21
votes
Is it possible that a radically different but equally effective playstyle exists?
It's definitely possible there are strategies we don't know about. However, training your engine to specifically play contrary to all we know isn't the way to get there. For example, what would you do ...
- 19.8k
12
votes
Do most amateur players play aggressively?
Do most amateur players play aggressively?
That's a very broad and sweeping generalization because, for a start, the vast majority of chess players are amateurs. Very, very few are professionals. ...
- 94.5k
11
votes
Accepted
Is starting from sides a bad style?
I would say you are wasting your own time. Black could have built a d5-e5 center with two bishops on d6 and e6 in your setup. Even in you own line, Black has all the winning chances due to weaker ...
- 22.4k
8
votes
Has there ever been a successful FIDE or significant historical chess player, that refused to lose any and all pieces in his competitive gameplay?
No, because such a player could never become a significant chess player :)
If you refuse to exchange in every type of position, you won't make it very far in chess (no matter how good you are). ...
- 19.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Playing Styles of Fischer and Botvinnik
Botvinnik believed in peer review. He would write up annotations for his games, and publish them hoping for feedback from other players. He also recommended to his students that they annotate their ...
- 1,337
7
votes
Why chess styles?
Well, I think that knowing what type of style suits you best would be helpful in winning. If you are good at tactics, playing an open game like the Giuoco Piano where the pieces come in contact ...
- 2,984
7
votes
Do most amateur players play aggressively?
Do you know the German biologist Ernst Haeckel? "Ontogenesis recapitulates phylogenesis". I think this is as true in chess. History of chess, as well as development of an individual chess ...
- 15.5k
7
votes
Do most amateur players play aggressively?
In my view, most club players don't play aggressively enough. There is a pattern where someone who is good against non-club players joins a chess club, plays their first matches, tries wild attacks, ...
- 27.8k
7
votes
Objectively, do playing styles exist?
I seriously doubt there are scientific papers on this. "Player styles" is probably impossible to define "objectively"/scientifically to the point where one can give a list of ...
- 7,988
6
votes
Is it possible that a radically different but equally effective playstyle exists?
In principle this is pretty easy. Get a database of 10 million human games, re-score the positions with a chess program (Lc0 or Stockfish), then train a Neural net to prioritize a combination of score ...
- 1,088
6
votes
Have there been GMs playing consistently super-risky?
What you describe is called "Hope chess". It is a very common beginner's mistake. To reach any reasonable standard of chess (like strong local club player) the player has to eliminate this ...
- 94.5k
5
votes
Is it possible that a radically different but equally effective playstyle exists?
I am thinking of a project involving training an AI to play chess, but
with a loss function that discourages common moves for that position -
i.e. a chess engine that performs incredibly well but ...
- 94.5k
5
votes
Accepted
Why chess styles?
Chess is not a game that solely exists in 64 squares. Much of chess exists in our minds, and the constructs we use to process those 64 squares into beautiful and powerful games. Naturally, some ...
- 1,152
5
votes
Accepted
How do you program a chess bot with specific style?
Evaluation Function
That measure is called the evaluation function. Each bot can have a different evaluation function depending on how you want it to behave. Will it favour dynamic play or will it ...
- 6,010
4
votes
How to make a computer play like a player?
This has been done by Maia, a human-like neural network chess engine that's been trained to play like a human would.
Note that each Maia plays at a level above the rating range it was trained on, for ...
- 455
4
votes
Accepted
How to determine objectively if a move is passive or aggressive?
Let me answer your questions precisely and technically:
Q: I also know that some softwares like chessmaster...?
Nobody knows for sure because Chessmaster is closed source. Fortunately, it's not hard ...
- 22.4k
4
votes
Programmatic method to determine if a move is passive or aggressive
As described here the min-max algorithm is used in order to get the best strategy from any position in games, and therefore in chess. It uses tree ordering of the moves and each layer in the tree ...
- 163
4
votes
Is it possible that a radically different but equally effective playstyle exists?
Yes
But only actual experimentation will tell us if AlphaZero has left a meaningful amount of the chess space unexplored. Chess, like all games, boils down to two fundamental components:
Explore ...
- 289
4
votes
Do most amateur players play aggressively?
I think the under-looked consideration here is that you play blitz. Blitz (especially when no increment or delay is used) is much more conducive to aggressive playstyles than quiet ones.
If Alice ...
- 1,193
4
votes
Can a chess engine play like a particular famous player?
This idea was very popular back in the days, some programmers used their best to create such engines, and they did achieve that (to a certain extend)
Some engines that you might want to check out are:
...
- 121
4
votes
Have there been GMs playing consistently super-risky?
Hans Niemann, in his post-Sinquefield Cup interview (the end of his first super tournament) described himself on the opposite end of risk-taking compared to Wesley So, who is very risk-averse. Hans ...
- 3,587
3
votes
Is it possible that a radically different but equally effective playstyle exists?
The question is, equally effective against whom? You are correct that there tend to be "optimal" or "near-optimal" moves when engines play against engines. And when grandmasters play in long time ...
- 131
3
votes
How to determine objectively if a move is passive or aggressive?
I think that at the GM level, all moves are aggressive, after a fashion. All are designed to harm the opponent, even if a previous error has cost us the advantage.
Tal's moves may seem aggressive ...
- 19.9k
3
votes
Accepted
Adapt play style when playing against stronger / weaker opponents?
Playing for a wild attack, if it has no positional justification, is a pretty sure way to lose against a strong opponent. But you may not care. You chance of losing was already large; you have just ...
- 8,155
3
votes
Accepted
What are variations that can explain why 1.c4 is often suggested as an alternative starting move for for aggressive players?
One of the reasons mainline openings are "good" is that they are fundamentally strategically sound. You develop your pieces, fight for central control, secure your King, etc. All the things ...
- 176
2
votes
Why chess styles?
Because of two reasons I can think of:
Chess isn't always about a single perfect move (especially in the opening!), there tends to be 1 or 2 or 3, even 10 other moves that are exactly the same level ...
- 732
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