fair drawless chess

[hgm]

Yet another remark: guaranteed fairness can always be achieved by means of the pie rule: one player makes the first move, the other then decides which side he will play.

Yes, quite fair, but that variant is even more drawish than standard chess, unless you combine it with some rule that adjudicates most or all position that would otherwise be drawn, for example last capture wins (regardless of move number), or last check, or player who gave more checks, or player leading by some point count system, etc. Theoretically then it would be better to play second, since every first move is either winning for White or Black in that case, but of course in practice no one would know who is winning after some first moves with such tiebreak rules.

Indeed. I suggested it for use in combination with single games from a nearly-won opening position with black draws awarded as wins. It eases the burdon of finding an opening position with an exact 50-50 chance for win vs non-wiin, by, deligating that task to the players.

[pohl4711]

However it are very unconventional moves, and thus besides the biased opening list i specified
from a wiki (*), the UHO 090-0.99 already were made for such a purpose, and he even made
an Armaggadon rescoring tool. The latest version where books were made was the UCO21V3
set and i'll have a look there; polyglot for Cutechess or abk for Arena, and chosing random
lines from the book, and finally the Armageddon rescoring. So it all can be done (and was
done by mr P with his UHO tournament apparently with a full (UHO24) game pgn list as opening
input for Cutechess (not sure the Armageddon rescore method was used in the result(s)
https://www.sp-cc.de/files/uho_full_list.txt

No. I do not use Armageddon rescoring in my lists. The UHO full list is just a normal ORDO-Elo calculation, like my main list on the main site (UHO-Top15).
But the UHO-Top15 ratinglist results are rescored by my Gamepair Rescoring Tool for the (2nd) UHO-Top15-Gamepair ratinglist, which can be found just below the UHO-Top15 Ratinglist on my main site. Personally, I think, gamepair rescoring is the best and most natural way to rescore UHO enginegames results. Like Vondele does ("Thinking uniquely in game pairs makes sense with the biased openings used these days. While pentanomial makes sense it is a bit complicated so we could simplify and score game pairs only (not games) as W-L-D (a traditional score of 2-0, or 1.5-0.5 is just a W).")

[jefk]

Like Vondele does ("Thinking uniquely in game pairs makes sense with the biased openings used these days

yep, yep using UHO only with game- pairs (b/w and w/b) imo also is te way to go otherwise it's a lottery. Conventional engine tourns as CCRL and the G.B(anks) tourns only work if there is a large difference in playing strength (in the tournament section i noticed that GB some years ago used a gambit book, apparently not anymore); on Playchess.com most users take one of the strongest engine, and then it's all around 3300 with lots of draws... But using a gambit- (or unbalanced) book won't be a solution. Already now i'm noticing with my polyglot gambit book (to avoid the black odds counting) in a little Cutechess tourn - without double games- that it quite a bit of a gamble, some lines give advantage +1.5 or so, and some others nothing (while i'm reducing the chances for such moves in the polyglot gambit book, i don't want to erase all of such lines, maybe later for another book). So only a few suboptimal lines can distort the result, and without two game system it's a gamble which opening (and thus (dis)advantage you get. But that's a problem for Playchess (not for me),
and - after some more consideration- maybe not for the ICCF:

First having looked at your UHO openings, when i compare it with the TCEC superfinal openings:
http://chessopeningsforengines.wikidot. ... ehje1hgcqg
They look like aa subset of your UHO (085-94?) files , the 6mvs and 8mvs pgn (?) just wondering;
and for lower levels (than the superfinal) maybe UHO 100-115 and so on. As for your special game
scoring algorithm, i wonder why this is necessary, with properly chosen openings (and double games)
the conventional point scoring might already be sufficient (and easier for ICCF, see below).

So for ICCF correspondence chess , in the medium term only game pairs (with Black draw odds), and obligatory use of the same UHO openings - instead of a random book- would be a reasonable (draw avoiding) and fair system. Now there already are regular tournaments for a specific opening, the socalled 'thematic' tournaments:
https://www.iccf.com/EventsAnnouncements.aspx
And apparently these tourns also are with a double game system, with typically less entrants (eg 5 instead of 10),
however they don't count for the ICCF rating(s). As first step i would suggest they include thematic tournaments
with the most suitable UHO's (one per tourn) and double games for rating changes. But it would only make sense
if they would contribute to the ICCF official ratings. So this now is imo the most practical 'solution' for the ICCF
draw problem, and i suppose a correspondence player as Uri Blass would agree. Once such rated tourns exist,
there most likely will be a shift from top level ICCF to such special tourns. Ofcourse there can be various of
such thematic UHO or TCEC opening tourns, where one of these are included, preferably those most suitable
for long time control possibly depending on rating group. So this imo is a first step in solving the ICCF draw problem;
maybe it still will be difficult to sell this to the ICCF, but then i'm thinking about a Ronald Reagan quote (*).

For the longer term -besides Chess324 instead of - next to- Cchess960, i'm still also interested in something like the
latest Kaufman anti-draw variant (with the last capture -after move x- rule), after sufficient testing and possible
further specification(s) or modification(s) of course.

(*) when you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat.

whereby i simply consider to post the above idea (UHO or TCEC in rated thematic tournaments)
later in their ICCF Facebook group, possibly later with a mail (or a few mails) with the detailed
proposal and some explanation of UHO/TCEC etc to the board.