Computer Chess Game of the Week: Leela vs Nirvana

[@filbuildphilippines]

Leela's unpredictability and sense of humor + Danny's understandable, engaging narrative = a chess lover's delight

[@sandercoven2554]

You have been for years, still are and surely will continue to be one of the very best chess commentators. Looking forward to many more of your videos.

[@bhgtree]

Thanks Danny, enjoyed your analysis of this game.

[@seasideman]

That was a complex game which you managed to explain so that even i could understand it. Thanks Danny, good job, and a great game by Leela.

[@klajdimyrtaj5052]

nirvana didnt capture that knigt, so epic underpromotion, watched it live

[@artur-rdc]

Pro tip: close your background games before you start recording.

[@artur-rdc]

Don't worry about it. It was a good video nonetheless.

[@nelsontumambibg1398]

.

[@dannygjk]

What about all the piece noises when you play in tourny's OTB? Do you wear earplugs?

[@B3Band]

^ Yes. Always. I'm not the OP, but hell yes, wear earplugs! Especially if there are kids/stupid people in the vicinity. But anyway, your analogy doesn't make sense. This is an analysis. Do you hold a press conference for two tournament players while other matches are still being played? If yes, do you do it within earshot of the other boards?

[@dannygjk]

@@B3Band My point is ability to focus while normal sounds are going on in the background. A press conference would not be normal sounds in the background while playing.

[@armstrongarunachalam2221]

Thanks for the world-class commentary Daniel! Your analysis of the Alpha Zero games were a treat to watch!

[@Luredreier]

Perhaps. But this is a *Leela* Chess Zero game... *Not* Alpha Zero...

[@jamesmoore5603]

Nice job Danny. This game provides lots of ideas about a king side attach and you covered them very nicely. Thanks

[@TrondArneAusdal]

Excellent commentary Just loved the way you were explaining the ideas in the opening/position!

[@tanishqsoni701]

Kinda analysis that you provide is just absolutely amazing. Another new day for Lc0!

[@artemmsk701]

Such a great review, Daniel! Entertaining, insightful and very professional at the same time! Pleasant 18 minutes of my life!

[@modolief]

Crystal clear explanations of King side vs Queen side strategy, thanks!

[@dalsanto4]

more leela games please!

[@andrewswales5424]

Wonderful video Danny. Loving the series, thank you.

[@antos2169]

Enjoyed as always, thank you! Waiting for the next one

[@davidjames5517]

An especially thoughtful and informative analysis, Danny. Thanx so much.

[@ea2763]

Succinct and clear analysis Danny. Really enjoy these computer matches. Thanks

[@trevorvanloon1125]

Enjoying the coverage Danny! Keep it up :)

[@xDMrGarrison]

These are some of my favorite chess videos on the internet :D

[@38FerreroX]

I thought I had the tournament still opened in the background. You trolled me

[@56Model30]

Thanks Daniel, excellent informative analysis of an entertaining game.

[@inversehyperbolictangent3955]

Very informative analysis. Thanks! Never thought there'd be this much insight into this game. I guess I haven't given Nirvana enough credit; even though it lost in the end.

[@ajay176v]

Excellent analysis!

[@dabeamer42]

"playing with her food" -- LOL

[@Luredreier]

Well, she *did* in the previous game of hers featured on this channel...

[@SteveN-dw1uy]

I Guess she does it because she expects the piece to immediately be taken. Losing a knight in the end game is probably considered better than losing a queen, even though it doesn’t really matter to a human (you are exchanging a passed pawn for a piece).

[@chessartst1339]

Amazing job explaining the position Danny , I feel enlightened

[@dadalo5]

Outstanding and clear analysis as always, thanks

[@evanwood7756]

Watched this game live; was absolutely epic to watch

[@mattbeckwith]

Appreciate the in depth opening class.

[@MichaelFJ1969]

13:01 Instead of Na4, why not h6. Won't that help close down the king side and give black more time? Later white f5 can be answered with g5.

[@nilsp9426]

Do engines also do the opposite error of underestimating the value of material? It seems like they tend towards either being accurate or overestimating material over dynamic factors, but I did not see enough games to be confident on that.

[@4elove4ishee]

f4 doesn't seem that weird to me. Black pieces are predominantly on the queenside, the sacrifice allows to activate the second white rook and launch a dangerous pawn at the same time. That was the first move i thought of, but im a reckless noob, so what do i know

[@protectedmethod9724]

no worries. :) thanks for the comment

[@johanrichter2695]

I always think of sacrifices. The tricky part is recognizing the few situations where they actually work.

[@kylen6430]

The difference is if you are wrong, you probably lose, reset the pieces and have a good laugh about it later. An engine plays every game like it’s life depends on it...

[@igorchernyadyev161]

f4 is the first move I saw when Danny started talking about a !! idea. Actually Nirvana gave its most useful piece for a useless rook on a1. The bad bishop that manage to advance beyond the pawn chain is often as valuable as a rook. Again, pushing the f-pawn against the kingside fianchetto formation is thematic and absolutely natural

[@willianbueno7293]

TKS Danny master analysis!

[@Erwt64]

Very well presented!

[@joseluisbruna4792]

Great analysis

[@ZoomAmer]

Thanks a lots These video's are really interesting

[@wonderbucket1242]

I think leela underpromotes to mess with the calculations of the other AI. Like, if the other AI bases it's decisions on material value on the board.

[@billprovince8759]

I was curious about trying b4 *and then* f4. I didn't actually analyze this, but I liked the idea of pushing back the queen to a6 where it is hidden. Perhaps the issue is two-pronged: first, at a6, after the b6 knight moves, the queen helps defend 6th rank. Second, the c4 pawn becomes a protected passed pawn. Thoughts?

[@afbdreds]

Danny anlysing NN chess games is ebest thing ever

[@modolief]

Danny: Can you comment on the hardware conditions of Leela vs the AB engines? One thing I'd really like to know regarding the cccc is: how much power does Leela use on her hardware vs how much the AB engines draw on their separate hardware? To me this is the fairest means of comparing disparate hardware systems.

[@x_sphinz2982]

Does anyone have the playlist with the songs that were played during the livestream of this tournament? I just love them but can't find them anymore.

[@dilyarm9477]

Great evaluation, thanks

[@proflaxis6968]

Danny: I have just promoted you to my favourite chess game analyst. Awesome job.

[@hazelelloyd]

Danny, that was absolutely fun to watch!! Trademark Leela under promotes to troll its victim :-)

[@c4b-bage]

I am a mediocre player and when Danny started hyping about the crushing move I immediately thought about f4. Proud of myself. Now i'll unpause the video and figure out why.

[@maksymiliank5135]

I love the fact Leela underpromotes her pawns. It makes me smile how ignorant and confident she became, trying to humiliate her opponents

[@rlyehslament9064]

Does anyone know why Leela does this underpromotion thing? Isn't it pretty much always mathematically correct and stupid not to bring a queen in? Would you really rather a knight than a queen? Wouldn't a queen checkmate faster in pretty much every case?

[@russellfroggatt]

A good example of Leela's sacrificial style.

[@trickytrock8924]

Were can I watch the games?

[@AgentSmith911]

Google search "CCCC chess tournament"

[@frankrodriguez6851]

I dont know why you call it underpromotion. A pawn that becomes a knight is always promotion.

[@tomyman]

6:04 "their neural networks"? nirvana is a traditional engine...

[@brabhamfreaman166]

So he misspoke? Delete the word “neural” or find someone more knowledgeable than I to argue that the generation-type 'ply' can make a traditional engine's processes somehow meet the definition of some form of neural network? Can ya sleep now? 😩

[@RT-eh3uu]

If you know anything about Mr. Rensch: he probably wasn't being serious when he said that. But if you're qualified, I do think Chess.com is looking to hire "Director of Cognitive Neuroscience" who will work directly with their Director of Content! They're hoping to create ways for players to move the pieces with their mind.

[@mattbeckwith]

What about b4 stead of f4?

[@anvb5a1]

Leela and Tal would have been good friends!

[@maleclukas]

I wondered how Komodo changed his strength suddenly. It's almost half of tournament, haha

[@realbeetlejuice]

chess.com, we need the Karjakin speedchess video up!!!!!!!!!!

[@DarkSkay]

I'd play f4 almost instantly in a blitz game, because it is principled and leads to the most interesting position. Considering the closed and sharp nature of the postion, and that the Bd3 is currently doing more work, than both (!) black rooks... easiest exchange sac of all times. You'd have to glue the f-pawn to the chessboard, to stop the itch ;)

[@B3Band]

14:58 Didn't know it was that kind of party!

[@axelhoward1399]

I wanto see a Magnus vs Lc0 game.

[@wiadroman]

"Stop playing with your food Leela" :-D

[@morumaster1301]

This is stockfish right?

[@keithr1769]

Great job, fascinating how engines are using human developed chess theory and not creating their own.

[@krzysztofq7420]

stockfish 9 on lichess found f4 within few seconds.. i gave it 1GB ram

[@RodMacNevin]

Ssh. Don't use the S-word. here. They have a business deal with Komodo.

[@krzysztofq7420]

14:43 but for this move (bh6) it took stockfish 40 seconds to call it as best.

[@RodMacNevin]

Danny, Komodo is not the strongest commercially available chess engine. Stockfish is, and I think you know that.

[@ElaineAlt]

what is "underpromotion"?

[@notanurag6176]

Elaine Alt when you don’t promote to a queen and instead choose Knight, Bishop, etc

[@ElaineAlt]

@@notanurag6176 thanks

[@limitedinfinity5095]

Naaaah suren already covered this

[@moazph]

I lose in chess every time in the Endgame if I have a queen and two rooks and likewise my opponent.

[@emadkhayat7158]

You are awesome pro

[@allyc1965]

Why refer to Nirvana as she all the time?

[@BrokenG-String]

Marry me Leela

[@mohsendoraghi8164]

We create these chess engines to calculate these variations for us so we can use our time instead to go to the beach and get laid.

[@jimmyfoley4634]

Gotta love exf8=N!?

[@ralphinoful]

It honestly looks like the under-promotion is a flaw in machine learning. Extremely rare things in machine learning could have big consequences. The way the machine works in an extremely crude sense is, it plays the same game over and over again, making small changes. Promoting a pawn is rare in a game of chess, and the first couple of times it's happened, it could have been advantageous to under-promote. In which case, it would skew the other games and have them under-promote as well. But since promoting in general is so great, even if you do promote, under-promoting might be enough to put the nail in the coffin. So honestly, I think that the under-promotions are not accurate, and eventually after more games are played, they will go away.

[@JB940]

Leela doesn't have the notion of quick or slow winning, if she's certain both moves are winning, she basically doesn't care. That's why she sometimes underpromotes. But in the current position, it's actually accurately the best move. Even stockfish gives it best rating after a while. The idea being, that black should always capture the promoted piece. Rook and queen force this with check. If you promote to knight and black doesn't take (as seen here) the quickest mate is 4 moves earlier according to SF.

[@ralphinoful]

I'm 99.99% sure that winning fast is embedded in the fitness function. In fact, there's a variable in the source code ( github.com/glinscott/leela-chess/blob/master/lc0/src/engine.cc ), total_moves_time and movestogo. Keeping track of the total moves, and the moves until the 50 move mark. The person coding it would give Leela an incentive to end the game before the time runs out, which would make Leela incentived to play in the least amount of moves possible, to cut down on calculation time.

[@JB940]

@@ralphinoful true, but for Leela test 10 (10xxxx) 50 move plane was empty. So Leela did not care unless it saw the impending draw

[@gJonii]

"So honestly, I think that the under-promotions are not accurate, and eventually after more games are played, they will go away. " More than that, afaik it's a bug where Neural Network is asked to tell what type of promotion it wants to make, and then the actual promotion will be different, throwing off the learning because it learns wrong promotion commands to be used. So it wants a certain type of piece when promoting but gets a different one, but since it's just a neural net, it doesn't know how to complain, it just plays with it.

[@d0wnl0ad]

I believe it's under promoting to decrease the likelihood of a stalemate

[@geladaizlabon3605]

fawn pawn!!!!

[@D1G1TALFOX]

Thanks . . . 🦊 😎

[@AdityaSharma001]

Awesome man!! #Cheetah

[@rabaromar4100]

Game 45 watched ❤

[@evgenys177]

AWESOME.

[@Durian_Defense]

Why did Leela underpromote to Knight? Since when did AI engines start playing with their food/prey? Engines don't have dry sense of humour, do they?

[@DrVonHugenstein]

I had a similar problem with a NN solving a different problem, basically once it realised it can loose the piece it might be assessing that lossing a knight is better than losing a queen, since it doesn't evaluate in the usual minmax way

[@kylen6430]

Max Dooley I don’t think this is the reason...that losing a Knight is better than loosing a queen...because we notice in this case the knight isn’t taken anyways.

[@markfrancis6508]

Isn't it nice to have a game of chess with a human, and have a joke and laugh, if you won or lose?

[@booni5114]

THAT BEARD IS DISGUSTING and I LOVE IT DANNY.

[@extollo]

speaking of initiative vs material -- here leela is down 2 rooks & a knight as black and it's a 0.00 position. white eventually misplays. wacky kzbin.info/www/bejne/nX67YoasYreMiZo

[@leonmozambique533]

I want to see lc0 play as black

[@SVP-uy9qb]

His mouth makes a weird noise

[@diwakarkoirala4879]

agadmator is a lot better than this.

[@KINGBOSS08-mmk]

First

[@devmarketing6965]

You are so boring man,pls generate some interest,keep on talking,pls be specific.