Komodo vs Bolzoni, 5th game Broadcast

[lkaufman]

I'm broadcasting the match here:
http://komodochess.com/games/Live.html

Thanks, Jesse. Bolzoni seems to be a stronger player than he was last weekend. My guess is that he practiced and/or analyzed knight odds in the interim. Probably he thought he would win easily before the match, but after the first half he realized it wasn't so simple.

He is easily a 1000+ ELO weaker so this should never have been thought to be easy.

I suspect that a majority of masters would say that even God (or perfect play, if you prefer) could not give them knight odds successfully in a serious game like these. Whether they would be right or not is impossible for me to say. Today's chess engines are designed to play the "best" move rather than the trickiest, which is probably the strategy needed to beat strong players at this large handicap.

In this position Komodo played Qe2, then next played Be4 (offering an exchange to a knight). Something must have been going on in the search.

Probably Komodo concluded that otherwise Black would eventually achieve the crushing breakthrough ...e4.
[d]r2q1rk1/1p3ppp/p1nb1n2/4p3/2Pp4/PP1B1Q1P/1B1P1PP1/R4RK1 w - - 5 13

thanks for arranging this fascinating tournament. komodo did brilliantly considering the handicap, but ... if there was a rematch what do you think would happen ?

Presumably Bolzoni learned something from the match, so my guess would be that he might score even better in a rematch. I already offered a similar match to FM john Meyer, who is about the same strength, but I'm regretting it now that I know the final result of this match. With enough work we could probably make Komodo perform a bit better giving knight odds, but I don't think we want to devote that much time to doing so.

[duncan]

I'm broadcasting the match here:
http://komodochess.com/games/Live.html

Thanks, Jesse. Bolzoni seems to be a stronger player than he was last weekend. My guess is that he practiced and/or analyzed knight odds in the interim. Probably he thought he would win easily before the match, but after the first half he realized it wasn't so simple.

He is easily a 1000+ ELO weaker so this should never have been thought to be easy.

I suspect that a majority of masters would say that even God (or perfect play, if you prefer) could not give them knight odds successfully in a serious game like these. Whether they would be right or not is impossible for me to say. Today's chess engines are designed to play the "best" move rather than the trickiest, which is probably the strategy needed to beat strong players at this large handicap.

In this position Komodo played Qe2, then next played Be4 (offering an exchange to a knight). Something must have been going on in the search.

Probably Komodo concluded that otherwise Black would eventually achieve the crushing breakthrough ...e4.
[d]r2q1rk1/1p3ppp/p1nb1n2/4p3/2Pp4/PP1B1Q1P/1B1P1PP1/R4RK1 w - - 5 13

thanks for arranging this fascinating tournament. komodo did brilliantly considering the handicap, but ... if there was a rematch what do you think would happen ?

Presumably Bolzoni learned something from the match, so my guess would be that he might score even better in a rematch. I already offered a similar match to FM john Meyer, who is about the same strength, but I'm regretting it now that I know the final result of this match. With enough work we could probably make Komodo perform a bit better giving knight odds, but I don't think we want to devote that much time to doing so.

which do you think is harder for komodo to win rook for bishop exchange or 2 pawns ?

[lkaufman]

I'm broadcasting the match here:
http://komodochess.com/games/Live.html

Thanks, Jesse. Bolzoni seems to be a stronger player than he was last weekend. My guess is that he practiced and/or analyzed knight odds in the interim. Probably he thought he would win easily before the match, but after the first half he realized it wasn't so simple.

He is easily a 1000+ ELO weaker so this should never have been thought to be easy.

I suspect that a majority of masters would say that even God (or perfect play, if you prefer) could not give them knight odds successfully in a serious game like these. Whether they would be right or not is impossible for me to say. Today's chess engines are designed to play the "best" move rather than the trickiest, which is probably the strategy needed to beat strong players at this large handicap.

In this position Komodo played Qe2, then next played Be4 (offering an exchange to a knight). Something must have been going on in the search.

Probably Komodo concluded that otherwise Black would eventually achieve the crushing breakthrough ...e4.
[d]r2q1rk1/1p3ppp/p1nb1n2/4p3/2Pp4/PP1B1Q1P/1B1P1PP1/R4RK1 w - - 5 13

thanks for arranging this fascinating tournament. komodo did brilliantly considering the handicap, but ... if there was a rematch what do you think would happen ?

Presumably Bolzoni learned something from the match, so my guess would be that he might score even better in a rematch. I already offered a similar match to FM john Meyer, who is about the same strength, but I'm regretting it now that I know the final result of this match. With enough work we could probably make Komodo perform a bit better giving knight odds, but I don't think we want to devote that much time to doing so.

which do you think is harder for komodo to win rook for bishop exchange or 2 pawns ?

Two pawns is harder for Komodo to give than rook for knight, while rook for bishop would be even a smaller handicap and less interesting than rook for knight since the two knights are interchangeable while the bishops are not. Playing with one bishop would lead to strange openings where the side without the bishop tries to put all pawns on the color of the missing bishop. If we get an Elite GM for a match it will probably include rook for knight.