Tactics cannot be very important for chess

[Dann Corbit]

I did an experiment (perhaps flawed because I used this net:128x10-2019_1026_0142_45_230.pb) and LC0 is really terrible at tactics on a Nvidia TI-1080.
The engine crashed once when I was analyzing, so I restarted at the point where analysis left off, and it did not crash a second time.

I am re-running the test with a 256 net 256x20-2019_0726_0906_48_558.pb

Since LC0 performed so terribly (I gave 12 minutes per position on a test set meant to run for 15 seconds per position) and is beaten by all the strong tactical engines by a landslide, I can only conclude that tactics are not very important for the game of chess.

On the other hand, if they are important, and they can somehow be compiled into an LC0 net, perhaps LC0 would become utterly unbeatable

[Dann Corbit]

The data can be found here
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... pid=584098

[Guenther]

I did an experiment (perhaps flawed because I used this net:128x10-2019_1026_0142_45_230.pb) and LC0 is really terrible at tactics on a Nvidia TI-1080.
The engine crashed once when I was analyzing, so I restarted at the point where analysis left off, and it did not crash a second time.

I am re-running the test with a 256 net 256x20-2019_0726_0906_48_558.pb

Since LC0 performed so terribly (I gave 12 minutes per position on a test set meant to run for 15 seconds per position) and is beaten by all the strong tactical engines by a landslide, I can only conclude that tactics are not very important for the game of chess.

On the other hand, if they are important, and they can somehow be compiled into an LC0 net, perhaps LC0 would become utterly unbeatable

We could conclude that testsets are not very important for chess - seems to make more sense from what you have described.
(I have also doubts about the testset - LC0 would not care about winning fast/nice/beautiful/whatever, if ahead already.
For winning in chess it is completely irrelevant to always find the best move, if 2nd or 3rd best moves still save the win.)

I checked a few positions (better said: puzzles) and well, they simply will happen so rarely in real game play that they are irrelevant for any chess game strength measurement.

[jdart]

Many, many chess games are won with a gradually increasing eval for the winning side. So there really is no tactical moment where the game is won, there is just increasing pressure and eventually conversion into a mate. Carlsen is this type of player, generally: he is just really good at squeezing a small advantage into a win.

Once in while you do need tactical acuteness, because your opponent has a deep threat you must counter, or there's a winning shot that you really need to find. But you can go a lot of games without actually needing this.

[Spliffjiffer]

imo i must completely deny the assumption that chess is not tactical...all ive learned about win/loose in complicate/complex positions is that too often positions become critical where a single move dicides between good and bad...the tiny but illustrative divergence of the quality of moves is very often imense...when i go from back to forth (especially in endgames...and im wrong going back to say 10-men TB ?!) is see possibilities that are unimaginable for humans but the pure bruteforce abilities are frustrating single oriented...from my pov chess is pure mathematical where strategies only help to enclose the real amount of complexity but do not solve it at all...from my pov chess is a tree of nearly endless possibilities were only a few lead to where u wanna go and these ones have to be calculated and are not able to get when u rely on intuition as good as it will ever be !?

[Jouni]

These ACT suites specially ACT1-B are not tactics, but composed trick/mate positions! Of course NOTHING to do with engine strength. There are much better suites, which give some idea of engine strength - like Arasan! But I was curious how the solve masters do at 60 sec level. Results: Crystal 162 and HoudiniTac 159 from 183! No sense to test others .

[mclane]

When a condensed net on an old tablet doing 1-15 NPS beats a strong tactician chess computer (the king)
It shows IMO that you can play strategic chess without beeing god in tactics.

[Dann Corbit]

These ACT suites specially ACT1-B are not tactics, but composed trick/mate positions! Of course NOTHING to do with engine strength.

And yet the strong engines solve most of them very quickly:
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=33202
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=33055
for instance Stockfish solves more than 60% at 15 seconds per position whereas at 720 seconds per position, LC0 fails and misses in a shocking way.

There are much better suites, which give some idea of engine strength - like Arasan! But I was curious how the solve masters do at 60 sec level. Results: Crystal 162 and HoudiniTac 159 from 183! No sense to test others .

Well then how does LC0 do at the Arasan test suite?
I guess we will see a face plant there also

[Spliffjiffer]

id say that the best way to clear wether tacics make sense in perfect play or not is to get clearance about the way endgames are handled in a proper way they are solved by pure calculation...imo it makes no real sense to destinguish between 7-men and say 10-men or 32-men EGTB to get to the conclusions that all this handeling belongs to exact calculation of individual variants..we all know that these only-move exceptions are there and they are far beyond any human understanding, so what makes us think that would change in 32-TB "endings"...its pretty much foreseeable that there will change nothing drasticaly imo and that the truth about win/loose will depend on single lines that are eighter true or false in the end...its pretty much easy as that imo..in the end we will have a very concrete tactical line that leads to a win if the other side makes the decisive mistake !?...i see no relation to a strategy..why honestly there should be a strategy if we calculate well !?

[Father]

I did an experiment (perhaps flawed because I used this net:128x10-2019_1026_0142_45_230.pb) and LC0 is really terrible at tactics on a Nvidia TI-1080.
The engine crashed once when I was analyzing, so I restarted at the point where analysis left off, and it did not crash a second time.

I am re-running the test with a 256 net 256x20-2019_0726_0906_48_558.pb

Since LC0 performed so terribly (I gave 12 minutes per position on a test set meant to run for 15 seconds per position) and is beaten by all the strong tactical engines by a landslide, I can only conclude that tactics are not very important for the game of chess.

On the other hand, if they are important, and they can somehow be compiled into an LC0 net, perhaps LC0 would become utterly unbeatable


[/good afternoon, good morning and good night everyone; Let me differ from the sentence that "tactics are not important in chess"; In the year of 1977 I started to play chess in my 17 years as a self-taught; unfortunately I have never belonged to any chess school nor have I ever had a chess teacher to teach; My first bibliographical teachings were the book of the commented games of Fischer. At that time the teaching came directly from the paper works, nothing electronic. I always dreamed and wanted to train chess with a teacher and be able to play with this or this chess personally on a wooden chess table and board. But I could never do it; It's quite sad but not it. Such an orphan led me to take refuge and face the chess machines alone since 1980. I never received advice on how and how to train to be strong in chess. so many years passed without training methodology. The positive part of all this is to have allowed to develop the own criteria about the game of chess. Only after thousands of hours of practice and experience, draw and conclude that the most important thing in the chess player is the tactic. It is precisely the point that makes it more or less bright. So if someone asks me what advice to receive in chess training is: “Practice chess problems daily; and if you want to be a strong person, dedicate time to sport, chess and prayer, so will your soul, your body and your mind, be strong, through integral gymnastics. ”

Sincerely,

Pablo