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Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

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Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#21

Post by platz »

antris wrote: post #16
monsieurbanana wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Go. Of course, this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perf- Wait a minute, Go is perfect. If we forget about ko rules.

What's wrong with ko rules? I think it's a simple rule and ko fights are an interesting part of go.

excepting some crazy multi step ko that is possible in theory, it never happens in practice. There is nothing wrong with ko, it adds depth to the game. maybe they dont like ko becauase they have a weakness in their play and cant take advantage of them or defend against them. if you give your opponent a lot of ko threats they will end up winning most kos.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#22

Post by light_hue_1 »

gazookgaboot wrote: post #12

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Shogi (A chess style game played in Japan). Shogi is similar to the bughouse chess variant in that captured pieces return to the board on the opponent's side. This prevents draw by insufficient material which is the real bane of Grandmaster level chess. Of course this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perfect solutions.

Top-level chess leads to draws because of how points are awarded, not because of the rules. Yes, sometimes you just run out of material, but much of the time draws happen because players shut down the game or agree to a draw in a position that is just too dangerous to both parties. Chess rewards draws with far too many points.

If you could agree to a draw in tennis, you would see a lot of draws where players want to save their energy and don't think this match counts that much.

In other sports players don't play for draws. In chess, because draws are worth so much, some players will try to draw with black and win with white. If chess were more combative players would intentionally stay away from drawish lines.

Many ways to change the game have been put forward before. Including banning draws in positions that are not known to be draws from a table base, changing how many points you get for a draw (you could get less than 1/2), forbidding early draws, changing what happens if a tournament is drawn.

These kinds of rule changes make a big difference. Like, 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw. Now, you can't comfortably sit as black and bank a lot of draws because you won't be able to as easily catch up.

Rules for draws in tournaments are really absurd these days. A drawn classical tournament or even the world championship gets decided by rapid games. What's the point in playing classical if you win by playing rapid? The world championship is particularly problematic in this regard.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#23

Post by FrozenVoid »

alar44 wrote: post #14
FrozenVoid wrote: post #9

These changes don't change complexity of the game much, while chess can be altered to have much higher branching factor and move complexity. Check: https://github.com/FrozenVoid/Game-Design-DB/blob/main/Board...

That's not chess, that is a completely different game. The only similarity is that they are both board games.

This (v13) variant was arrived from altering normal chess step-by-step, evolving from this(v1->v13) variant https://github.com/FrozenVoid/Game-Design-DB/blob/main/Board... which is fairly mundane variant with extra pieces and slightly larger board.

It would be interesting to know at which point FrozenChess variants become not-chess(or where chess variants become board games).

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#24

Post by TylerE »

vikingerik wrote: post #17
gazookgaboot wrote: post #12

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Shogi (A chess style game played in Japan). Shogi is similar to the bughouse chess variant in that captured pieces return to the board on the opponent's side. This prevents draw by insufficient material which is the real bane of Grandmaster level chess. Of course this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perfect solutions.

There's more than one way to address the problem of draw death besides bughousing captured pieces. Other win conditions are sometimes proposed - something like your king reaching the enemy king's starting square or back rank. Or count stalemate as either a win or some fraction between 0.5 and 1 for the side that inflicted it. Or do the same for draw by insufficient material (bishop or knight) for the superior side. (…

What I've always thought would be the most intriguing way would be auction Armageddon.

So, in Armageddon, there are no draws (Well, technically they are, but a draw is a win for black).

In compensation, white gets extra time.

So AUCTION Armageddon would have the players bidding for how much less time they'd be willing to have to play as black.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#25

Post by mwattsun »

monsieurbanana wrote: post #15
gazookgaboot wrote: post #12

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Shogi (A chess style game played in Japan). Shogi is similar to the bughouse chess variant in that captured pieces return to the board on the opponent's side. This prevents draw by insufficient material which is the real bane of Grandmaster level chess. Of course this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perfect solutions.

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Go. Of course, this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perf- Wait a minute, Go is perfect. If we forget about ko rules.

I was really impressed by "AlphaGo - The Movie", despite not knowing much about Go, because the way they told the story, people from the Asian countries were so sure their champion would win a Go tournament against a computer, that were stunned into a new consciousness about artificial intelligence when the computer won. This started an arms race in AI is what I gather.

Edit: Full movie for free on YouTube: AlphaGo - The Movie | Full award-winning documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#26

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #22
gazookgaboot wrote: post #12

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Shogi (A chess style game played in Japan). Shogi is similar to the bughouse chess variant in that captured pieces return to the board on the opponent's side. This prevents draw by insufficient material which is the real bane of Grandmaster level chess. Of course this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perfect solutions.

Top-level chess leads to draws because of how points are awarded, not because of the rules. Yes, sometimes you just run out of material, but much of the time draws happen because players shut down the game or agree to a draw in a position that is just too dangerous to both parties. Chess rewards draws with far too many points. If you could agree to a draw in tennis, you would see a lot of draws where players want to…

the draw problem isn't entirely human. computers draw something like 80% of games even with openings specifically chosen to reduced the number of draws.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#27

Post by weedfroglozenge »

discardable_dan wrote: post #18
gazookgaboot wrote: post #12

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Shogi (A chess style game played in Japan). Shogi is similar to the bughouse chess variant in that captured pieces return to the board on the opponent's side. This prevents draw by insufficient material which is the real bane of Grandmaster level chess. Of course this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perfect solutions.

I can't tell if this is satire. Draws by insufficient material almost never occur in Grandmaster chess. I have not seen a single grandmaster game end this way in a year of watching top-level chess games daily. If you inspect all of the dozens of draws in this world's Tata Steel, which included ~300 GM-level games, you won't find a single that ends this way.

Because they are ending the game before it gets to that stage. Similar to seeing check mates 3, 4, 5 moves in advance, they can see with perfect play that the reduction in pieces will end in an end game with insufficient material.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#28

Post by chongli »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #22
gazookgaboot wrote: post #12

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Shogi (A chess style game played in Japan). Shogi is similar to the bughouse chess variant in that captured pieces return to the board on the opponent's side. This prevents draw by insufficient material which is the real bane of Grandmaster level chess. Of course this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perfect solutions.

Top-level chess leads to draws because of how points are awarded, not because of the rules. Yes, sometimes you just run out of material, but much of the time draws happen because players shut down the game or agree to a draw in a position that is just too dangerous to both parties. Chess rewards draws with far too many points. If you could agree to a draw in tennis, you would see a lot of draws where players want to…

This seems great in theory but it doesn’t address the time when people complain the most about draws in chess: the world championship match. There, no matter how little you award for draws, one single win can be decisive and so the games can be very dry until one player breaks.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#29

Post by snovv_crash »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #26
light_hue_1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top-level chess leads to draws because of how points are awarded, not because of the rules. Yes, sometimes you just run out of material, but much of the time draws happen because players shut down the game or agree to a draw in a position that is just too dangerous to both parties. Chess rewards draws with far too many points. If you could agree to a draw in tennis, you would see a lot of draws where players want to…

the draw problem isn't entirely human. computers draw something like 80% of games even with openings specifically chosen to reduced the number of draws.

But it's that because we optimize the algorithms under the same ruleset?

I imagine if a draw was counted as a loss to both sides, there would be a lot more aggressive plays, since just stonewalling a skilled opponent would be the same as losing.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#30

Post by Raidion »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #22
gazookgaboot wrote: post #12

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Shogi (A chess style game played in Japan). Shogi is similar to the bughouse chess variant in that captured pieces return to the board on the opponent's side. This prevents draw by insufficient material which is the real bane of Grandmaster level chess. Of course this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perfect solutions.

Top-level chess leads to draws because of how points are awarded, not because of the rules. Yes, sometimes you just run out of material, but much of the time draws happen because players shut down the game or agree to a draw in a position that is just too dangerous to both parties. Chess rewards draws with far too many points. If you could agree to a draw in tennis, you would see a lot of draws where players want to…

You'd have to make the points awarded differ with white vs black.

World champs wouldn't have been a lot different other than it would end earlier. If you lose a game, you need to win a game to be even. That doesn't change even if you make it 100 points for a win.

It would impact multi person events more, but not incredibly. I think some interesting options are things like .7 for draw and 1.2 for win as black. Other options are to make 3 move repetitions illegal (now they're a kind of zugzwang). Last option that I like would be to add a time penalty for drawing in future matches. I think chess needs to become less even, and you could do that in interesting ways if you were willing to mess with the time (or even who moves first) in future matches. Incentives to win now (vs maybe win later) should reward aggressive play early in tournaments and make players who are falling behind more incentivized to fight mid tourney.

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