BEAU CHESS - the post-work workings-out of a chess amateur

I begin this blog after getting back into league chess following many years' absence due to work. My post-job status also means I am able to play more tournament chess. My new club in London is Battersea and my first game for them is on Thursday September 14, 2017. I start with a Fide rating of 1858, an ECF grade of 169 (=1968 elo) and an ICCF correspondence rating of 2267. My current Fide is 2009, my ECF is 1955 and my ICCF is 2325.

Wednesday 21 August 2019

Dragon On

THE latest free version of the Komodo analysis engine, Komodo10, can be downloaded at https://komodochess.com/downloads.htm
As a test, I gave Komodo10 and Stockfish10 a position that has been doing the rounds on the internet lately.

It took Komodo10 32 seconds and Stockfish10 59 seconds to find White's winning move

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1.Bh1!!
White mates in four moves against any defence, eg:
1...Kxh1 2.Kf2!
2.Kf1 only draws, at best, because Black's knight can check White's king in three moves.
2...Nc7 3.Nc1 Nd5 4.Ne2
White mates next move with 5.Ng3#. But if the White king were on f1, Black could win, after the same sequence, with 4...Ne3+ 5.Kf2 Nf5.

2 comments:

Anonymous21 August 2019 at 17:15
Though to be fair to the computers, I bet they didn't know it was White to play and win! Given your clue, I was able to spot the winning idea in less than 5 seconds (as everything else just draws or loses). But if it had been a real game, I wonder if I might even have been one of those unfortunate folks who resigns in a winning position?! Martyn
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Tim Spanton21 August 2019 at 17:46
The computers don't know it's White to play and win, but in effect they treat every position as White/Black to play and win. There cannot be many positions where it takes them so long, relatively speaking, to spot a mate-in-five.
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