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Human Chess is a chess variant where playing the top engine move is forbidden

humanchess.abcd.party

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Re: Human Chess is a chess variant where playing the top engine move is forbidden

#121

Post by LeifCarrotson »

remus wrote: post #101
sebstefan wrote: post #49

It's a cool concept but the first naive thought that comes to mind for me is that white could just easily dominate by taking advantage of the fact that taking a queen is almost always the top engine move. So just by maintaining relative king safety on white's side, you just open your queen early and make sure that every move there onwards hangs your queen in some fashion. It's very easy to hang a queen. You just have…

Could get very meta if you had a chess engine that knows how to play human chess!

That was my thought too. Does the engine know that the other player is forbidden to play the top engine move on the next turn? Then you can't just do something like c3 Nf6 Qa4 e5 Qe4!? to hang the queen in the center, knowing that Nxe4 is prohibited, because the strongest move for white if Nxe4 is prohibited would have been Qe4!

Re: Human Chess is a chess variant where playing the top engine move is forbidden

#122

Post by sovnade »

jerf wrote: post #102
tomesco wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be a threshold above which making an engine move is allowed. Because if there's a checkmate move, it will be the best engine move and needs to be allowed.

As others have mentioned, that is accounted for in the rules. My immediate first reaction was also that it would be interesting to have a variant that is the same except you are allowed to checkmate, except then I realized the recursive nature of how board positions are evaluated makes that problematic. For instance, if there's a mate in 2, the first move of the mate in two is now certainly the "best move". Creeping…

It just doesn't make sense though for that reason. You can't sneak up on an engine. There's not a single engine out there that wouldn't recognize a mate in 2 moves. Unless the opponent blunders (which actually might be forced if the best defensive move is blocked).

It just seems like you're changing the objective of the game entirely to the point where it's only slightly related to chess.

Re: Human Chess is a chess variant where playing the top engine move is forbidden

#123

Post by Waterluvian »

Okay I love where this goes if explored a bit. Imagine "Shitty Chess" where you can't play the top 10 moves (or if fewer are available, you must pick the worst option).

I feel like this would be a funny novelty for a YouTube video. Maybe we can get some YouTube grand-masters like Nakamura to tolerate a few games for the schadenfreude.

Re: Human Chess is a chess variant where playing the top engine move is forbidden

#126

Post by tantalor »

Next up: Basilisk Chess

Two players compete to win a chess game, where you only win if you work tirelessly to play perfect chess moves on every turn (as determined by benevolent artificial superintelligence). The loser is tortured in a virtual reality simulation.

Re: Human Chess is a chess variant where playing the top engine move is forbidden

#127

Post by throwawaymaths »

Khoth wrote: post #92
tomesco wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be a threshold above which making an engine move is allowed. Because if there's a checkmate move, it will be the best engine move and needs to be allowed.

If you deliver checkmate, you lose. You have to instead force your opponent into a situation where they only have one legal move (which is trivially the best engine move).

Not necessarily. There could be two ways to checkmate and you picked the one that was t the top move

Re: Human Chess is a chess variant where playing the top engine move is forbidden

#128

Post by robervin »

tantalor wrote: post #126

Next up: Basilisk Chess Two players compete to win a chess game, where you only win if you work tirelessly to play perfect chess moves on every turn (as determined by benevolent artificial superintelligence). The loser is tortured in a virtual reality simulation.

If I refuse to play am I also tortured

Re: Human Chess is a chess variant where playing the top engine move is forbidden

#130

Post by Retric »

majikandy wrote: post #87
MereInterest wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also be interested in a variant where the engine-recommended move is displayed to the players. It would take out the uncertainty of whether a move is illegal, but would allow for different win conditions (e.g. approach checkmate without ever using an optimal move).

This is what I thought it would be from the title. Top players say that they don’t necessarily see a top engine move but can immediately identify one when it is played on them.

It’s an exaggeration but with some truth to it. Outside of openings and end games the top move for a chess engine is often different from the top move for a player. That said, grandmasters do of course often play the top engine move.

Human players are dealing with both human limitations and human limitations which really changes the game. So a grandmaster can for example benefit from playing a slightly weaker but less well known opening that they have recently studied in depth with the assumption that their opponent hasn’t done the same.

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