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Future_Green_7222 t1_irm4wdc wrote

People are learning through computers. Totally not cheating

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MidiGong t1_irm6pmt wrote

Now show the Hans Niemann chart!

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Gnoom75 t1_irm9c8x wrote

How representative is Stockfish for all computer engines? The title assumes they are more or less the same. Does e.g. Deep Blue make the same moves or does he follow Stockfish also for around 50%. And the initial release of Stockfish was in 2008.

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MindSwipe t1_irmd2vc wrote

WTH happened between 1880 and 1900?

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thermidorthelobster t1_irmh3jm wrote

Could it be that around 2005 the computers started learning more from the human players? Deepmind etc as opposed to brute forcing the problem mathematically? Although judging from the timeline the computer model is fixed in time.

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Gnoom75 t1_irmm1gn wrote

Replying to feAgrs (#62,899)

Technically correct, but the interpretation is difficult. You cannot say for example that humans are learning from the computer with only 2 data points in the computer era.

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DoeCommaJohn t1_irmsyoq wrote

Replying to MindSwipe (#62,792)

I remember seeing a video that talked about how chess players were becoming more “gentlemanly” and so, as a sign or sportsmanship, would make an intentionally bad first move

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Gnoom75 t1_irn69g5 wrote

Replying to wait3yearssaysthis (#64,100)

There is a correlation that computer chess took over the world (sounds a bit dramatic, I know), but the increase is smaller than several decades in the past. Is the increase larger than the natural expected increase?

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spar_wors t1_irn8edx wrote

So why did chess players suddenly stop trusting computers in 1890?

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tenesis t1_irn9yes wrote

So the computers are getting dumber?

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PixelGMS t1_irna45i wrote

I'm confused, why do the percents add up to more than 100%?
Even at the point where all of them are at their lowest, gold and green are above 50% and all together add to about 150%...

It's been a while since I took stats, but I'm pretty sure this is the type of situation where the percentages are supposed to add to 100%.

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nemarholvan t1_irnanlw wrote

So surprised that openers are a worse match. I thought openings were fairly solved?

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nick1812216 t1_irnb888 wrote

Replying to MindSwipe (#62,792)

Well! There are two distinct periods of chess theory. There is romantic chess, which is focused on dramatic sacrifices to gain advantageous positions. It’s a very exciting form of chess play prevalent in the 19th century. Then there is hypermodern chess, which is more focused on material (material meaning pawns, rooks, knights, etc…), and it begins in the 20th century. Each piece has a numeric value representative of its worth. Hypermodern materialistic chess is focused on maximizing material, so there are no dramatic sacrifices or grandiose positional moves. (Romantic chess/sacrifices/positional play is a very human form of chess. Hypermodern/material is a very computerized form of chess) We see this dip around 1880-1900 as this would have been the tail end of the romantic period of chess, when the prevailing form of chess was diametrically opposite to how computers play chess.

Im so glad you asked this question. I love history and chess

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kenwongart t1_irnbnzs wrote

Replying to PixelGMS (#64,316)

No, they shouldn’t add up to 100%.

Grey is what % of moves in the beginning of the game match the computer. Gold is the same for mid/end game. If players played exactly how a computer would, both grey and gold would be 100%.

Green is for all moves, so it’s going to be somewhere in between, but closer to gold (as grey only counts moves 5-15, and gold is for every move after, and there are usually more than 25 moves in a chess game).

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bzj t1_irnbpfk wrote

Replying to Eric1491625 (#63,817)

I’m not usually one for documentaries, but I really enjoyed the “AlphaGo” one which talked about the evolution of this. The go professionals were all kind of taken aback as they realized too late how they were getting outplayed.

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nick1812216 t1_irnbqet wrote

I suppose throughout the 20th century there were no computers to assist players in study until around the 80s/90s/2000s when PCs became more ubiquitous and chess engines became more powerful?

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pistrel t1_irndm13 wrote

Beautiful. What happened in 1980?

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Spillz-2011 t1_irnfzrj wrote

Replying to nemarholvan (#64,334)

Two possibilities (I think it’s the first but could be wrong)

1 in openings the players have run engines to a higher depth so the moves they play are actually better than rerunning the engine on a lower depth

2 players are trying to play off the beaten track into a position they understand better. If you just play top engine move for 15 moves then it isn’t that hard for your opponent to also play top move because they also know the engine line

Edit: to clarify 2 100% happens I just don’t think that’s why the engine eval is wrong

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MindSwipe t1_irnstjx wrote

Replying to nick1812216 (#64,363)

Interesting, I think that was said in a video I saw somewhere, but why is did the hypermodern style decline in popularity in the late 19th century? Did a lot of people just go "fuck this, I want heroic battles in chess and none of this fancy number stuff" or is there a deeper reason behind it?

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nick1812216 t1_irnwcqr wrote

Replying to MindSwipe (#65,059)

I don’t think that it existed prior to the 20th century. I think it’s tied into the end of the preindustrial world and the industrialization/technological revolution of the 19th/20th/21st centuries. It is a small manifestation of a much larger shift in western culture. Think of it like the transition from artisanal cottage industry to mass production factories. You transition from working when you want on handmade pieces to a factory environment that’s governed by clocks and timetables and train schedules and punch cards and quarterly reports and currency exchange rates. If the goal is to bring the maximum benefit to the most people for the lowest cost, unequivocally the industrialized approach to production is far superior, but there is a sort of sentimental nostalgic value to the way things were done before, you know? And it is the same with chess. Unequivocally, if you want to win, materialistic/hypermodern chess is superior to romantic chess. Sorry, this was a little longwinded, but I think it’s an interesting subject.

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chazwomaq t1_iro2t9b wrote

Replying to nick1812216 (#64,363)

>Hypermodern materialistic chess is focused on maximizing material, so there are no dramatic sacrifices or grandiose positional moves. (Romantic chess/sacrifices/positional play is a very human form of chess. Hypermodern/material is a very computerized form of chess)

This is muddled. Modern chess, and engine chess still has sacrifices. It's just that the romantic era was characterised by unsound sacrifices, which people would still make because opponents would invariably take the material on offer. You can find many fascinating sacrifices in recent games featuring top engines like leela.

Early engines were great at tactics (winning material) and less good at positions. But modern engines are much better at positional chess, albeit with some weakspots. Many initially incomprehensible moves can only be understood much later in a game when they reveal a subtle positional advantage.

The rough eras of chess go like this:

romantic - unsound sacrifices which are accepted.

modern (late 19th / early 20th century) - focused on position rather than (just) material. Effectively killed the romantic era because it is superior.

hypermodern (post WW1) - broadened modern ideas to include indirect control and other ideas like overprotection, outposts etc. It is also a positional form of chess.

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DoeCommaJohn t1_irok1o2 wrote

Replying to tyen0 (#65,267)

But it’s possible that the gentlemanly thing extended past the first 4 moves and people were intentionally making suboptimal moves. It’s also possibly something else, like maybe chess became less popular or maybe chess became so popular that less skilled players entered candidate tournaments.

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eric5014 t1_irp4t74 wrote

Replying to nemarholvan (#64,334)

Often in the opening, there are multiple moves that work fine. Particularly the first move or two, but even after that as you can develop pieces in a different order and there isn't an immediate threat needing a response.

In the middle & end there is more often one obvious next move.

I think these might account for much of that gap.

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bobbib14 t1_irpafr6 wrote

looks like loch ness monster!

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Burnsidhe t1_irq9g4r wrote

It's almost like people are practicing against computer programs and learning from the computer program's tactics.

Also, for some odd reason, the computer programs use actual historical chess games as their database, much like humans followed and learned from actual historical chess games. I wonder why that is?

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Evidently_21 OP t1_irqim7e wrote

Replying to eric5014 (#66,616)

Yes it is this. The average evaluation change for opening is much smaller, there are just lots of pretty good options so matching exactly what computer recommends is hard.

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