Ways to avoid "Draw Death" in Computer Chess

[Guenther]

Here is one of Brutus RND's draws:

Code: Select all

[Event "CCRL 40/4"]
[Site "CCRL"]
[Date "2012.07.08"]
[Round "173.6.487"]
[White "Brutus RND"]
[Black "Iota 1.0 32-bit"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "A09"]
[Opening "Reti accepted"]
[PlyCount "102"]
[WhiteElo "208"]
[BlackElo "964"]

1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. g3 e6 4. Nc3 Bd7 5. Nb1 Bc6 6. Bg2 b5 7. Rf1 Bc5 8. d4
cxd3 9. Qd2 dxe2 10. Qd6 exf1=Q+ 11. Bxf1 Bxd6 12. Nfd2 f5 13. Bh3 Qg5 14. g4
fxg4 15. Kd1 gxh3 16. f4 Bxf4 17. b3 Qe5 18. Ba3 Qxa1 19. b4 Bxh2 20. Ke1 Bg3+
21. Kd1 h2 22. Bc1 h1=Q+ 23. Nf1 Qxf1+ 24. Kd2 Qxb1 25. Kc3 Be5+ 26. Kd2 Qxa2+
27. Bb2 Qh3 28. Ke2 Qxb2+ 29. Ke1 Nd7 30. Kd1 Bd5 31. Ke1 g5 32. Kd1 h5 33. Ke1
Ngf6 34. Kd1 Qxb4 35. Ke2 Ne4 36. Kd1 a5 37. Kc2 Qf3 38. Kc1 Qc4+ 39. Kb1 Qa4
40. Kc1 c5 41. Kb1 g4 42. Kc1 g3 43. Kb1 g2 44. Kc1 Bd4 45. Kb1 Ne5 46. Kc1 Ke7
47. Kb1 Qg3 48. Kc1 Qh3 49. Kb1 Qg3 50. Kc1 Qh3 51. Kb1 Qg3 1/2-1/2

IIRC, the rest are similar. The other engines have material superiority but are unable to mate Brutus RND.

they are making too many good moves for random-movers.

I especially like 5.Nb1

Why they? Of course only W was a RM, Black is just weak and has a a rep bug. (and the first 3 or 4 moves were probably book moves)

[Ozymandias]

What's to avoid? It's pretty clear that chess (FIDE rules) is a draw from the initial position with optimal play from both sides.
Unless you rig the opening by having one side play vastly suboptimal, a draw is the expected outcome. If you do unbalance the opening like that, you're not measuring a result, just confirming your input.

Or am I missing something?

1.c4 wins.

You missed the continuation, 1.c4 f6 wins for sure.

[hgm]

- the real deal will be a worst-mover, that would pick only the very worst moves

how stronger would be a random-mover next to the worst-mover?

'Worst move' is an ill-defined concept. It depends on your opponent. Normally putting a Queen on a square attacked by a Pawn would be one of the worst things you can do. Against an opponent that knows Queens are valuable, and that capturing valuable pieces is good. But it will not force him to capture the Queen, and the chances a random mover would do it are only slim. Forcing him to capture your Queen through checks would be a much more certain way to get rid of it. But against a knowledgeable opponent it would just waste time.

What would probably help against a wide range of opponents would be to never capture anything, unless you have to.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

- the real deal will be a worst-mover, that would pick only the very worst moves

how stronger would be a random-mover next to the worst-mover?

'Worst move' is an ill-defined concept. It depends on your opponent. Normally putting a Queen on a square attacked by a Pawn would be one of the worst things you can do. Against an opponent that knows Queens are valuable, and that capturing valuable pieces is good. But it will not force him to capture the Queen, and the chances a random mover would do it are only slim. Forcing him to capture your Queen through checks would be a much more certain way to get rid of it. But against a knowledgeable opponent it would just waste time.

What would probably help against a wide range of opponents would be to never capture anything, unless you have to.

I understand the worst-mover is the engine that always picks the move with worst eval(-1200cps or so).

of course, it will be easily beaten by the random-mover.

so, I guess the random-mover is at least 1000 elo stronger than the worst-mover.

PS. gosh, who started that thread, or who perverted it, never read such meaningless stuff...

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

What's to avoid? It's pretty clear that chess (FIDE rules) is a draw from the initial position with optimal play from both sides.
Unless you rig the opening by having one side play vastly suboptimal, a draw is the expected outcome. If you do unbalance the opening like that, you're not measuring a result, just confirming your input.

Or am I missing something?

1.c4 wins.

You missed the continuation, 1.c4 f6 wins for sure.

nope, I definitely mean in all lines.

[Uri Blass]

- the real deal will be a worst-mover, that would pick only the very worst moves

how stronger would be a random-mover next to the worst-mover?

'Worst move' is an ill-defined concept. It depends on your opponent. Normally putting a Queen on a square attacked by a Pawn would be one of the worst things you can do. Against an opponent that knows Queens are valuable, and that capturing valuable pieces is good. But it will not force him to capture the Queen, and the chances a random mover would do it are only slim. Forcing him to capture your Queen through checks would be a much more certain way to get rid of it. But against a knowledgeable opponent it would just waste time.

What would probably help against a wide range of opponents would be to never capture anything, unless you have to.

I understand the worst-mover is the engine that always picks the move with worst eval(-1200cps or so).

of course, it will be easily beaten by the random-mover.

so, I guess the random-mover is at least 1000 elo stronger than the worst-mover.

PS. gosh, who started that thread, or who perverted it, never read such meaningless stuff...

I do not think that it always is going to lose against the random mover if this is the definition and the random mover may draw by stalemate or by the 50 move rule or by repetition.

If you want to lose against the random mover the best strategy is to force the random mover to mate you and it is better to have material advantage so you can force the opponent to win against you.

In other words use normal evaluation except evaluating positions when the opponent has only king as a draw and checkmate as a loss instead of a win.

[Guenther]

- the real deal will be a worst-mover, that would pick only the very worst moves

how stronger would be a random-mover next to the worst-mover?

'Worst move' is an ill-defined concept. It depends on your opponent. Normally putting a Queen on a square attacked by a Pawn would be one of the worst things you can do. Against an opponent that knows Queens are valuable, and that capturing valuable pieces is good. But it will not force him to capture the Queen, and the chances a random mover would do it are only slim. Forcing him to capture your Queen through checks would be a much more certain way to get rid of it. But against a knowledgeable opponent it would just waste time.

What would probably help against a wide range of opponents would be to never capture anything, unless you have to.

I understand the worst-mover is the engine that always picks the move with worst eval(-1200cps or so).

of course, it will be easily beaten by the random-mover.

so, I guess the random-mover is at least 1000 elo stronger than the worst-mover.

PS. gosh, who started that thread, or who perverted it, never read such meaningless stuff...

I do not think that it always is going to lose against the random mover if this is the definition and the random mover may draw by stalemate or by the 50 move rule or by repetition.

If you want to lose against the random mover the best strategy is to force the random mover to mate you and it is better to have material advantage so you can force the opponent to win against you.

In other words use normal evaluation except evaluating positions when the opponent has only king as a draw and checkmate as a loss instead of a win.

He simply cannot read nor grasp what we talk about here.
I posted already twice that the worst mover had a score between
11-13% against random movers in my test in 200 games.

[Uri Blass]

What's to avoid? It's pretty clear that chess (FIDE rules) is a draw from the initial position with optimal play from both sides.
Unless you rig the opening by having one side play vastly suboptimal, a draw is the expected outcome. If you do unbalance the opening like that, you're not measuring a result, just confirming your input.

Or am I missing something?

1.c4 wins.

You missed the continuation, 1.c4 f6 wins for sure.

I am not sure 1.c4 f6 is going to win for white.
I guess it is going to be a draw but of course I am not sure and I do not think 1...f6 is the best choice for black.

[hgm]

I understand the worst-mover is the engine that always picks the move with worst eval(-1200cps or so).

This will not work very well. Scores are bad when the opponent has a single line of play that makes them bad. But against an opponent that cannot recognize this line, the chances that they will end up as bad as you thought they were are very slim.

To quickly beat a random mover you should not minimize the score of his best move, but the average score of all his moves. Minimax would be no good.

And when the opponent is not a random mover, but actively tries to lose as well, playing the move that would give you the lowest score against an opponent that is trying to win would probably be fatal. That opponent will never do the moves you counted on when obtaining the score on the basis of which you selected your move. The worst-mover would only worry about the opponent's best moves. Which will be avoided like the plague. So that basically the worst-mover is totally blind for everything that can happen.

I probably would not have a problem at all to make a worst-mover score 100% against me. Uri already pointed out the strategy.

[jwes]

- the real deal will be a worst-mover, that would pick only the very worst moves

how stronger would be a random-mover next to the worst-mover?

'Worst move' is an ill-defined concept. It depends on your opponent. Normally putting a Queen on a square attacked by a Pawn would be one of the worst things you can do. Against an opponent that knows Queens are valuable, and that capturing valuable pieces is good. But it will not force him to capture the Queen, and the chances a random mover would do it are only slim. Forcing him to capture your Queen through checks would be a much more certain way to get rid of it. But against a knowledgeable opponent it would just waste time.

What would probably help against a wide range of opponents would be to never capture anything, unless you have to.

I understand the worst-mover is the engine that always picks the move with worst eval(-1200cps or so).

of course, it will be easily beaten by the random-mover.

The random mover cannot easily beat anything. I can only suggest you download a random mover and try to lose to it.

so, I guess the random-mover is at least 1000 elo stronger than the worst-mover.

PS. gosh, who started that thread, or who perverted it, never read such meaningless stuff...

I do not think that it always is going to lose against the random mover if this is the definition and the random mover may draw by stalemate or by the 50 move rule or by repetition.

If you want to lose against the random mover the best strategy is to force the random mover to mate you and it is better to have material advantage so you can force the opponent to win against you.

In other words use normal evaluation except evaluating positions when the opponent has only king as a draw and checkmate as a loss instead of a win.

Forcing an opponent to mate you is not easy. Perhaps someone cleverer than I am can suggest some plausible scenarios. The best I can come up with which I think are likely but not guaranteed to lose are:
1. Put as many pawns as possible en prise, with the aim of allowing the random mover to promote all its pawns. Save a few pieces, preferably knights to avoid stalemate and sacrifice the rest. Then wait patiently and hope it stumbles into mate.
2. Capture all the random mover's pieces and the f,g,and h pawns. Put your king at h1 with pawns at h2 and g2. Force the king to capture all the other pawns. Stalemate the king and wait for the pawns to be promoted. If it promotes to B or N, try to capture the piece without interfering with the back row mate.