AlphaZero No Castling Chess

[Javier Ros]

It seems that AlphaZero has been trained to play "no-castling chess", see the interesting article

Kramnik And AlphaZero: How To Rethink Chess‎

at

https://www.chess.com/article/view/no-c ... -alphazero

[dragontamer5788]

It seems odd that they didn't discuss the draw-rate of this variant. Or did I miss it? The two example games listed there are draws.

I think Chess should have sharper games overall with a lower draw rate. Armageddon chess is a good step forward, but seems to favor Black. There have been other discussions about other rulesets similar to Armageddon (complicating the rules: 50-move == White Win, Stalemate == Black Win, etc. etc.)... but finding a set of Chess rules with fewer draws and more balanced gameplay should be the goal.

----------

The idea of using AlphaZero as a "easily trained expert" for new chess variants seems like a good methodology. Perhaps we could encode this as a search problem: how to change the rules of chess to increase win/loss rate of experts and decrease the draw rate.

[supersharp77]

It seems that AlphaZero has been trained to play "no-castling chess", see the interesting article

Kramnik And AlphaZero: How To Rethink Chess‎

at

https://www.chess.com/article/view/no-c ... -alphazero

The Return Of Alpha Zero With No Castling Chess! When Will The LC0 vs Alpha Zero Chess Championship match be Played?
The Chess World Awaits This Great Match
Alpha Zero (A) vs Alpha Zero (B)
[pgn] 1.
d4

Nf6
2.
c4

e6
3.
Nc3

c5
4.
d5

exd5
5.
cxd5

Qe7
6.
Qa4

Kd8
7.
Nf3

d6
8.
Bf4

g6
9.
h4

Bg7
10.
Rc1

Nbd7
11.
Nb5

Ne8
12.
b4

Qe4
13.
Bg5+

f6
14.
Bd2

h6
15.
Qa3

a6
16.
e3

cxb4
17.
Nxd6

bxa3
18.
Nxe4

f5
19.
Ng3

Bb2
20.
h5

g5
21.
Nxf5

Nb6
22.
N5d4

Nf6
23.
Ne5

Re8
24.
Nf7+

Kd7
25.
Be2

Nbxd5
26.
Nxh6

b5
27.
Rc2

Bb7
28.
Nhf5

Rac8
29.
f3

Nc3
30.
h6

Bd5
31.
Ng7

Re5
32.
Bd3

Bxa2
33.
h7

Nxh7
34.
Bxh7

Rc4
35.
Bf5+

Kc7
36.
Bd3

Rcc5
37.
Bc1

Na4
38.
Bxb2

axb2
39.
Kd2

b1=N+
40.
Rxb1

Bxb1
41.
Nge6+

Kb6
42.
Rxc5

Nxc5
43.
Nxc5

Kxc5
44.
Bxb1

Re8
45.
g3

Rd8
46.
g4

Kb6
47.
Bd3

Rg8
48.
Bf5

Rd8
49.
Ke2

a5
50.
Bd3

a4
51.
Nxb5

Kc5
52.
Kd2

Rb8
53.
Kc2

Re8
54.
Kd2

Rb8
55.
f4

gxf4
56.
exf4

Rf8
57.
f5

Ra8
58.
Na3

Rg8
59.
Be2

Kd4
60.
f6

Ke4
61.
Nb5

a3
62.
f7

Rf8
63.
Bc4

Kf4
64.
Kd3

Kxg4
65.
Ke4

Kg5
66.
Ke5

Kg6
67.
Nd6

a2
68.
Bxa2

Kg7
69.
Ke6

Ra8
70.
Bd5

Ra7
71.
Nb7

Kf8
72.
Nd8

Ra6+
73.
Nc6

Rb6
74.
Kd6

Ra6
75.
Kd7

Rb6
76.
Ne5

Rf6
77.
Kd8

Rf2
78.
Bc4
Kg7
79.
Ke7

Rf6
80.
Ba2

Rf5
81.
Ng6

Rf6
82.
Nh4

Rf4
83.
Bd5

Kh6
84.
Be6

Rxf7+
85.
Kxf7

Kg5
86.
Ng6

Kh6
87.
Kf6

Kh5
88.
Bh3

Kh6
89.
Ne5

Kh5
90.
Kf5

Kh6
91.
Bg4

Kg7
92.
Be2

Kh6
93.
Bf3

Kg7
94.
Kg5

Kf8
95.
Kg6

Kg8
96.
Be4

Kh8
97.
Kh6

Kg8
98.
Bd5+

Kf8
99.
Nc4

Ke8
100.
Kg6

Kf8
101.
Kf6

Ke8
102.
Ne5

Kd8
103.
Kf7

Kc8
104.
Ke7

Kc7
105.
Nc4

Kc8
106.
Bc6

Kc7
107.
Ba4

Kc8
108.
Kf6

Kd8
109.
Ke6

Kc7
110.
Be8

Kd8
111.
Bc6

Kc7
112.
Ba4

Kd8
113.
Kf6

Kc7
114.
Ke5

Kd8
115.
Kd6

Kc8
116.
Ke7

Kc7
117.
Bd7

Kb8
118.
Kd8

Kb7
119.
Bb5

Kb8
120.
Nd6

Ka7
121.
Kc7

Ka8
122.
Bc4

Ka7
123.
Nc8+
Ka8
124.
Bd5#
1-0 [/pgn]

[Ovyron]

I think Chess should have sharper games overall with a lower draw rate.

I just thought about this variant the other day:

If the game ends in draw, the first player that checked the other during the game is awarded a win.

There we go, no more draws and no more hitting our heads against the wall figuring out draw odds. Just, a check and defend to avoid losing and you got the game.

[lkaufman]

I think Chess should have sharper games overall with a lower draw rate.

I just thought about this variant the other day:

If the game ends in draw, the first player that checked the other during the game is awarded a win.

There we go, no more draws and no more hitting our heads against the wall figuring out draw odds. Just, a check and defend to avoid losing and you got the game.

The last player to check rather than the first makes more sense to me as a tiebreaker, with Black winning in case no one ever gave check. But I think there are much better ways to tiebreak that are more in the spirit of chess. Ideally making repetition illegal, stalemate a win for the stalemating side, and bare king a loss, with Black winning fifty move rule draws, could work, but I think it would still favor Black too much. It could be tested with engines, and if Black does win too much, further tiebreak rules could be added until it becomes about fair.

[Ovyron]

But I think there are much better ways to tiebreak that are more in the spirit of chess. Ideally making repetition illegal, stalemate a win for the stalemating side, and bare king a loss, with Black winning fifty move rule draws, could work, but I think it would still favor Black too much. It could be tested with engines, and if Black does win too much, further tiebreak rules could be added until it becomes about fair.

I'm looking for a simple solution, one you can explain to a child that just learned to play chess. All those things are very complicated and arbitrary (a position could have been won for the other side, for no reason!)

I just played 3-check chess the other day and it can get very intense, but a problem it has is that once you can give a check and increase the chances that you'll make two more, players start making very unlike-chess moves. But what if there was an optimal amount of checks to give that would solve the problem?

I'm not talking about no-draws here, and I'm not talking about using this for tie breaking, I'm saying that this subset of chess makes sense, because if your advantage is strong enough to win the game, then surely it's strong enough to deliver the amount of checks needed also.

Players would start with a "Life Bar", say, 10 Hit Points for their king. They're playing a normal chess game, but every time their king is checked, they lose a point, and once it's 0 the other player wins. If the game ends in draw the player with most Hit Points wins. If you are up on Hit Points and the opponent can't deliver a check anymore they can resign already.

Such a thing is easy to explain and just have normal chess with a few words added to the win condition:

Checkmate the opponent king, give it 10 checks or be the one that gave the most checks if the game ends in draw.

Hmm, turns out even simpler would be to count how many checks happened in the game and award a win to the player that gave the most ones. Would this change so much the nature of the game?

[Raphexon]

Hard to see how this would increase the amount of decisive matches.

No castling cuts down the search tree quite hard so it should be much easier for an engine to see the forced win or forced draw.

Maybe for human chess it can make the game a lot more decisive because positions become sharper, but it gets a lot easier for Stockfish and the gang.

[the_real_greco]

There have been a lot of crazy rule changes to chess during the last thousand years... but they occurred because people started playing the new variant, not discussing it.

Did Kramnik actually play a no-castling game? I see a bunch of A0-A0 games but nothing with him. Which is not exactly a ringing endorsement of no-castling.

[BeyondCritics]

Chessbase India has produced an interview, where Kramnik share his thoughts about Nocastling chess and demonstrates a beautiful Alpha Zero self play game.

[carldaman]

I think Chess should have sharper games overall with a lower draw rate.

I just thought about this variant the other day:

If the game ends in draw, the first player that checked the other during the game is awarded a win.

There we go, no more draws and no more hitting our heads against the wall figuring out draw odds. Just, a check and defend to avoid losing and you got the game.

The last player to check rather than the first makes more sense to me as a tiebreaker, with Black winning in case no one ever gave check. But I think there are much better ways to tiebreak that are more in the spirit of chess. Ideally making repetition illegal, stalemate a win for the stalemating side, and bare king a loss, with Black winning fifty move rule draws, could work, but I think it would still favor Black too much. It could be tested with engines, and if Black does win too much, further tiebreak rules could be added until it becomes about fair.

What would be more drastic - changing the rules whereby how the game is won, or altering the starting position, or just the castling rules?

It looks to me that the first option (changing the scoring rules) is way too radical and would mess with the fabric of the game. I know there was a time when bare king or stalemate were counted as a win, but why were those rules changed? It had to be because the current rules work better than the old ones.

For instance, making stalemate a loss would directly affect all (piece &) pawn endgames, but by extension the whole game. People would hesitate to take any chances because the loss of one pawn would doom the player to an almost certain loss in the endgame. Play would become more sterile and materialistic, basically killing the game.