Centaur vs Unassisted Engine

[MonteCarlo]

10...Bd6

[pgn]

[White "jefk"]
[Black "unassisted engine"]

1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Bg2 Be7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0 dxc4
7. Qc2 a6 8.a4 Bd7 9.Qxc4 Bc6 10.Bf4 Bd6


[/pgn]

[jefk]

and now 11.Qc1

then probably ...a5, but you (r engine) also could play ...h6
or ... Nbd7 we'll see

[MonteCarlo]

11...h6

[pgn]

[White "jefk"]
[Black "unassisted engine"]

1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Bg2 Be7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0 dxc4
7. Qc2 a6 8.a4 Bd7 9.Qxc4 Bc6 10.Bf4 Bd6 11.Qc1 h6


[/pgn]

[jefk]

ok, your 11...h6 was played by Aronian end 2020 against Ding Liren (*),
next, again not so surprising, now is (my move) 12.Rfe1

(*) Ding got a slight advantage later, but i don't think
Aronian played very accurately in the middle game.
But then i'ts probably also not such a sharp position...

[MonteCarlo]

I suppose we mean 12.Re1. If the rook move need disambiguating (meaning the other rook can go to e1 also), I have a lot to learn about chess

Jokes aside, my move will come in about an hour.

Cheers!

[MonteCarlo]

12...Bxf4

[pgn]

[White "jefk"]
[Black "unassisted engine"]

1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Bg2 Be7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0 dxc4
7. Qc2 a6 8.a4 Bd7 9.Qxc4 Bc6 10.Bf4 Bd6 11.Qc1 h6 12.Re1 Bxf4


[/pgn]

[jefk]

13.Qxf4

[mbabigian]

Assuming MonteCarlo is running at least 6 piece Syzygy tablebases so he doesn't blunder a drawn endgame, White's winning chances are now nil.

I've won many games in freestyle events against engines without tablebases by just continuing to play a dead drawn endgame. Hence the caveat above.

There are 3 types of positions that modern engines don't understand:

• Zugzwang (because of null move)
• Fortress (often including zugzwang)
• Deep horizon (the solution requires a ridiculous number of perhaps obvious shuffling moves to win - often including zugzwang)

These positions encapsulate the vast majority of losses or errant evaluations in correspondence chess. Microscopic numbers of losses can be attributed to other things like program bugs and other oddities.

Jefk has failed to steer the game into one of these positions and this position has no characteristics to suggest it will morph into one of those three.

Congrats MonteCarlo. Perhaps Uri is right.

[MonteCarlo]

13...Bxf3

[pgn]

[White "jefk"]
[Black "unassisted engine"]

1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Bg2 Be7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0 dxc4
7. Qc2 a6 8.a4 Bd7 9.Qxc4 Bc6 10.Bf4 Bd6 11.Qc1 h6 12.Re1 Bxf4 13.Qxf4 Bxf3


[/pgn]

As a not-entirely-awful (depending on your perspective, of course) chess player I have been a bit surprised by the path we've taken, as these lines always struck me as getting pretty sterile pretty quickly.

That's great for Ulf/Kramnik/Carlsen if they want a risk-free-probe-a-little game in OTB against humans, but not really the sort of thing I'd expect a top engine to have issues with.

I might still get surprised in a different way, of course.

Cheers!

[jefk]

just an intermediate comment,

with your engine now being Nnue (and i'm not an absolute
top Correspondence player (who would know about a lot of
positional anti-engine strategies), i've maybe taken a 'low risk'
approach; with d3/g3 reversed KID strategies for example,
i might have got into problems against your engine.
But besides the 'low risk' approach, i also taken some sort
of 'White plays and wins' approach (if that would be possible).
Whereas ultimately it's not possible, the strategy of building
up positional pressure imho still seems to work against your
engine, although later analysis then will show ofcourse
where Black has played suboptimal moves (if i get a better endgame,
which i now believe White indeed will be able to achieve)

What i now still am trying is a slow buildup of tiny positional
advantages just as i announced at the beginning of the game.
a GN as Kramnik for years was quite succesful in the Catalan,
and obviously the Gm i mentioned, Aronian, knew about this
position when he played ...h6 (but he later didn't take
on f4, but played ...Nbd7).

your last move, btw didn't look (in my computer analysis) as
particularly strong, i would have expected ...a5. Maybe my analysis
(on Aquarium) is overlooking something, or maybe your engine
indeed played a positional sub-optimal move. The idea here (with
two meanings) is to get a strong middle/endgame transition with
winning chances. For example, after a Bxc6 after two moves or so,
you'll get a double c pawn; the rest is a matter of technique (or at least
would be for someone as you mentioned Andersson), in my situation
means patiently grinding into better positions for White.
cheers as well.