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Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

cacm.acm.org

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Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#41

Post by afro88 »

riwsky wrote: post #5
pests wrote: post #3

Great read. Interesting variations to the rules. Here's an annotated quote: "The nine changes considered in this study are listed in Table 1. No-castling and No-castling (10) involve a full and partial [not allowed during first 10 turns / 20 plies] restriction on the castling rule. Pawn-one-square, Semi-torpedo [can move 2 squares on 2ed and 3rd ranks], Torpedo [can move 2 squares], Pawn-back [up to your 2ed rank, do…

Software rendering of these rules might lag a bit—but if you have dedicated hardware, it should be possible to make this work.

This is such an intriguing comment. What question are you answering?

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#42

Post by ranguna »

travelhead wrote: post #39
beardyw wrote: post #35

It would be interesting to see if there is anything which would let black start on equal terms.

Yes! White moves first, then black makes two moves in a row, followed by regular back and forth moves after. This would theoretically allow black to start on equal terms.

What about playing two games at the same time?

One you play as black and the other white.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#43

Post by joelthelion »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #38
joelthelion wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one problem: there are too many draws at top human level.

I'm in top 1% of rapid chess players on lichess, and I hardly ever see a draw. If top 100 or 500 players on the whole planet have this problem, well, they can try some other game, probably, I don't mind.

The problem is not for these 100 players specifically. It's for all the fans watching them.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#44

Post by lmm »

beardyw wrote: post #35

It would be interesting to see if there is anything which would let black start on equal terms.

Hmm? Chess is already very drawish at the top level, a specific goal that they highlight in this paper is to unbalance the game.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#45

Post by thom »

I feel compelled to say that, Coronavirus shenanigans aside, Wijk an Zee has just finished and was a fantastic event with many interesting and decisive games. Classical chess does not need fixing, even at the highest level.

It’s fun that we can run these experiments though. I’d love to test out some of the variants a friend and I came up with! One of my favourites was starting with all the pieces off the board and a move was either to put a piece on your own half of the board (king had to come first) or move an existing piece. Another was having a mark on the bottom of one pawn on either side, and as a move you could look to see if a pawn was the “assassin” and if so, immediately move it. This of course meant that in some circumstances you could win on the first turn by capturing the king.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#46

Post by istinetz »

pests wrote: post #3

Great read. Interesting variations to the rules. Here's an annotated quote: "The nine changes considered in this study are listed in Table 1. No-castling and No-castling (10) involve a full and partial [not allowed during first 10 turns / 20 plies] restriction on the castling rule. Pawn-one-square, Semi-torpedo [can move 2 squares on 2ed and 3rd ranks], Torpedo [can move 2 squares], Pawn-back [up to your 2ed rank, do…

>Do any chess games support these modes or is these possible to play today?

Chess.com currently supports most of the modes in the list - except, I think, semi-torpedo, no-castling (10), and pawn-back. Which, to me, are the least exciting mods anyway.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#47

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

joelthelion wrote: post #43
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in top 1% of rapid chess players on lichess, and I hardly ever see a draw. If top 100 or 500 players on the whole planet have this problem, well, they can try some other game, probably, I don't mind.

The problem is not for these 100 players specifically. It's for all the fans watching them.

They can watch blitz of bullet games, it is by far more entertaining.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#48

Post by greyman »

thom wrote: post #45

I feel compelled to say that, Coronavirus shenanigans aside, Wijk an Zee has just finished and was a fantastic event with many interesting and decisive games. Classical chess does not need fixing, even at the highest level. It’s fun that we can run these experiments though. I’d love to test out some of the variants a friend and I came up with! One of my favourites was starting with all the pieces off the board and a…

Yes Tata Steel tournament was great, I just don't think we need variants like Fischer random chess. There is still lot to explore in classical chess.

Anyway, how is the first variant you described called? (one starting with empty board). My favourite is crazychess, lot of tactical fun there.

Re: Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero

#49

Post by yesenadam »

ranguna wrote: post #42
travelhead wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! White moves first, then black makes two moves in a row, followed by regular back and forth moves after. This would theoretically allow black to start on equal terms.

What about playing two games at the same time? One you play as black and the other white.

This has been tried:

"Basque chess - A chess competition in which the players simultaneously play each other two games on two boards, each playing White on one and Black on the other. There is a clock at both boards. It removes the bonus in mini-matches of playing White first. Basque chess was first played in the 2012 Donostia Chess Festival in the Basque Country, Spain. Also called Basque System." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess

This story on the event says it was originally Bronstein's idea. https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2012/01/23/chess-notes/0GSY...

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