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Comment by gwd | Hacker News Reader

The idea is incredibly simple. Basically: Don't allow castling. And the claim is that if you don't allow castling, it's basically impossible to set up a "drawish" defense. You have to attack or die.

In fact, it's so simple that it's sort of hard to believe. They've done tons of analysis with a retrained-from-the-ground-up AlphaZero and are convinced of it, so I definitely think it's worth a try, and look forward to see its effect.

If it does turn out to be true, it will be kind of amazing how one simple rule tweak affected the highest level of Chess play.

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The first no-castling match has already taken place earlier this month as part of the London Chess Classic

https://www.londonchessclassic.com/press/lcc19_pr5.htm

The current castling rule was an innovation of the Italians when the game was brought in from India. It, along with pawns moving two squares on their first move, ushered in the Italian School of Chess, known for its slashing attacks, sparkling sacrifices and all out aggression.

However, the Indian form of the game did have something like castling, the king could move from its start square to g2, where a fianchetto'ed bishop would normally sit.

>known for its slashing attacks, sparkling sacrifices and all out aggression

Interestingly this goes against the entire point of the article, that castling results in defensive play which results in draws.

They haven't rethought chess though. They've merely invented a game called chess' and the suggestion that it opens up "new possibilities" is because it's a new game. Of course every micro-variant of chess is going to open up new vistas, the challenge is this, is it better (how do we define better?) than the original chess? I think they're confusing novelty for the qualities their seeking.

The better chess has already been invented and it's called go. And the top human player of that has called it a day in the face of machine learning advancements (wrongly I think). Also I think go is a much more obvious and flexible game to tweak, if you so wanted.

How would you tweak Go?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_variants#Sunjang_Baduk

Very entertaining variant with a proud history. None of the usual defensive corner forms work.

> Of course every micro-variant of chess is going to open up new vistas, the challenge is this, is it better (how do we define better?) than the original chess?

They talk about that specifically. The claim is that at the moment, one grandmaster, unilaterally, can play in such a way as the result will be an inconclusive draw with a very high probability. I say "unilaterally" because even if the other grandmaster they're playing wants a higher-risk-higher-reward game, they can't force the game that way. Such games certainly require a lot of skill, but they're very boring to play and to watch.

"Better" in this case means more entertaining; and specifically, the claim is that with the king in the center, it's not possible to "bunker down" and play a very static, defensive version of chess.

It is not however, a completely new game. All the skills regarding pins, forced sacrifices, open files, and so on still hold. It's the same as if both players been forced early in the game to not be able to castle: the basic game is the same, but certain "boring" states are hard to get to.

I do agree that the whole thing about opening book seems a bit overblown to me: obviously getting rid of castling means you have to mostly throw out the current "book"; but surely a new one will be written.

I'd always thought another way to make tournaments more interesting would be to take a page from wrestling. In wrestling matches, each player takes a turn starting from a disadvantaged position, where it should be easier for the other person to pin them. They get points if they manage to break out of the position while avoiding the pin. Having some games start "in the middle" after an early "blunder" by one side would make things more interesting as well.

> "Better" in this case means more entertaining; and specifically, the claim is that with the king in the center, it's not possible to "bunker down" and play a very static, defensive version of chess.

> I do agree that the whole thing about opening book seems a bit overblown to me: obviously getting rid of castling means you have to mostly throw out the current "book"; but surely a new one will be written.

This is my point. I wasn't denigrating the effort to make chess more entertaining. I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment.

I'm really not trying to troll you by suggesting that a more entertaining variant of chess is go. I mean, if we have to stick with the current set of pieces and how they move then I think that Fischer Random (Chess960) or something like it is the obvious improvement to go for. NoCastlingChess to me is a strange route to go down. Of course novelty makes an old form less jaded but that I'm not convinced it's intrinsically more entertaining – if it were shouldn't we ditch boring old chess?

> I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment

Is your position that disallowing castling does not lead to less king safety and thus less draws, more mating attacks, piece sacs and complex tactical games? Or is it that you think these things do not contribute to more entertaining games?

What I'm arguing is that disallowing castling totally changes the opening book and that a lot of the supposed increased "entertainment" being felt by Kramnik is the delight in having an a plethora of opening lines to explore (opening lines having long being exhausted by humans and machines in trad. chess). The fact that it leads to games which are more exciting because the king is more exposed is a small bonus – notice most of the article talks about all the changes you have to make to opening theory owing to the fact that you can't castle.

My argument is that Kramnik is not recognising that most of the entertainment value comes from the fact that this is a new game (granted that it is an existing game tweaked), not that it forces more aggressive less draw-y games.

Which is why I suggested, either go for a lot more novelty and combinatorial complexity within the game (Fischer960) or drastically overhaul the game (but in my opinion that has been done, and the game is called go).

You can disagree with my opinion but it's not as if I'm not understanding what being said to me, it's just that I disagree with what's being said to me.

> I'm arguing that they haven't made a more entertaining version, they're confusing novelty with entertainment.

Well I'm afraid you're missing the main point of the change; but since I've said it twice now (and you've actually quoted me once), I'm not sure how to explain it any better. It's not primarily change for change sake; but rather, the entire class of possible games changes from "safe, boring, and almost always a draw" into "dangerous, dynamic, and someone almost always wins". At least, that's what I understood from the article.

EDIT: As an example, consider the shot clock in basketball [1]. From Wikipedia:

> The NBA had problems attracting fans (and positive media coverage) before the shot clock's inception. Teams in the lead were running out the clock, passing the ball incessantly. The trailing team could do nothing but commit fouls to recover possession following the free throw. Frequent low-scoring games with many fouls bored fans.

The introduction of the shot clock in basketball wasn't simply change for change sake; it forced teams to actually have a more active, interesting game.

Kramnik is claiming that the same thing has happened now to professional chess: the vast majority of games are boring draws. And he furthermore claims that when they trained AlphaZero from scratch without castling, the games were in fact much more dynamic and more interesting, not just different.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_clock

The 99% Invisible podcast did an interesting episode[1] on an even smaller rule change with large ramifications: the back-pass rule. The goalkeeper can no longer hold the ball if it was passed by a teammate. That meant that they had to learn stronger footwork and ended the time-wasting that they could do once their team was ahead. It keeps the game moving and forces everybody to do without the breaks that back-passes used to create regularly.

[1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unsure-footing/

I promise you I'm not – if I may copy my reply to a sibling comment of yours:

“What I'm arguing is that disallowing castling totally changes the opening book and that a lot of the supposed increased "entertainment" being felt by Kramnik is the delight in having an a plethora of opening lines to explore (opening lines having long being exhausted by humans and machines in trad. chess). The fact that it leads to games which are more exciting because the king is more exposed is a small bonus – notice most of the article talks about all the changes you have to make to opening theory owing to the fact that you can't castle.

You can disagree with my opinion but it's not as if I'm not understanding what being said to me, it's just that I disagree with what's being said to me.”

F.T.A.

> The win/loss percentages for both White and Black are similar to classical chess

So just as many draws?

> suggesting that the no-castling variant should be quite playable without favoring a particular player. Preventing the king from retreating to a safe distance means that

Ok, so the game isn't broken

> all of the pieces have to engage in the melee, making the play more dynamic and entertaining, with a number of original patterns.

I'm saying that it is the original patterns where Kramnik is getting most of the dopamine boost from

---

Does that clear things up?

> > The win/loss percentages for both White and Black are similar to classical chess

> So just as many draws?

Right, we interpret that differently. He said "win/loss" ratio, not "win/loss/draw" ratio. It's possible your interpretation is correct, but I think the full sentence favors my interpretation:

> suggesting that the no-castling variant should be quite playable without favoring a particular player.

The question he's trying to answer is, "Does a lack of castling make it harder for Black (or White) to win?" And the answer is, "No; Black and White still win about the same percentage of the time, so removing castling will not suddenly make it harder for Black (or white) to win." The draw ratio isn't important to answering the question, and isn't mentioned, so I assume he wasn't saying that the draw ratio was the same.

> I'm saying that it is the original patterns where Kramnik is getting most of the dopamine boost from

That's possible, but it doesn't necessarily follow, even if your interpretation about the draw percentage is true. A draw after a dynamic and unpredicatable battle down to a pair of kings is a lot more interesting than a draw after a "trench battle" of small moves.

But in any case, time will tell. :-)

Look, no worries. A straight-forward interpretation of the article favours your reading of it for sure.

I know it's bad form around here to complain about downvoting but god damn I'd like to know why I got downvoted so much for the opinions I expressed :(

Oh well, must try harder to be more articulate.

I do appreciate you trying to clarify your position.

I don't have a huge amount of experience here, but people seem to value 1) politeness and 2) correct information.

I haven't talked to the people who downvoted you obviously (and in case you didn't know, you can't downvote a direct reply, so it wasn't me). But to me the first reply sort of came off as, "chess sux0rz, just play go". Go is of course a very nice game, but it's very different than chess; seeming to show disdain for all the people who like to play chess and watch chess played fails somewhat on the "politeness" front.

The second reply didn't really articulate well your position, so seemed to be just "repeating the mistake" from the first post, and so failed (it seemed) on the "correctness" front.

I think if your first reply had been more like the previous reply in this thread -- asking whether there actually were fewer draws, and whether the gameplay was actually more "dynamic" or was simply "different" -- or perhaps adding in your take on games played that way; say from the recent exhibition in London, or from analyses of AlphaZero games played under these rules (e.g. [1]) -- it would have been seen more as a contribution than a detraction.

That's my guess anyway. :-)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqmLYlFdBo

>I do agree that the whole thing about opening book seems a bit overblown to me: obviously getting rid of castling means you have to mostly throw out the current "book"; but surely a new one will be written.

That's what I thought too.

Kramnik said "For example, the openings seem to be more complicated in the AlphaZero no-castling games,"

Assuming it is more complicated, I wonder what that means in terms of the number of openings someone will have to learn? I'm going to take a wild guess and say there will be more than standard chess.

If it takes off, I guess time will tell what effect it has on the game after everyone memorises the main lines and variations.

Chess and Go have completely different feels. They're both abstract representations of combat, but the combat is in no way similar.

Chess feels kind of like a sniper duel. You have two high value pieces (the kings), and the rest form a kind of terrain for them to fight in (although the kings don't literally attack each other). It's all about careful maneuvering so you can take a clear shot at the enemy king. Victory depends on high pressure calculation, with no room for the slightest error. Knowing the terrain in advance (memorizing openings) gives you a big advantage.

Go feels more like a huge bar fight between two criminal gangs. It starts off with just posturing, but the participants move into position and prepare, and eventually the violence breaks out and you get multiple fights. Sometimes fights merge together into a big chaotic brawl. The winner is determined by calculating which side got the best of it after it's all over, and both preparation and fighting skills matter.

thank you for your very figurative analogues, they are fitting quite well imo.

The point you make about chess about having "no room for the slightest error" is also why I never liked it as much as Go (as most westerners, i grew up with chess but then learned Go as adolescent): In Go you are baffled by genius strokes, in chess you are baffled by idiotic strokes (funnily, in both cases it doesn't really matter if it comes from your enemy or yourself). At least that's what my impression is. Opinions may differ :)

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