Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion • Hacker News Board

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#171

Post by jballanc » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 7:48 PM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #155

jballanc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now I'm working through the book "How Not to Play Go", by Yuan Zhou, but he has many very good books I could recommend. Neil Moffatt is another good writer, and I particularly enjoyed "Double Digit Kyu Games" by him. If you're not afraid of diving right in, Yuan Zhou's "Master Play" series, where he dissects games by different Go masters are very entertaining as well.

Where is the place to start for someone who understands nothing.

Yes, it looks like something from the late 90s (and it probably is), but this is a tutorial I used early on: http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#172

Post by girvo » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 8:04 PM UTC

Scriptor wrote: post #162

Segmentation wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing a centuries old board game with completely balanced rules, to an infant video game that still has major balance problems (if you looked hard enough), is silly. Chess is as balanced as it gets.

But...he didn't even mention balance. He simply was saying how Starcraft helped him appreciate the "nettlesomeness" aspect of professional chess more. It's just a comment about an interesting observation.

Scriptor! I just wanted to geek out a little and say I love Pharen so much!

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#173

Post by brd » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 8:08 PM UTC

abvdasker wrote: post #43

aaronetz wrote: post #24

Does anyone know some good alternatives to chess, as a game that mixes deep thought and aesthetic variety? I tried Go, but found it somewhat boring compared to chess, because of its uniformity (which, on the other hand, has the advantage of beautiful simplicity and symmetry.) On another note: it is unfortunate, in my opinion, that chess has a special standing among board games. I would love to see some more variety i…

David Foster Wallace wrote (I'm paraphrasing here) that "tennis is a combination of chess and boxing". Maybe try that.

If we're going to start suggesting physical activities I'd say Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and rock climbing are both very chess like in their emphasis on strategic placement/puzzle solving. Your limb placement, your endurance, the way you shift your weight, the current momentum, they're all your pieces and you have to play them appropriately.

I'm a huge fan of both activities because of the combination of mental and physical demands.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#174

Post by dfan » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 8:11 PM UTC

erikig wrote: post #21

kadabra9 wrote: post #10

Reading more about this match and Magnus in general, I learned of a measure termed "Nettlesomeness" which has been used to measure which players do the most to make their opponents to make mistakes. Magnus, with his highly creative style of play and unexpected moves, not surprisingly ranks the highest in this measure. He seems to have this remarkable gift of making moves which aren't just strong, they get inside his…

Thanks for the comment, the concept of nettlesomeness intrigues me. "...Carlsen is demonstrating one of his most feared qualities, namely his “nettlesomeness,” to use a term coined for this purpose by Ken Regan. Using computer analysis, you can measure which players do the most to cause their opponents to make mistakes." I was surprised to see that this isn't just some subjective measure but can me measured using com…

I believe Regan just measures how badly a given player's opponents tend to err (as determined by computer evaluation of moves). So it's just a post hoc statistical measure, not an actual evaluation of how tricky that player's moves are.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#175

Post by dccoolgai » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 8:15 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54

aaronetz wrote: post #24

Does anyone know some good alternatives to chess, as a game that mixes deep thought and aesthetic variety? I tried Go, but found it somewhat boring compared to chess, because of its uniformity (which, on the other hand, has the advantage of beautiful simplicity and symmetry.) On another note: it is unfortunate, in my opinion, that chess has a special standing among board games. I would love to see some more variety i…

Magic: the Gathering? It's a game of infinite possibilities and strategies and has a big meta game around it, too. Plus collectibles. Plus cool artwork. Plus good apps.

Used to love MTG. Now I play Dominion more - because "building the deck" (which was always the most fun part for me) is part of the game and it's decided more by skill than who can buy the better cards (i.e. at start of every game each player has a statistically equal opportunity to get each card.) It's huge in the "board game geek" scene, so apologies if you already know of it...but if you like MTG, I'd highly recommend it.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#176

Post by primitivesuave » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 8:19 PM UTC

GavinB wrote: post #69

biot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is actually based on subjective measures. An annotated game[0] will have ?!, ?, and ?? added by human commentators to indicate varying levels of mistakes. A computer analysis can make use of these subjective move evaluations within an annotated game to easily measure which players cause their opponents to make mistakes at a significantly greater frequency than their normal rate of mistakes. [0] http://en…

Since computers play chess (better than humans) by looking at moves and ranking them as advantageous or disadvantageous, I would think it would be relatively straightforward to use a computer to decide whether a move is a mistake or not.

You can't definitively say that a computer's move is best, the branching factor of chess means that searching the game tree until finding a checkmate is nearly impossible. It leads to the horizon effect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_effect

but recent advances in AI like in Deep Blue have introduced branch extension, where branches of the game tree with statistically similar rankings are searched further until one can be definitively regarded as the best one.

To summarize, chess engines can't give definitive answers on how good a move is because, like humans, they can't search the whole game tree.

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#177

Post by rmrfrmrf » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 8:20 PM UTC

biot wrote: post #34

erikig wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the comment, the concept of nettlesomeness intrigues me. "...Carlsen is demonstrating one of his most feared qualities, namely his “nettlesomeness,” to use a term coined for this purpose by Ken Regan. Using computer analysis, you can measure which players do the most to cause their opponents to make mistakes." I was surprised to see that this isn't just some subjective measure but can me measured using com…

I think this is actually based on subjective measures. An annotated game[0] will have ?!, ?, and ?? added by human commentators to indicate varying levels of mistakes. A computer analysis can make use of these subjective move evaluations within an annotated game to easily measure which players cause their opponents to make mistakes at a significantly greater frequency than their normal rate of mistakes. [0] http://en…

The computer program Fritz actually has algorithms to imitate a human's analysis. It's one of my favorite tools to improve my game, since it searches databases of master-level games to find games that progressed in the same way and also gives "human-like" annotations. Here's an example PGN[1] from one of my games (NAG[2] has been converted to Unicode for the sake of clarity)

    {C24: Bishop's Opening: 2...Nf6} 
    1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nf3 Bb4+ 5.Bd2 Bxd2+ 6. Qxd2 O-O 
    7. e5 {White threatens to win material: e5xf6} 
        (7. O-O Nxe4 8. Qxd4 Nd6 9. Bd5 c6 10. Bb3 Nf5 11. Qf4 d5 
        12. Nbd2 Qd6 13. Qxd6 Nxd6 14. c4 dxc4 15. Nxc4 Nxc4 16. Bxc4 Bf5 
        17. Rfe1 Nd7 18. Nd4 Bg6 19. Re7 Rad8 20. Rd1 Rfe8 21. Nxc6 bxc6 
        {Jensen,B (1817)-Gade,J (1535) Helsingor 2009 1-0 (58)}) 
    7... d5N  {Black threatens to win material: d5xc4}
        (7... Re8 8. O-O d5 9. exd6 Qxd6 10. Na3 c5 11. Nb5 Qb6 
        12. Qf4 Re7 13. Rae1 Be6 14. Bxe6 fxe6 15. Nd6 Qc7 16. Qg3 Nc6 
        17. Ng5 e5 18. Nf5 Ree8 19. Nf7 Qxf7 20. Nh6+ 
        {1-0 (20) Le Dref,M (1770)-Bremond,E (1600) Angers 2006}) 
    8. Qxd4? 
        (8. ⌓Bb3 {and White is still in the game} Ne4 9. Qxd4=) 
    8... Nc6∓ 9. Qd2 dxc4 
        (9... Bg4!? 10. Be2 Bxf3 11. Bxf3 Nxe5 −+) 
    10. Qxd8⩱ Rxd8 11. exf6 {White king safety dropped.} Re8+ 
    12. Kd1 
        (12. Kf1 gxf6 13. h4 Be6∓)
    12... Bg4 13. Nbd2 Rad8 {Black has a king attack}
        (13... Re6!?∓)
    14. Re1⩱ Ne5 15. c3?? 
        (15. ⌓Re3⩱ {was necessary})
    15... Bxf3+ −+ 16. gxf3 
        (16. Kc2 {doesn't do any good} Bg4 17. f3 Bf5+ 18. Ne4 Ng4 −+) 
    16... Rxd2+! {Deflection: e1} 17. Kxd2 
        (17. Kc1 Rxf2 18. Re4 Nd3+ 19. Kd1 Nxb2+ 20. Ke1 Nd3+ 21. Kd1 Rxe4 22.
        fxe4 Rf1+ 23. Kd2 Rxa1 24. a3 Rxa3 25. Ke3 gxf6 26. h4 Ne5 27. Kd2 Ra2+ 
        28. Ke1 b5 29. h5 b4 30. Kf1 b3 31. Ke1 b2 32. Kf2 b1=Q+ 33. Kg3 Qg1+ 
        34. Kh4 Qh2#)
    17... Nxf3+ 18. Kc2 Nxe1+ 19. Kd2 
        (19. Kd1 {the last chance for counterplay} Nf3 20. Rc1 Re1+ 21. Kc2 Re2+ 
        22. Kb1 Nd2+ 23. Ka1 Rxf2 24. Rd1 Rxh2 25. Rg1 −+) 
    19... Nf3+ 20. Kc2 Re2+ 
        (20... Re2+ 21. Kb1 Re1+ 22. Kc2 Rxa1 −+) 0-1

[1] Portable Game Notation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Game_Notation

[2] Numeric Annotation Glyphs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeric_Annotation_Glyphs

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#178

Post by primitivesuave » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 8:21 PM UTC

edias wrote: post #145

sethbannon wrote: post #2

I'm super excited to see the impact this will have on our noble game. I think it could see a real surge in popularity in the years ahead. And at the age of 22, Magnus is only just getting started.

It will be interesting to see if Chess, or other boardgames for the matter, will benefit from streaming services as much as video games have. I've seen the Chess-Network on twitch.tv break 1k viewers which is tiny compared to the 300k League of Lengends and Dota 2 tournaments but still a substantial amount regardless.

I get really annoyed with the commentators on Chess Network, they have a tendency to overanalyze and talk way too much. The best commentator I've found is an Australian named Mato: youtube.com/matojelic

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#179

Post by tokenizer » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 8:22 PM UTC

dfan wrote: post #174

erikig wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the comment, the concept of nettlesomeness intrigues me. "...Carlsen is demonstrating one of his most feared qualities, namely his “nettlesomeness,” to use a term coined for this purpose by Ken Regan. Using computer analysis, you can measure which players do the most to cause their opponents to make mistakes." I was surprised to see that this isn't just some subjective measure but can me measured using com…

I believe Regan just measures how badly a given player's opponents tend to err (as determined by computer evaluation of moves). So it's just a post hoc statistical measure, not an actual evaluation of how tricky that player's moves are.

But funnily enough, all you'd need for erikig's program.

A program runs through your git/svn and tracks the user, date, commit, and reversion.

While analysing reversions vs commits and all the in between, I am confident it would be somewhat easy to tweak the analysis to be accurate.

Each reversion you encounter, you check the five next and five previous commits. If any users stand out as being in the previous tree for additional/reversional...

Actually, it may be a little complicated...

Re: Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

#180

Post by lifeformed » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 8:23 PM UTC

beefman wrote: post #170

lifeformed wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, "unexpectedness" isn't just a failure to anticipate by weaker players. A non-optimal move could be intentionally made with the intention to be unexpected, in order to play mind games with the opponent. Unexpectedness could be a factor in what makes a move strong, not just an after-the-fact observation.

Chess is a game of perfect information. Chess players at this level do not intentionally play suboptimal moves hoping to trick their opponents. They try to find the best move given the position on the board. In some cases two moves may be roughly objectively equal, one leading to more complex positions than the other. In these cases players do sometimes choose according to the situation on the clock, their style, or…

True, I was thinking more of the latter example. Several equally-optimal options are at hand - most people would pick the one they are most familiar with. A more devious player might pick the option that the opponent has least likely considered, taking advantage of their unpreparedness.