Could Stockfish win at knight handicap against a GM ?

[JJJ]

Now Stockfish has contempt he no longer draw too many game against weaker opponent like he did.

He also won a lot of elo with his contempt, so perhaps can he win against a GM at knight handicap ? What do you think ?

[Ovyron]

Against a GM? Sure (provided it uses some smart contempt implementation - we don't want it to play for a draw because it thinks it's losing).

But it depends on the GM, and I think they'd be lots of GMs that can still beat Stockfish with knight odds, so perhaps you'd want to ask what is the strongest human's elo that Stockfish can beat while down a knight.

[Nordlandia]

Perhaps try 3 pawns instead of 2. An upgrade from 2001 odds match between Terence P D Chapman vs Garry Kasparov.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1238128

Something like this ->

[d]rnbqkbnr/3ppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1

[Uri Blass]

Now Stockfish has contempt he no longer draw too many game against weaker opponent like he did.

He also won a lot of elo with his contempt, so perhaps can he win against a GM at knight handicap ? What do you think ?

Maybe against the following GM's but I am not sure even about that.

Knight is a lot in chess and I believe that even rating 2000 can be enough to win or at least to get a draw espacially against a program with free source that you can train at home against it.

https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=2900238

https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=4140249

[JJJ]

Now Stockfish has contempt he no longer draw too many game against weaker opponent like he did.

He also won a lot of elo with his contempt, so perhaps can he win against a GM at knight handicap ? What do you think ?

Maybe against the following GM's but I am not sure even about that.

Knight is a lot in chess and I believe that even rating 2000 can be enough to win or at least to get a draw espacially against a program with free source that you can train at home against it.

https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=2900238

https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=4140249

But Stockfish has made a lot of progress lately. It is perhaps 150 elo stronger than the komodo who played the first knight odds ! And probably more progress with contempt are coming.

So at some point it would be possible to win some games at least, even 15%.

[Uri Blass]

Now Stockfish has contempt he no longer draw too many game against weaker opponent like he did.

He also won a lot of elo with his contempt, so perhaps can he win against a GM at knight handicap ? What do you think ?

Maybe against the following GM's but I am not sure even about that.

Knight is a lot in chess and I believe that even rating 2000 can be enough to win or at least to get a draw espacially against a program with free source that you can train at home against it.

https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=2900238

https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=4140249

But Stockfish has made a lot of progress lately. It is perhaps 150 elo stronger than the komodo who played the first knight odds ! And probably more progress with contempt are coming.

So at some point it would be possible to win some games at least, even 15%.

No progress will enable stockfish to do the impossible and I doubt if the perfect player without a knight can even draw against players at GM strength.

[JJJ]

Well, maybe it is not so impossible
Maybe Larry has try this little challenge since he does that often against Komodo.

[lkaufman]

Now Stockfish has contempt he no longer draw too many game against weaker opponent like he did.

He also won a lot of elo with his contempt, so perhaps can he win against a GM at knight handicap ? What do you think ?

Maybe against the following GM's but I am not sure even about that.

Knight is a lot in chess and I believe that even rating 2000 can be enough to win or at least to get a draw espacially against a program with free source that you can train at home against it.

https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=2900238

https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=4140249

But Stockfish has made a lot of progress lately. It is perhaps 150 elo stronger than the komodo who played the first knight odds ! And probably more progress with contempt are coming.

So at some point it would be possible to win some games at least, even 15%.

No progress will enable stockfish to do the impossible and I doubt if the perfect player without a knight can even draw against players at GM strength.

First, nice to know I'm not the world's weakest active GM!
Second, it should be noted that it was a fairly recent version of Komodo which lost 3 to 0 to FM Larry Gilden, age 75 and around FIDE 2100, at 45' + 15". I assume that the question posed refers to "standard" (meaning base ' + inc " not less than 60) chess. The faster the time limit, the harder it is for the human. Despite that, I am fairly competitive with both Komodo and Stockfish 9 at knight odds in slow blitz (like 5' + 5") and at age 70 I'm no blitz whiz. Actually I score better against Stockfish due to some special code in Komodo that helps in these handicap games. I've also had Komodo (on my best machine) play knight odds online with my son Raymond, who is an IM rated a bit below me in standard chess but clearly stronger than I am in blitz (2250 on chess.com blitz). He comes out behind at 3' + 2" but ahead at 5' + 5". Probably a typical GM would be a fair match at 3' + 2" for Komodo at knight dds now. In the past GMs Lenderman and Mikhalevski were about even under similar conditions.
So considering all of the above, I think the answer to your question is clear. However I'll add two points:1
1. I don't rule out that a future engine might be able to give knight odds to GMs in "standard" chess successfully, but it won't happen by just incremental improvements to Stockfish or Komodo. Something like an Alpha-zero type engine might do it.
2. I think it's quite likely that Komodo or Stockfish (more likely Komodo) can give ordinary GMs knight for pawn handicap in standard chess now and at least draw half the games. I'll specify g1 knight for c7,d7,e7, and f7 pawn in four games. Komodo already beat Hikaru once that way (well, b1 for c7) already.

We may get some answers to questions like this before too long on chess.com.

[JJJ]

So why not challenge a strong GM at pieces handicap in blitz ? It would be more game and very entertaining to watch to me , maybe to others people as well.

I also notice Komodo on chess.com has now an account. Are we gonna see it playing anyone who wants at some handicaps and see which rating he gets ?

I d like to know his rating at queen, rook, knight handicap and so on if chess.com is willing to accept this.

[lkaufman]

So why not challenge a strong GM at pieces handicap in blitz ? It would be more game and very entertaining to watch to me , maybe to others people as well.

I also notice Komodo on chess.com has now an account. Are we gonna see it playing anyone who wants at some handicaps and see which rating he gets ?

I d like to know his rating at queen, rook, knight handicap and so on if chess.com is willing to accept this.

I think it is likely that you will see matches on chess.com in the near future between Komodo and GMs (and/or IMs) in blitz and/or rapid at knight and other handicaps. We have also discussed the idea you mention to make Komodo available to challenges at various handicaps to determine the rating. Nothing is definite yet but I expect we'll have something to say soon after release of K11.3 (soon I hope). As it is now I can already arrange for a chess.com handicap match between my Komodo on my best computer and any chess.com member, it just won't be covered or sponsored. I'm too busy to do this with random people, but if someone with a high chess.com blitz rating and a good reputation offers to play some 3' + 2" games with Komodo at knight odds at a specific date and time, I'll consider it. Or perhaps rook odds for someone with a chess.com blitz rating in the 2000 to 2150 range.