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Meh. I dont believe we have even come close to finding the best chess strategy for humans and strongly disgagree with the premise of this article that chess st

Meh. I dont believe we have even come close to finding the best chess strategy for humans and strongly disgagree with the premise of this article that chess strategy for humans is at some kind of ending and we need to change the rules or else it will never get better. In fact, I have done a lot of research into chess engine theory and believe flaws in the stockfish algorithm directly contrubute to the "boring" chess we see today, since all pros use engines to train now. The old engines cant see lines that alphazero sees which involve long term positional sacrifices, and use a linear evaluation function which in principle can never capture the strong non linearities inherenit in chess. (alphazero uses a non linear evaluation function, which is its nueral net) Considered as a mathematical space, the universe of possible chess strategies is an extremely large order of infinity. There are also many aspects of time management in relation to the computational complexity of the position which modern engines dont model at all. I believe that modern engines are overly materialistic and that aggresive positional sacrficies in the style of Tal and alphazero are the future of chess strategy for humans

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
To me the whole concept of chess always getting better is a little puzzling. Most games of this type don't change, and therefore don't get better. The point is local challenge, not global optimization. To most, the point of games (and much other human endeavor) is competition for competition's sake, not a search for some maximum of abstract skill. To avoid chess (real chess, with castling and all that) because AlphaZero exists is like avoiding singing because Taylor Swift exists. Or like avoiding painting because Chagall existed. Or like avoiding Starcraft because Serral exists. Yeah, with a 99.999999% chance, you're not going to exceed the performance of these individuals (or others I could name) in their respective fields. That doesn't take the joy out of learning and growing, at least not for me. AlphaZero and similar add a few more nines to chess, in terms of the likelihood of being the best-performing entity at that game. But that should hardly make a difference except to maybe the two or three very best human players in the world.
- calhoun137 7y ago
  I am 1000x more interested in chess engine's and "a search for some maximum of abstract skill" than I am in getting good at chess. During my research into this topic I discovered many facts which led me to conclude that there exist multiple chess strategies which humans can use which are currently unknown and which are far more powerful than anything currently used by grand masters or chess engines. This was all before alphazero was released, and I feel strongly that alphazero proved the hypothesis that chess strategy theory will continue to improve and there is still so much to learn. Chess theory is "always getting better". This is because chess has the property that the skill curve is so extreme and the game so deep that it is seemingly always possible to continue to improve and find new ideas. Chess engines play a fundamental role in modern human chess. There is a causal relationship between the state of the art in chess engines and the play styles of the top pro's. This is because better engines can find new idea's in positions previously thought to be completely explored. It happened recently with an alphazero game in a spectacular way iirc There is a theorem which says that given any chess engine, it's impossible to decide if that chess engine is playing in an optimal way. So when you say "in terms of the likelihood of being the best-performing entity at that game", I think its important to be very precise about what we mean, even though in spirit I agree with that statement =) I started working on a project to build a chess engine that is specifically designed to beat other chess engines by playing in a non-optimal way specifically tailored to find and exploit bugs in the opposing chess engine code/flaws in its algorithm. I also once proved that any chess engine based on the principles of stockfish will necessarily contain positions where it can be exploited into making bad moves. If you fixed the algorithm to make it not exploitable in that specific position, the theorem says there would exist another position where it would be exploitable. This is what I call the theory of "exploitative chess engines" (in the sense of maximizing the possible gain), as opposed to ones which attempt to play in an "optimal" way (minimizing the maximum loss)
  - acollins1331 7y ago
    I agree with all your comments about the non-linearity that is extremely obvious in chess is not captured in the current engines everyone uses, which does lead to all the draw's we are seeing. I'm interested in your results from your engines when they're complete!

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago

To me the whole concept of chess always getting better is a little puzzling. Most games of this type don't change, and therefore don't get better. The point is local challenge, not global optimization. To most, the point of games (and much other human endeavor) is competition for competition's sake, not a search for some maximum of abstract skill. To avoid chess (real chess, with castling and all that) because AlphaZero exists is like avoiding singing because Taylor Swift exists. Or like avoiding painting because Chagall existed. Or like avoiding Starcraft because Serral exists. Yeah, with a 99.999999% chance, you're not going to exceed the performance of these individuals (or others I could name) in their respective fields. That doesn't take the joy out of learning and growing, at least not for me. AlphaZero and similar add a few more nines to chess, in terms of the likelihood of being the best-performing entity at that game. But that should hardly make a difference except to maybe the two or three very best human players in the world.

calhoun137 7y ago
I am 1000x more interested in chess engine's and "a search for some maximum of abstract skill" than I am in getting good at chess. During my research into this topic I discovered many facts which led me to conclude that there exist multiple chess strategies which humans can use which are currently unknown and which are far more powerful than anything currently used by grand masters or chess engines. This was all before alphazero was released, and I feel strongly that alphazero proved the hypothesis that chess strategy theory will continue to improve and there is still so much to learn. Chess theory is "always getting better". This is because chess has the property that the skill curve is so extreme and the game so deep that it is seemingly always possible to continue to improve and find new ideas. Chess engines play a fundamental role in modern human chess. There is a causal relationship between the state of the art in chess engines and the play styles of the top pro's. This is because better engines can find new idea's in positions previously thought to be completely explored. It happened recently with an alphazero game in a spectacular way iirc There is a theorem which says that given any chess engine, it's impossible to decide if that chess engine is playing in an optimal way. So when you say "in terms of the likelihood of being the best-performing entity at that game", I think its important to be very precise about what we mean, even though in spirit I agree with that statement =) I started working on a project to build a chess engine that is specifically designed to beat other chess engines by playing in a non-optimal way specifically tailored to find and exploit bugs in the opposing chess engine code/flaws in its algorithm. I also once proved that any chess engine based on the principles of stockfish will necessarily contain positions where it can be exploited into making bad moves. If you fixed the algorithm to make it not exploitable in that specific position, the theorem says there would exist another position where it would be exploitable. This is what I call the theory of "exploitative chess engines" (in the sense of maximizing the possible gain), as opposed to ones which attempt to play in an "optimal" way (minimizing the maximum loss)
- acollins1331 7y ago
  I agree with all your comments about the non-linearity that is extremely obvious in chess is not captured in the current engines everyone uses, which does lead to all the draw's we are seeing. I'm interested in your results from your engines when they're complete!