Vote for Fritz 17 Replacement

[Albert Silver]

For me, as long as a move will take you to the best result possible, assuming no mistakes, it qualifies as a 'best move'.

I used to think like you Albert, but that just led to drawing most of my correspondence chess opponents, because I played leading the game into positions that were easy to play for both sides, and thus didn't put their skills to the test. When I adopted a "the best move is the one that increases the chances of the opponent to blunder" paradigm, I started winning games against people I wasn't supposed to according to elo, and sometimes so easily that I didn't even know how I won those games, my opponents just blundered them (I guess the sad part of it is that it doesn't feel like I'm winning games, they're losing them.)

Suppose you have access to an oracle that tells you the 'best move' in any position according to your definition. Hurray, you can no longer lose any game! And if the opponent blunders it'll tell you what moves you can make to win! Doesn't that sound great?

However, suppose that you play the oracle's moves against, say, Stockfish at one minute per move, and the game ends in draw. You try another opening, and the game ends in draw. What is going on? If Stockfish at one minute per move is good enough to draw the oracle, what gives?

Now you try Stockfish with 10 minutes against Stockfish with 1 and it wins, it'd show that those moves were better than the oracle's. The only difference is that in 10 minutes Stockfish could play a game losing blunder and the oracle would not, but what's the use of an oracle anyway other than avoid losing?

You can't even use it to analyze your games, it'd just show you how every attempt you can make will fail because there's always some defense. All you can do with an oracle is checking what are the losing moves on a position to avoid them, but to find the real 'best move', the one that would beat your opponent, you need to know that your opponent is fallible, and it means there's some combination of moves you can play against them to make them blunder and win (if it wasn't then they'd be infallible) and try to find it.

Starting from the assumption that the opponent will not blunder will not work for you.

I think you misread what I wrote, as you ended up actually defending the position I stated I hold.

[Ovyron]

You said any move that doesn't lose is a 'best move', I say a 'best move' takes into account the chances that the opponent will blunder.

[Wilson]

Ginkgo
why let a buggy Fire nn play in TCEC if Fire was Fritz 17?

[Master Om]

You said any move that doesn't lose is a 'best move', I say a 'best move' takes into account the chances that the opponent will blunder.

Best is a relative word. technically Albert Silver is right. What u said cannot be said best. Rather a move which exploits opponents weakness. The blunder opponent does has nothing to do what u play. In chess it is said A move is bad when your opponent proves it to be. Hence all are good moves which does not lose. But what opponent plays and if loses is a bad move.

[MikeB]

Ginkgo
why let a buggy Fire nn play in TCEC if Fire was Fritz 17?

Ginkgo it is - good pick!

[carldaman]

Ginkgo
why let a buggy Fire nn play in TCEC if Fire was Fritz 17?

Ginkgo it is - good pick!

Hah! I knew it! Or rather, just an educated guess -- see the other Fritz 17 threads.
That's good news.