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Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

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Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#241
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://live.lczero.org/

This is great, but I think that % is about the "correctness" of the move, not how likely it is to be played next.

I think that's not quite the point. Leela has an advantage over AB chess engines, where it has multi-PV for "free", meaning it will evaluate multiple lines by default at no cost to performance (traditional engines, like Stockfish, will lose elo with multi-PV). This allows us to know at a glance if a position is "draw/win with perfect play" or if there is margin for error. If Leela shows multiple moves where one side maintains a winning advantage/losing disadvantage/equality, we can use that as a computer-based heuristic to know if a position is "easy" to play or not.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#242
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree completely. In the eyes of some modern fans, the popularity of engines and eval bars has reduced chess to an intellectual and computational exercise. It's too easy to say "bad moves" and "blunder" when Stockfish is giving you all the answers! In reality, chess is a fighting contest between two flesh-and-blood humans. And that's what we see throughout this exciting match, and in this final game. Gukesh won…

That isn't how most appreciate sports. People are hoping for the contenders to be at the top of their game towards the end of the championships. Nobody says "Hey, at least this has a human touch! I'm sick of basketball video games." if the NBA finals are relatively boring one year. I think maybe "that was a absolutely horrible finish" got interpreted as saying that the win wasn't well earned. That's not how I saw it…

> Nobody says "Hey, at least this has a human touch! I'm sick of basketball video games." if the NBA finals are relatively boring one year.

Complete strawman. You are one of very few people who think this match was "relatively boring."

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#243
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it’s called Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS used by AlphaZero) instead of AlphaBeta search (which is what classical chess engines used)

Those are tree search techniques, they are not metrics to assess the "human" complexity of a line. They could be used for this purpose but out of the box they just give you winning probability

If multiple lines have equal-ish winning probability, rather than a single line, then you can sort of translate it to "human" complexity.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gukesh took him into the deep water the entire time, putting every possible strain on Ding's energy and reserves. It was the unrelenting pressure of an 18yo badass that cracked Ding, whom I truly feel sorry for. He is a great player and a very, very nice human being. What is crazy is that Gukesh has only been playing chess for a little more than 11 years. ETA: And Ding fought like a lion!

Gukesh is born in 2006, so he started playing at 7.

His quote from the interview was "six and a half to seven", so I rounded to 11 years, as he is now 18.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#245

That was a absolutely horrible finish to a really exciting championship if you ask me. For anyone who doesn't know, there was a lot of drama because Gukesh was playing amazingly coming into this (eg winning the gold medal on board 1 at the olympiad in crushing style) and Ding had been playing terribly. Then there were 13 games of back and forth with stalwart defending and imaginative computer preparation by both side…

I have little interest in chess and no real knowledge in its current events beyond mainstream media coverage, but always enjoy lively writeups of the matches like this one.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. Huge oversimplification there I mean culturally and administratively. Heck, in my ancestral state, non-natives cannot purchase land. > It's not definitely like oblasts of Russian Federation It absolutely is. Heck, my ancestral state (HP) is a merger of 3 entirely distinct ethnic communities (Lower Himachalis who are the same community as in Jammu division, Upper Himachalis who are closer to Garwhalis and Kumaou…

> that Rayalseema is lumped with Kosta Andhra, They share a common language ?

Sure (though imo, even the difference between dialect and language can be significant - try listening to Bundelkhandi as a Hindi speaker, you won't understand it even though Bundelkhandi is counted as "Hindi" largely for political reasons), but entirely different caste structure and political social structure historically speaking.

Coastal Andhra had been under direct British rule since 1823 and before that largely under the Northern Circars, but Rayalseema was a frontier land between Mysore, the British, the Hyderabad Sultanate, and plenty of local kings and factions.

All over India, the British administration largely just co-opted the preexisting administration and governance, which wasn't professionalized until the early 20th Century. This meant that functionaries of the pre-existing states were co-opted into local administration.

Ofc, in princely states the difference was even more significant.

But my argument is that it makes sense for Rayalseema to be split off from Coastal Andhra, as the administrative history is distinct, and even the history is distinct.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Nepo and Magnus seem to be cut from a different cloth, although Magnus has never had a moment where he could demonstrate whether or not he can be humble, because he has always just crushed. Anish Giri kind of took a shot at Magnus (with respect to his retiring from classical chess) in his early commentary with Petr Leko a few days ago. People are funny, and one doesn't usually get to be where Ding and Guk…

You are quite the Chess enthusiast; I enjoy reading your comments!

Thanks. My son and I first started watching together for Magnus-Fabi, so it's something we enjoy doing together. I enjoy the sporting aspect of it even though I've never been a particularly good chess player. I'm more interested in the human aspects of it, and I enjoy the commentaries by Leko, Bobby Chess (Robert Hess), Naroditsky, Giri, and Judit. I love learning from people who have achieved greatness.

It was evident to me from the beginning that Ding was struggling physically (he had an occasionally rough-sounding cough throughout) and, perhaps, emotionally. And Gukesh was locked in from go. What a struggle!

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great, but I think that % is about the "correctness" of the move, not how likely it is to be played next.

I think that's not quite the point. Leela has an advantage over AB chess engines, where it has multi-PV for "free", meaning it will evaluate multiple lines by default at no cost to performance (traditional engines, like Stockfish, will lose elo with multi-PV). This allows us to know at a glance if a position is "draw/win with perfect play" or if there is margin for error. If Leela shows multiple moves where one side…

Yes and no – the number of playable lines does not necessarily tell us how "obvious" those lines are to find for a human.

To give a trivial example, if I take your queen, then recapturing my queen is almost always the single playable move. But it's also a line that you will easily find!

Conversely, in a complex tactical position, (even) multiple saving moves could all be very tricky for a human to calculate.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#250

That was a absolutely horrible finish to a really exciting championship if you ask me. For anyone who doesn't know, there was a lot of drama because Gukesh was playing amazingly coming into this (eg winning the gold medal on board 1 at the olympiad in crushing style) and Ding had been playing terribly. Then there were 13 games of back and forth with stalwart defending and imaginative computer preparation by both side…

That's the most exciting and well written description of a chess game I've ever read!

You must not read very much chess writing!
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