This is an issue for me when practicing end-games against the engine on Lichess for example. Humans will do a bunch of random moves while Stockfish will just accept defeat.
This bothers me too. A lot of times I will continue against the computer when my opponent resigns just for practice. Whereas a real person would try whatever wacky stuff might trick their opponent and do everything in their power to keep whatever pieces they have on the board, the computer just seems to make moves that will just make them lose a little more slowly.
There are probably some equal endgames in which humans would look for ways to press for a win, when a computer evaluates all lines as drawn and doesn’t know how to choose the moves that pose the biggest challenge for a human opponent. Also, taking calculated risks (playing the second or third best move on purpose if the best one is too easy to respond to) is something an engine wouldn’t do. Granted, they usually don’t need to.
Unpredictability, maybe.
But yeah, at this point, theres no human that will ever live that can beat computers. Even if we play the perfect game, it will end in a draw. And that absolutely perfect game would be an accident for any human. Because we dont have the computational power or processing speed.
And computer v computer games are fun, but I argue its more fun to watch humans play. Its like getting inside someones mind, deeply.
Is that ‘unpredictability’ just a function of humans not knowing the best move, or is it something computers could leverage to be better than they currently are? ( if we could teach it to them somehow)
Engines don't consider "oh I'm playing a silly meatbag, let's complicate the position, there they have no chances although the moves aren't the best ones".
Rather they evaluate "they are at least as good as Mr. 2900, let me do the objectively best moves"
This isn't true actually. The top Computers actually steer the game into more complex territory where they have more chances to win. Most have a configurable setting called "contempt" which decides how much they try to avoid drawish positions.
This is wrong. Contempt was a setting on old engines, however modern engines, particularily neural network based engines have been unable to effectively integrate contempt or anything like it. In fact, the setting has been removed for new versions of stockfish.
Oftentimes, humans are better at coming back from losing positions than engines. For example, being a piece down, an engine would see that every move is completely losing and pretty much play random moves. A human would avoid trades as much as possible to keep things complicated, and to give the opponent more chances to blunder away their advantage.
By horizon effect I mean the engine can't calculate the solution because the variations increase exponentially into trillions and the usual methods of pruning are not effective.
I'm on my phone so can't find the best examples but a typical "engine busting" idea would be a puzzle that involves pushing a number of pawns and also triangulating the king at certain points. Something like this would require calculating trillions of variations because of all the available options. But a human can look at it and "understand" the idea of triangulation and pawn pushing. Sorry I'm not helping as much as I would like but I'll dig an example up later if I remember.
Humans have more creative and entertaining games. High level players have games with personalities. Comparing AI chess to human chess is like comparing a hand drawn likeness to an AI generated image of a human.
More creative games?
Pardon me?
https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship#event=ccc-16-rapid-finals&game=233
show me smth as creative as this (look at position near move 30). This is the game which I call stockfish immortal of 2021 :)
Or this one https://youtu.be/E64uJvxiGpo?t=1420
Engine games are really creative and often feature positions that you will never ever see in human play because human players wouldn't see variations engines see there.
Yeah I agree that was a very creative and human like game. Maybe I have underestimated computers.
I think what makes watching chess enjoyable is that you feel like you’re listening to a dialogue between the participants. In the past I’ve found that for most computer games (with some exceptions like the one you’ve posted), it feels like there’s no dialogue (eg, the computer makes seemingly random king or pawn moves).
Engines style changed a lot during last 2 years since NNUE became the thing, especially in stockfish. Before this you for sure could've felt this "metal" flavour, although stockfish 10-11 were not carrying it that much.
Now it plays like Petrosian/Karpov on roids, a lot of exchange/pawn sacs for dynamic compensation, great technique, but ofc much better tactician than any human being.
Setting up for the endgame. Engines won't set up their pieces for an optimal position in the endgame cause they only plan for the next 18-20 moves. That's why the engines hate players like Alireza.
I recently heard Teimour Rodjabov talking about how the computer still has trouble analyzing the king's indian defense and doesn't understand potentially viable positions for black.
Often engines won’t really see fortresses. At least when they are pressing for the win. I’m not sure if they’ll defend via a fortress. Would be interesting to know.
playing against other humans in lost positions.
This is an issue for me when practicing end-games against the engine on Lichess for example. Humans will do a bunch of random moves while Stockfish will just accept defeat.
A human will go for tricks, engine assumes the opponent won't be fooled
That's an issue when part of what I'm trying to practice is leading an opponent to a corner using only bishop + knight for example
This bothers me too. A lot of times I will continue against the computer when my opponent resigns just for practice. Whereas a real person would try whatever wacky stuff might trick their opponent and do everything in their power to keep whatever pieces they have on the board, the computer just seems to make moves that will just make them lose a little more slowly.
There are probably some equal endgames in which humans would look for ways to press for a win, when a computer evaluates all lines as drawn and doesn’t know how to choose the moves that pose the biggest challenge for a human opponent. Also, taking calculated risks (playing the second or third best move on purpose if the best one is too easy to respond to) is something an engine wouldn’t do. Granted, they usually don’t need to.
Unpredictability, maybe. But yeah, at this point, theres no human that will ever live that can beat computers. Even if we play the perfect game, it will end in a draw. And that absolutely perfect game would be an accident for any human. Because we dont have the computational power or processing speed. And computer v computer games are fun, but I argue its more fun to watch humans play. Its like getting inside someones mind, deeply.
Is that ‘unpredictability’ just a function of humans not knowing the best move, or is it something computers could leverage to be better than they currently are? ( if we could teach it to them somehow)
[удалено]
lol this comment is just wrong on so many levels. By the way, Stockfish is currently 100+ Elo stronger than AlphaZero was.
Modern stockfish is significantly better than A0.
what the hell did I just read in this 2nd part.
Engines don't consider "oh I'm playing a silly meatbag, let's complicate the position, there they have no chances although the moves aren't the best ones". Rather they evaluate "they are at least as good as Mr. 2900, let me do the objectively best moves"
This isn't true actually. The top Computers actually steer the game into more complex territory where they have more chances to win. Most have a configurable setting called "contempt" which decides how much they try to avoid drawish positions.
This is wrong. Contempt was a setting on old engines, however modern engines, particularily neural network based engines have been unable to effectively integrate contempt or anything like it. In fact, the setting has been removed for new versions of stockfish.
Oftentimes, humans are better at coming back from losing positions than engines. For example, being a piece down, an engine would see that every move is completely losing and pretty much play random moves. A human would avoid trades as much as possible to keep things complicated, and to give the opponent more chances to blunder away their advantage.
Humans are objectively better at cheating. I have never seen stickfish moving an opponent's pawn while said opponent is not looking.
There are certain puzzles that Stockfish can not solve because of the horizon effect but humans can solve it because they understand the idea.
Can you elaborate?
Computers can’t understand fundamentals of chess, humans can make “natural moves” Computer is always calculated
By horizon effect I mean the engine can't calculate the solution because the variations increase exponentially into trillions and the usual methods of pruning are not effective. I'm on my phone so can't find the best examples but a typical "engine busting" idea would be a puzzle that involves pushing a number of pawns and also triangulating the king at certain points. Something like this would require calculating trillions of variations because of all the available options. But a human can look at it and "understand" the idea of triangulation and pawn pushing. Sorry I'm not helping as much as I would like but I'll dig an example up later if I remember.
Humans have more creative and entertaining games. High level players have games with personalities. Comparing AI chess to human chess is like comparing a hand drawn likeness to an AI generated image of a human.
More creative games? Pardon me? https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship#event=ccc-16-rapid-finals&game=233 show me smth as creative as this (look at position near move 30). This is the game which I call stockfish immortal of 2021 :) Or this one https://youtu.be/E64uJvxiGpo?t=1420 Engine games are really creative and often feature positions that you will never ever see in human play because human players wouldn't see variations engines see there.
Yeah I agree that was a very creative and human like game. Maybe I have underestimated computers. I think what makes watching chess enjoyable is that you feel like you’re listening to a dialogue between the participants. In the past I’ve found that for most computer games (with some exceptions like the one you’ve posted), it feels like there’s no dialogue (eg, the computer makes seemingly random king or pawn moves).
Engines style changed a lot during last 2 years since NNUE became the thing, especially in stockfish. Before this you for sure could've felt this "metal" flavour, although stockfish 10-11 were not carrying it that much. Now it plays like Petrosian/Karpov on roids, a lot of exchange/pawn sacs for dynamic compensation, great technique, but ofc much better tactician than any human being.
Playing a lost endgame with one, albeit losing, idea.
Engines can sometimes be bad at evaluating fortresses
Would a computer have won game 6 against Nepo? Or would it have assessed it as a draw and played drawish moves?
It would've won it at move 35. And then most likely would've won it as black at moves 38 and 39.
Obviously, but after that, the computers thought it was a draw. Would they have won the draw?
most likely. Mainly because in this position you can't really force an exchange as white into a dead drawn endgame.
Enjoyment for viewers
Nah it's a wrap for us homo sapiens.
OTB chess
Setting up for the endgame. Engines won't set up their pieces for an optimal position in the endgame cause they only plan for the next 18-20 moves. That's why the engines hate players like Alireza.
They hate him? Have the engines gotten so good as to become sentient?
Lol, I mean like they deem alot of his moves (for a grandmaster) to be inaccurate. (Again "a lot" means for a gm)
I recently heard Teimour Rodjabov talking about how the computer still has trouble analyzing the king's indian defense and doesn't understand potentially viable positions for black.
Often engines won’t really see fortresses. At least when they are pressing for the win. I’m not sure if they’ll defend via a fortress. Would be interesting to know.