An extra move part 2

If you followed a bit the news last month then you likely heard that a new milestone was reached in artificial intelligence. The computerprogram AlphaGo defeated in a match worldclass-player Lee Sedol in the boardgame go with the large margin of 4 -1. The most astonishing of this result is that the program used contrary to his colleagues of other boardgames. multiply times an algoritme based on pattern-recognition built up via self-tuition of mastergames.

The current top-engines in chess are using very advanced algoritmes which can calculate many moves ahead. However this way we can't solve chess in the nearby future. It is no surprise that many amateurs wonder if we can't learn from AlphaGo to ameliorate our chess-engines. At least 1 programmer already tried it: Matthew Lai. He developed the program Giraffe which succeeded by self-tuition in 72 hours to obtain the level of international master (see deep learning machine teaches itself chess in 72 hours plays at international master).

2400 elo must be considered fantastic but at the same time also poor. A.f.a.i.k. nobody managed before to write a program which learned to play chess autonomously by many hundreds (thousand) rating points and above all in just 72 hours. On the other hand an engine of 2400 elo can't compete at all with e.g. Stockfish and Komodo.

I don't doubt further improvements are possible with the path chosen for Giraffe but it is a total other thing to create a new number 1. Personally I believe pattern-recognition is less useful in chess than for go. Our current best engines show every day that brute force is in most cases sufficient to solve a position. In the past we witnessed many times that extra intelligence in our engines (e.g. pattern-recognition) will just deteriorate the strength of a program.

Chess is a very exact game in which the smallest difference in a position can create a total different solution. An example of this butterfly effect was already shown in my article einstellung effect but the most beautiful examples are of course found in the world of problems. Such problems/ studies are also often called twins. Most occur in helpmates (by coincidence Chessbase published recently some) but also in orthodox problems we sometimes find them as in below cute example.
                                                                 Werner Speckmann
                                                                       Schach 1963
                                                                          1st prize

Mate in 2
b) Shift Qh7 to a7
c) Shift Ke6 to c6 from postion b
d) Shift Ke4 to c4 from position c

Of course this does not mean that recognizing patterns is useless for chessplayers. We are after all no engines. Contrary as every experienced player will be able to recognize a large amount of patterns of which he hopes to benefit from. I had this luck in my recent interclubgame against Rob Michiels. Rob deviated intentionally from theory but anyway we got a position on the board which I had seen before.

[Event "Interclub KBSK - Deurne"] [Date "2016"] [White "Michiels, R."] [Black "Brabo"] [Result "*"] [ECO "C54"] [WhiteElo "2285"] [BlackElo "2322"] [PlyCount "31"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4 7. Bd2 Nxe4 8. Bxb4 Nxb4 9. Bxf7 Kxf7 10. Qb3 Kf8 {(Last year I played against Bob Van Lil d5 but I already chose in the preparation to reuse what I played against Tamer Ismail in 2011.)} 11. Qxb4 Qe7 12. Qa3 {(In 2008 Rob already played once the critical Qxe7 against Bruno Laurent but I assume he just wanted to deviate quickly.)} Nf6 {(After the game Rob was slightly surprised that I also prepared this side-variation. Black already has comfortably equality. )} 13. Qxe7 Kxe7 14. O-O d6 {(A logical novelty and also recommended by the engines but which I only played after a long reflection.)} 15. Re1 Kd8 16. Nc3 {(This position is known when white is having the move. Black with the extra move of course has no problems at all.)} *

I found the same position in 7 standardgames and 1 correspondence game. Without doubt the blackgame of the strong English grandmaster David Howell is the most interesting one.

[Event "NZL-ch op 122nd"] [Site "Auckland"] [Date "2015.01.09"] [Round "9"] [White "Sukandar, Irine Kharisma"] [Black "Howell, David"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "C54"] [WhiteElo "2392"] [BlackElo "2670"] [PlyCount "84"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4 7. Bd2 Nxe4 8. Bxb4 Nxb4 9. Bxf7 Kxf7 10. Qb3 Kf8 11. Qxb4 Qe7 12. Qxe7 Kxe7 13. Nc3 Nf6 14. O-O Kd8 15. Rfe1 d6 {(We can find with this position 7 games in the Megadatabase of 2016 and at least also 1 correspondence-game exists. The same position also occurred in my game against Rob Michiels but with the peculiarly that black has the move.)} 16. Ng5 Rf8 17. Nge4 Ne8 18. Re3 h6 19. Rae1 Bd7 20. h4 a5 21. g3 a4 22. Nd5 Ra5 23. Nec3 g5 24. hxg5 hxg5 25. f3 g4 26. fxg4 Rg8 27. Kf2 Rf8 28. Kg1 Rg8 29. Kf2 Rg5 30. Nf4 Nf6 31. Ne6 Bxe6 32. Rxe6 Nxg4 33. Kg2 Rg7 34. Re8 Kd7 35. Rb8 Rh5 36. Rxb7 Rh2 37. Kg1 Rd2 38. Rd1 Rc2 39. Re1 a3 40. Nd1 Nh2 41. Rb3 axb2 42. Nxb2 Rf7 0-1

It is remarkable that my top-engines only show 0,15 points difference between both positions. I would expect that an extra move would count for more. On the other hand a recent handicapmatch between the American grandmaster Joel Benjamin and Komodo once again proofed how difficult it is to maintain an advantage of extra moves for a human. The only game Joel lost was a game without a handicap of material but with a gift of 5 extra moves !

Brabo

Solution Mate in 2 (Theme Allumwandlung)
a) 1. f8(B), Kf6 2. Qf5#
b) 1. f8(R), Kd6 2. Rf6#
c) 1. f8(Q), Kb5 2.Qfc5#
d) 1. f8(N), Kd6 2.Qc5#