superior position. So yes, takebacks will raise the human elo, but only by a small fraction of what is needed to be competitive with top engines. I suppose the most natural takeback handicap would be to allow every move to be taken back, once only, until you make the next move, with no time recovery. I would imagine this is close to a class handicap, enough to make a match between the top rated woman Hou Yifan and Carlsen reasonably competitive. Or Carlsen with some engine with a human rating around 3060, so maybe 2950 or so on CCRL 40/15 list. Give him White every game and no opening book for engine, and we're maybe up to 3100 on that list.

[Chessqueen]

Takeback odds with some amount of allowed takebacks are great to fix short-term blunders that the master can understand quickly after seeing the engine reply. It won't fix a long-lasting positional weakness, but it's obvious that takeback odds will noticeably increase the elo performance of any human chess player.

The main problem is that chess isn't easily sorted into two categories, "tactical" and "positional". In general, engines beat top players because they see that they can achieve positional advantages by tactical means. The GM may evaluate the positions as well as or better than the engine, but they cannot see the long narrow variations needed to achieve a superior position. So yes, takebacks will raise the human elo, but only by a small fraction of what is needed to be competitive with top engines. I suppose the most natural takeback handicap would be to allow every move to be taken back, once only, until you make the next move, with no time recovery. I would imagine this is close to a class handicap, enough to make a match between the top rated woman Hou Yifan and Carlsen reasonably competitive. Or Carlsen with some engine with a human rating around 3060, so maybe 2950 or so on CCRL 40/15 list. Give him White every game and no opening book for engine, and we're maybe up to 3100 on that list.

First of all Carlsen will never accept a match vs engine unless a big sponsor like IBM or AMD give him 1 million dollar to promote their fASTEST P.C, he is too proud to lose in front of millions of people on the internet, but the most interesting match would be in the nearest future to offer Nakamura or MVL who are always willing to take the challenge a three way Combo (last chance for humanity). And this consist of removing the f7 or g7 pawn, plus 45 + 10 either to Nakamura or MVL, and Komodo 15 + 10, and finally one Takeback, but it would have to be immediately after Komodo makes it move by retrieving Komodo last move and the human last move to be replaced by another move.

PS: Larry you can probably ask your friend GM Lenderman to play a test game under this condition and let us know how GM Lenderman handled it.