correspondence chess in the age of NNUE

[Cornfed]

So the question now becomes whether top correspondence players will just give up, or whether they will favor some change or reform to address the problem.

Many already gave up. By 2017, more than 10,000 players were still active in my DB. In the last three years, less than 6,000 remain.

Same here - gave up on "Correspondence Chess" roughly 20 yrs ago - 2399 ICCF. Engines/Hardware of that time were NOTHING like they are today, but it was obvious people were using them.

I can't even stand the thought of playing ICCF, etc today - it's like strapping yourself to jet engines in the water and 'racing' someone and saying you are 'out swimming' someone....and even with those jets, it can ironically take months to finish the race! Yes, some players are still legitimately good players, but the proportion seems to keep dropping and when an 1800 USCF player can play like a Super GM...you know you are involved in something that just doesn't make sense.

Long live OTB!

[Ozymandias]

Is it still chess if the ability to repeat a position is penalized?

Of course it is, the same way that it's still chess when you use the Sofia Chess Rules and/or the "Bilbao" scoring system.

[cdani]

Same here - gave up on "Correspondence Chess" roughly 20 yrs ago - 2399 ICCF. Engines/Hardware of that time were NOTHING like they are today, but it was obvious people were using them.

I can't even stand the thought of playing ICCF, etc today - it's like strapping yourself to jet engines in the water and 'racing' someone and saying you are 'out swimming' someone....and even with those jets, it can ironically take months to finish the race! Yes, some players are still legitimately good players, but the proportion seems to keep dropping and when an 1800 USCF player can play like a Super GM...you know you are involved in something that just doesn't make sense.

Long live OTB!

I started playing last year, and my interest was exactly this, play with computers and see what can I achieve. Is just different from your motivations.
The problem I see with your motivations is that I see no way to create fair tournaments withouth computers.

[braindied]

It is clear that quite a number of the stronger ICCF players are dropping out - and you only have to look at the event categories to support that. The latest World Championship is a cat 11 compared to a usual minimum of 13.

But it is also noticeable that a few very strong FIDE GM's are dabbling - not to win games, but to try out and learn opening structures.
The number of new GM's in ICCF is reducing as even scoring a +2 in a cat 11 or 12 event is pretty much impossible without luck.

As a 2530 ICCF player, and over 500 games, my overall record on the ICCF server is around 25% wins - but since 2017 I have won 2 games, and one of those was a clerical error (such things still exist!). The engines have exceeded my chess skill (OTB 2200).

I still see correspondence chess having a place for a short period as a test bed of opening novelties, and adding a new line to the theory database, though whether any are strong enough novelties to change the overall result is doubtful.

However, in 960 ICCF in recent times, I have a 25% win ratio, because the random nature of the start position and the natural advantage in some of the start positions leads to decisive results. But is that real chess that provides enjoyment?. The idea of being forced to start with a doubtful opening line and playing both sides is still engine dominated chess. Is being given an advantage or handicap bringing enjoyment?

My pet hate and something I do not comprehend are a newer generation of correspondence players, who just parrot engine moves, use no thinking time, and complain about "slow play" of using the permitted time controls. Why bother?

The New In Chess Yearbook volume 137 contains an ICCF played and annotated by GM Krishnan Sasikiran - a very strong OTB GM, showing a game he won from human moves not selected by the engines. It shows those with talent can still find opportunities the engine parrots cannot.

MF

[Cornfed]

Same here - gave up on "Correspondence Chess" roughly 20 yrs ago - 2399 ICCF. Engines/Hardware of that time were NOTHING like they are today, but it was obvious people were using them.

I can't even stand the thought of playing ICCF, etc today - it's like strapping yourself to jet engines in the water and 'racing' someone and saying you are 'out swimming' someone....and even with those jets, it can ironically take months to finish the race! Yes, some players are still legitimately good players, but the proportion seems to keep dropping and when an 1800 USCF player can play like a Super GM...you know you are involved in something that just doesn't make sense.

Long live OTB!

I started playing last year, and my interest was exactly this, play with computers and see what can I achieve. Is just different from your motivations.
The problem I see with your motivations is that I see no way to create fair tournaments withouth computers.

That is an odd statement - the last part.

In OTB you do NOT have (or have to worry about) an engine standing at your shoulder as you play. Cheating is 'possible', but really, probably only happens in .005% or less of OTB tournament chess games. You are probably more likely to be involved in an automobile wreck in a given year. In 'correspondence', it's more like 99.980% of the time.

[cdani]

That is an odd statement - the last part.

Sorry, I meant Iccf like tournament, that somehow achieved that players don't use computers.

[Thomas A. Anderson]

The draw-problem for correspondence chess has a long history, really "useless" to force it with NN-technology now
Just some popular examples:

- Arno Nickel is fighting the matter for many years and has already send proposals/open letters to ICCF. For reasons well described by Stephen Ham (and probably others) nothing really happened until today. Initial initiative by Arno started 2015: https://en.chessbase.com/post/correspon ... aw-problem There are revised proposals in the meantime, latest I got from him was June 2020. (Because I didn't find it public, I don't want to share it without his permission here without permission)

- Deep Mind (probably Demis Hassabis?) did us the favour to use chess as playground for investigations on the robustness of game balance regarding rule changes: https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.04374

I think that the type of people playing top level CC in the future will differ from those who did it in the past. But because the are people around getting fun out of running pure engine tournaments with their systems on servers ("machine rooms") without any human interventions during the games, I can imagine the we will still see ICCF tournaments in the future, even with the 99% draw rate.

[jefk]

well being a CCM (for what it's worth) i followed the discussion a little.

To get rid of the draw problem some years ago i suggest to abolish the 50 move (or nowadays 85?) draw rule in endgames, and apparently this suggestion has been implemented by ICCF (at least in the last world cup final, without much fuzz, but it hardly changes anything in the draw score, apparently,

So , for what it's worth (with lots of stubborn (computer) chess players in this forum i don't expect applause), in addition , (also to to the suggestion by mr Nickel) i
would suggest to setup a new chess variant to diminish the draw problem , at least in correspondence chess (i would call it 'chess renewed', or something like that).

1) stalemate 3/4 points, not such a bad idea
2) have one piece more than a king, 3/4 points
(for other endgames similar rules are possible but then we should also
still allow for fortresses etc, so i would be careful with such ideas
3) as was discussed on the Rybka forum, if you mess with chess rules,
you also should do something about the structural advantage for White
(even although chess still is a draw, due to the large drawing margin)
And this leads to an idea of removing a pawn, possibly/preferably the
f3 pawn for White, in order to
3A) get even chances for White/Black
3B) reduce the importance of opening theory for the time being.

Combine 1-3 above, and you certainly have modified chess rules
and if adopted, the engines of course (just like chess960 or FRC)
should get an option to calculate with such rule nr 2, with rule nr 1
also depending on experimental results; rule 3 is my invention
(as part of the already existing chess variant (fair-chess).
And it's ofcourse the biggest invention in chess ever made,
(except maybe for the rule change for queens, some centuries ago):
https://sourceforge.net/projects/fairchess/

So imho as new variant it wouldn't hurt anybody just to try it,
and for the rest it's a matter of democracy, if the majority likes it
and it's get played, then you can argue endlessly but it *will*
evolve as a new chess (and improved) chess variant.
Possibly (much) later even for human players !

PS personally i have most doubts about rules nr 2, but we
will have to see how things evolve. It's pretty obvious in
ICCF chess that we are getting towards a draw result
(and yes, that's because chess is a draw, but i'm not going
this discussion now in this place (sigh) at the moment (*)

(*) except for this little brain wave:
ideas that if you cant' get an opening advantage but
somehow later magically could squeeze black into a lost
endgame are BS (again : Zermelo, if first players can win, then
there must be a 'strategy' for a win (nope DC, this is not a
tautology but a deep understanding about such games as chess
and 4inarow For 4inarow there has been found a winning method for
the first player starting from move 1,2, etc.; look it up.
in chess the only winning method would be to get an opening
advantage, but we now know that such advantage is too littel
to win the endgame. Look at this Chinese database for example
(even although with an old Sf, with the SFNNUe this axiom
(chess=draw) wouldnt' change; ask Kaufman.

[lkaufman]

well being a CCM (for what it's worth) i followed the discussion a little.

To get rid of the draw problem some years ago i suggest to abolish the 50 move (or nowadays 85?) draw rule in endgames, and apparently this suggestion has been implemented by ICCF (at least in the last world cup final, without much fuzz, but it hardly changes anything in the draw score, apparently,

So , for what it's worth (with lots of stubborn (computer) chess players in this forum i don't expect applause), in addition , (also to to the suggestion by mr Nickel) i
would suggest to setup a new chess variant to diminish the draw problem , at least in correspondence chess (i would call it 'chess renewed', or something like that).

1) stalemate 3/4 points, not such a bad idea
2) have one piece more than a king, 3/4 points
(for other endgames similar rules are possible but then we should also
still allow for fortresses etc, so i would be careful with such ideas
3) as was discussed on the Rybka forum, if you mess with chess rules,
you also should do something about the structural advantage for White
(even although chess still is a draw, due to the large drawing margin)
And this leads to an idea of removing a pawn, possibly/preferably the
f3 pawn for White, in order to
3A) get even chances for White/Black
3B) reduce the importance of opening theory for the time being.

Combine 1-3 above, and you certainly have modified chess rules
and if adopted, the engines of course (just like chess960 or FRC)
should get an option to calculate with such rule nr 2, with rule nr 1
also depending on experimental results; rule 3 is my invention
(as part of the already existing chess variant (fair-chess).
And it's ofcourse the biggest invention in chess ever made,
(except maybe for the rule change for queens, some centuries ago):
https://sourceforge.net/projects/fairchess/

So imho as new variant it wouldn't hurt anybody just to try it,
and for the rest it's a matter of democracy, if the majority likes it
and it's get played, then you can argue endlessly but it *will*
evolve as a new chess (and improved) chess variant.
Possibly (much) later even for human players !

PS personally i have most doubts about rules nr 2, but we
will have to see how things evolve. It's pretty obvious in
ICCF chess that we are getting towards a draw result
(and yes, that's because chess is a draw, but i'm not going
this discussion now in this place (sigh) at the moment (*)

(*) except for this little brain wave:
ideas that if you cant' get an opening advantage but
somehow later magically could squeeze black into a lost
endgame are BS (again : Zermelo, if first players can win, then
there must be a 'strategy' for a win (nope DC, this is not a
tautology but a deep understanding about such games as chess
and 4inarow For 4inarow there has been found a winning method for
the first player starting from move 1,2, etc.; look it up.
in chess the only winning method would be to get an opening
advantage, but we now know that such advantage is too littel
to win the endgame. Look at this Chinese database for example
(even although with an old Sf, with the SFNNUe this axiom
(chess=draw) wouldnt' change; ask Kaufman.

I favor the 3/4 point idea for stalemate and for K+minor piece vs king, but only if you also give 3/4 point to the opponent of the player who repeats three times will you get a big reduction in draws. I don't understand your remark about removing f2 pawn (you wrote f3 but I assume that was a typo); that is obviously way too much to produce equal chances, it's not even likely that White can draw with perfect play. Perhaps I misunderstand you here, as I think every player over 1800 elo would know that. White's opening advantage is about 1/5 of a pawn.

[DrCliche]

There's probably nothing that can be done to remove the overwhelming influence of computers in correspondence chess at this point, even with modifications to the game big and small. Implementing most rules changes into Stockfish would take a decent programmer all of minutes to hours, and then they could train a very, very strong NNUE on consumer hardware in a day or two. Bugfixes, retraining, and refinement would be carried out over the course of a match as necessary.

Anyway, my favorite chess variant has always been where you start with a coin on an empty square (most often e4, but you can pick any square for variety), and then the coin duplicates the motion of both players' pieces with every move. (For example, 1. Nf3 would move the coin from e4 to d6. Castling is a king move.) The catch is that if the coin wouldn't land on an empty square, you can't make the move!

Having no moves counts as a loss, and checks and checkmates work the same way they do in normal chess, even if the coin restriction would technically prevent the attacking pieces from capturing the king. (You can just imagine that any move that would capture a king is allowed to ignore the coin.)