Any live event needs to have an entertainment appeal or it is doomed. If you want to see boring draws, you can pick up a database from CCRL, extract all draws and watch them at your leisure. TCEC has an entertainment element whether you like it or not. Again, as I explained, this does not degrade the quality in anyway. These are orthogonal terms.Lyudmil Tsvetkov wrote:Oh, there were many memorable human draws that were discussed and overdiscussed for long periods of time, just do not want to post now any links. Draw does not mean boring or lacking in importance.arjuntemurnikar wrote:I think the points that you keep missing are:Lyudmil Tsvetkov wrote:Does that mean that previous editions of TCEC, where the book was of an acknowledged worse quality, were more event-oriented, and achieved bigger success?arjuntemurnikar wrote:Although this may be the fairest option, it doesn't bode well for a tournament that is being watched by spectators. There will be duplicate openings at least up till 6-10 ply... I have tried this before. Many engines have preferences in openings. For example SF will keep playing the Ruy Lopez and Komodo always starts with 1. d4. This will lead to lesser variety (though no duplicate full games because chess is just so vast).CRoberson wrote:That has chances. It would be a game changer for some. Some programs have little opening knowledge and more midgame and endgame knowledge. They don't encode the opening knowledge, because they can use a book and it speeds up the program. However, some of us have opening knowledge in the engines. We would gain some (at least temporary) advantage.kranium wrote:Avoid all this mess...
let the engines play the openings!
We take away the endings via TBs...
We take away the openings..
Why?
These powerful engines are capable of playing the whole game and beating any human, no matter what opening
It's pretentious IMO that humans claim to know better than 3200 ELO engines
Some may say it will be boring...no way!
I think it would fascinating to see what openings lines they chose...
from my experience we'd see a good variety, Ruy Lopez, Queens Gambit, Sicilian, etc.
Some may say 'too many duplicate games',
but several LTC matches have been run with 100s of games and 0 duplicates
I say let the engines play!
You know, the more I think about it, the more I like it. A no book tournament. Norman, I think this might be the best idea you have ever had.
A spectator driven tournament has slightly different objectives than say a private tournament. A spectator-driven tournament needs some sort of attractive quality to keep people hooked. If games are 90% boring draws or 90% d4 openings, people will get bored and stop watching. A private tournament that is not watched live can afford more boring draws in search of more fairness and more objective result.
A spectator driven tournament is event-oriented. A non-spectator-driven tournament is result-oriented. Once you understand this critical difference, you will realize that Nelson and co. did the best possible job with the openings (given limited resources).
The most important thing in top-level games is to ensure fair playing conditions, as fair as possible. And a bigger score right after book hands an indubitable competitive advantage to the weaker engine.
Chess is not like any other sport. People watching chess are highbrows, I do not know if white collars. In order to enjoy something, you have to understand it. Football fens understand the primitive joy of circenses, but even there a necessary prerequisite is absolutely fair conditions, both teams start with 11 men. If one wins or there are too many draws, is a matter of the strength of the competitors. And, I have to say this, entertainments does not depend in the least upon the final result, but mainly upon the quality of games. When you are lucky, you will also have a win.
Chess fens, on the other hand, must also understand what is going on in order to be happy. And when you understand what is going on, the first thing would be fair playing conditions. I am certain you would not like SF to be unjustly penalised in this final, but this is exactly what happens. If all openings were fully even, Komodo still would not have gotten a win. How has that changed the attraction of the event? In no way at all. Fischer 1972 was much more impressive and entertaining than many outwardly more competitive events. And also the repeated encounters of Karpov and Kasparov that witnessed so many draws.
Was the 6-0 whitewash of Fischer over Taimanov and Larsen dull to watch? Or the +5 -3 =48 score of the 1984 Karpov-Kasparov match? No tension there, no enetertainment? It is exactly the opposite. So that entertainment does not depend at all on the draw ratio, but rather on the quality of the games themselves. Fair conditions, on the other hand, are an absolute must, and you should ensure them, as long as you are able to do so.
Now, I know many still think 60cps advantage is not enough to win...
1. Nelson has explained very lucidly that he did not arbitarily choose bad openings. There was lots of testing done. And even if SF shows +0.60, it does not mean all other engines show the same. Komodo may show +0.30, Houdini +0.35 so this is by no means a bad opening. Both engines have a lot to prove here, which in turn makes the game interesting.
2. Even if the openings were bad, it does not make the quality of games any less. If you define the "quality" of games as number of mistakes made during the game, then by no means are any of the TCEC games from stage 4 onwards of any less quality than the best human games ever played. Perhaps they are of low quality for you Lyudmil, because you seem to be better than all of them.
3. Yes, draws are indeed boring. They are by no means less educational. You can learn a lot from draws, but most draws are boring in terms of entertainment value. (There are of course those draws that have lot of struggle and imbalance and they are not boring... but most draws are.) How many Kasparov-Karpov draws do you hear often getting talked about? How many draws in chess are actually annotated in books or media? Very few. Remember the last Anand-Carlsen WC? People started getting frantic when the tournament started with some really stale draws. When people go to watch any sport (chess is no exception), it is natural that they want to see a result. If you go to a ManUtd-ManCity match, spend all that money and free weekend time, and you see no goals scored and a 0-0 draw, aren't you going to be disappointed? I bet you are! Those that went to see the WC live were obviously disappointed when games ended too quickly in draws. I myself stayed awake all night (2am in my timezone) to watch the first game, and I was very pissed when it ended in a draw. I think you probably don't watch TCEC live and that is why you feel this way because if you did watch live, you wouldn't be complaining.
The TCEC openings strive to bring the best entertainment value, without compromising on fairness as much as possible. This is exactly in line with what TCEC is all about -- 24/7 live high quality games between the best chess engines on very strong hardware and long time controls.
If you want to see draw chess, you should go elsewhere.
You mention entertainment all the time: it is not all about entertainment. Actually, chess is not an entertainment game at all. Wikipedia and others say it is an intellectual game and, as far as I know, entertainment and intellectual quality are not synonymous. Sports, football, baseball, etc. might be synonymous to entertainment. When you have to understand a lot, you can not possibly entertain yourself, you can enjoy it, but not entertain yourself. You can entertain yourself when you do not need to understand a lot, like watching football games.
Who said that TCEC is about entertainment? I thought its main goal was to pick up the best chess playing software, provided that hardware conditions are equal. Maybe Martin can say if it is more about entertainment or about quality chess. In any case, when you have to choose the best, one prerequisite is to have fair conditions. And as big opening advantage, even with reversed colours, already favours by some margin the weaker engine, one can not say the conditions are fair.
Man united and Man city also start with 11 men each side. I guess if you leave the weaker side with 11 men and the stronger with 10, and then do the opposite, the stronger side getting 11 and the weaker 10, quite likely both sides could win their games with 11 if the difference in strength is not too big. When it is 11-11 in both games, chances are the stronger side will achieve a better result, as it is not supposed to lose a game almost by default. So that fair conditions are a sine qua non. (do I look like a wise person now)
If both sides play the same opening, this is 100% fair. It does not favor the weak side or anything like that. That part of your logic is flawed. We have seen countless games where one side wins the slightly favorable opening with one color and draws the reverse. None of the openings are predecided in anyway. There is always uncertainty. Anything can happen.