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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

#51

Post by kstenerud »

vanderZwan wrote: post #48
kstenerud wrote: post #46

So basically chess with landmines. Every move will be contested (because why wouldn't you? there are no downsides and only upsides) So every move you make (I'll be watching you) could end up being the top move. Even if you run the chess engine yourself to decide what not to play, you're still at risk of bad luck because you happen to run the chess engine on a faster or slower machine than the person checking for the…

If you contest a move and you're wrong you lose the game.

Ah I misread that part.

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

#52

Post by vanderZwan »

shkkmo wrote: post #45

This seems like a misnomer of a name. "Human Chess", a variant of chess that can only be played if you have a computer...

I think it is a joke on the accusations among professional chess players that some players cheat by using a chess engine to determine their next move. In other words: claiming the move of your opponent is the top engine move is equivalent to accusing them of "cheating".

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

#53

Post by jl6 »

mattmaroon wrote: post #32
jl6 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect that if I were offered a veto against a stronger player, I would not be skilled enough to spot which move to veto, and would probably end up hoarding my veto, like in video games where you have a great-but-rare ability that you keep perpetually in reserve. (“Too Awesome to Use” on TV Tropes. Link omitted - you’re welcome). But then, I’m a terrible chess player.

Nah, you’d spot one pretty fast when you blundered and they went to take advantage of it. Instead you’d more likely have the opposite problem where you’d veto after a blunder but still be at such a huge disadvantage that it wouldn’t matter much. It would be pretty neat between players of similar skill level though, then I could see the hoarding taking place.

True, and I can see some fun mind-games where a player might try baiting an opponent into wasting their veto on an apparently-strong move, or by intentionally playing a weaker move that still somehow looks strong but actually masks a now-unvetoable killer move…

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

#54

Post by rocqua »

ht85 wrote: post #31
robertlagrant wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a move that checkmates is scored lower than a move that checkmates and captures.

Forced mates are generally scored with the number of moves to mate, e.g. "M2"

So you can start down a sequence that gives check-mate, but once it is the shortest sequence to check-mate, you have to abandon the check-mate.

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

#55

Post by hcrisp »

tda wrote: post #35
lesiki wrote: post #15

Now: Human Chess: a variant where you can't play what AI would play. Next: AI that can play Human Chess. After: Human^2 Chess: you can't play what the AI above would play. etc I wonder if this creates distinctly new games at each level, or if it's just nonsense one level down.

rinse and repeat that a few times, and the only remaining winning move will be not to play

Let's call it Human Tic Tac Toe

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

#56

Post by aqme28 »

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…

As long as you only leave them with one way to take the queen.

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

#57

Post by mrslave »

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…

Maybe it could allow for blunders?

While I enjoy the conversation ideas like these create, I'm often left wondering why Fischer random isn't more popular.

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

#58

Post by rocqua »

kadoban wrote: post #38
irishsultan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not quite deterministic when you consider multithreading and monte carlo search.

Yeah, deterministic is not actually the concept I want here I think. It's fine if it's random, it just needs to be unambiguous. So you just choose in advance what settings to run with and the stopping condition. And then it doesn't matter that if you had run it with different settings, you may have gotten a different answer.

It is less fun if the outcome is non-deterministic. It means that occasionally the win is determined randomly. That takes away a certain element of skill.

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

#59

Post by bad_alloc »

lesiki wrote: post #15

Now: Human Chess: a variant where you can't play what AI would play. Next: AI that can play Human Chess. After: Human^2 Chess: you can't play what the AI above would play. etc I wonder if this creates distinctly new games at each level, or if it's just nonsense one level down.

The lowest level might finally make the Bongcloud opening viable:

https://www.chess.com/blog/AcceleratedPog/bongcloud-opening-...

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

#60

Post by xg15 »

> If a player only has one move available, that move will always be the top engine move, which loses the game.

It's interesting that this brings another degree of indirection to victory conditions.

If you never played chess before, you'd assume the goal is to take the opponent's king. But as we know, making a move that would allow your opponent to take the king is forbidden, so the goal of normal chess is force your opponent into a position where you could take the king next turn (checkmate).

This variant takes this another step further: Now any move which could result in checkmate (or check with only one exit) is forbidden, and the goal is to force the opponent in a position where any next move would result in checkmate or check.

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