Why there is no interest in Computer with odds Vs Humans match?

[Chessqueen]

There should be more computer with 2 pawns or Knight vs pawn odds that will bring back the challenge of Humans GMs vs top Engines.
I believe that top GMs like Nakamura or MVL can bring back the excitement of Computer Vs Humans.

[Dann Corbit]

Not for me, not even for go.
My interest in human/human chess has not waned at all.
Similarly for computer/computer.
John Henry, Tinsley, Kasparov (first time), sure. Man vs machine and fascinated.
Today, not so much.

[USGroup1]

I am much more interested in top GMs commentaries on top engine vs engine games, like imagine Naka live commentary on TCEC sufi.

[Ovyron]

Because it's not chess? It doesn't matter if one side could dance her Knight around to capture the pawns and go back to the opening position, why the other side would allow them to do that?

Humans play from the opening position exclusively.
Computers play from the opening position exclusively.

These odds are an artificial contruction and nobody should care about the outcome of such a thing, or how much material the cumputer needs to give away for an even game, just like nobody cares how many shots of vodka Mariya Muzychuk would need to drink to give me an even chess game.

[Nordlandia]

Because it's not chess? It doesn't matter if one side could dance her Knight around to capture the pawns and go back to the opening position, why the other side would allow them to do that?

Humans play from the opening position exclusively.
Computers play from the opening position exclusively.

These odds are an artificial contruction and nobody should care about the outcome of such a thing, or how much material the cumputer needs to give away for an even game, just like nobody cares how many shots of vodka Mariya Muzychuk would need to drink to give me an even chess game.

Ovyron: i do not fully agree with you on this one. As long the forces are approximaetly equal, which is believed to be 2-3 pawns or pawn for knight + move, it can be worth watching. Nakamura struggled against Komodo when exchange ahead, so maybe exchange + pawn (engine playing black) is worth a try.

[lkaufman]

There should be more computer with 2 pawns or Knight vs pawn odds that will bring back the challenge of Humans GMs vs top Engines.
I believe that top GMs like Nakamura or MVL can bring back the excitement of Computer Vs Humans.

The only problem is that those guys are a bit expensive. Whenever Komodo makes some breakthru that we feel is worth promoting we will try to arrange such matches. Another idea is that since chess960/fischerandom is about to make the big time with FIDE holding a real World Championship of it, a handicap frc match seems like a good idea. We only did one of those, knight odds vs. FM John Meyer, which Komodo won 4 to 0, but Meyer was in his 70s and probably at best 2100 FIDE strength, and had never played frc. With frc you won't get the objection that it is not the normal start position, it is just one of another 1920 positions added to the normal 960 (for N odds). One problem is that odds involving pawns aren't very suitable, since the value of a specific pawn is obviously very different from one of the 960 positions to another. No problem with knight odds, but it is probably too much to give to a top GM in a long rapid game, maybe ok for a fast rapid game. Rook for knight is fine for frc, but probably not enough even for Carlsen at standard chess tc.

[leavenfish]

Answer: Because it really is not interesting...

[Ovyron]

Ovyron: i do not fully agree with you on this one. As long the forces are approximaetly equal, which is believed to be 2-3 pawns or pawn for knight + move, it can be worth watching. Nakamura struggled against Komodo when exchange ahead, so maybe exchange + pawn (engine playing black) is worth a try.

Isn't this just a blind chicken running in circles? First we make the chess engine super strong, then we make it weaker again by removing material? What's the point of that? An even game? Why don't we just make the humans play some weak chess software from the opening position to get that? Why don't we see what is the weakest chess software that humans can still beat?

Because, at least, that's still chess, and not the material odds abomination that had to be created, and I hope dies out.

[Nordlandia]

Ovyron: i do not fully agree with you on this one. As long the forces are approximaetly equal, which is believed to be 2-3 pawns or pawn for knight + move, it can be worth watching. Nakamura struggled against Komodo when exchange ahead, so maybe exchange + pawn (engine playing black) is worth a try.

Isn't this just a blind chicken running in circles? First we make the chess engine super strong, then we make it weaker again by removing material? What's the point of that? An even game? Why don't we just make the humans play some weak chess software from the opening position to get that? Why don't we see what is the weakest chess software that humans can still beat?

Because, at least, that's still chess, and not the material odds abomination that had to be created, and I hope dies out.

Good point though. Another viable option is to use equilavent elo engine on generally obsolete hardware, in the 10-15 year range +/- CPU

[adams161]

Another problem with odds games is standard chess programs like Stockfish are not typically optimized to play them. The Alpha Beta search wants to find the best move and if that is trading queens it will do it in a heart beat. But the odds player usually uses some non best move intelligence like i need to get into certain positions, avoid to many trades etc which until you have chess programs programming for these types of games its a bit haphazard to say well give up a knights probably 2700. Would depend on how it wound up playing and what strategies that the human was using against it that without a heavy amount of code changes the engine would not defend against.