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Comment by zwischenzug | Hacker News Reader

I smell a rat.

The paper says:

'AlphaZero achieved within 24 hours a superhuman level of play in the games of chess and shogi'

In the first game Stockfish's, 9. Qe1 is one of the strangest moves I've ever seen, which would never be considered by a human, let alone a superhuman.

11. Kh1 also makes little sense, but is not as bad. My Stockfish sees it as losing 0.2 pawns, which makes it highly suspect in such a position.

35. Nc4 is also a deeply puzzling move that my Stockfish sees as losing half a pawn immediately, and a whole pawn soon after.

50. g4 also suspect

52. e5 is insane.

This is bullshit.

Edit: bullshit is too much - see comments below.

Edit: Oh dear. We're doomed.

https://lichess.org/study/qiwMCyNQ

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The Stockfish engine provided by lichess on the game you linked doesn't seem to mind those moves - it has most of them in the top few lines after a few seconds of thinking time.

Qe1 and Kh1 are fine if the plan is to prepare f4.

35. Nc4 stuck around at the #2 / #3 best move for as long as I ran that position.

Remember the Stockfish in the paper had 64 cores so you'd have to run your Stockfish for a while to get it to arrive at the same principle variation.

Yeah that's right. I think this might say more about the efficacy of chess engines over a certain point vs human analysis rather than the 'bullshit' I called.

I'd certainly fancy my chances against this AI more than Stockfish on a lower power.

If I leave Stockfish to study for longer then Qe1 comes up in the analysis. Which makes me wonder whether SF gets weaker in some positions the more it's left to think.

Now I'm really intrigued.

SF plays really odd moves when left to its own devices for a time. As does this AI. So maybe chess looks really weird with play significantly better than the best humans.

It's actually really disturbing.

I think being able to play tactically perfect chess over 20 or so moves will often look weird to human strategic sensibilities. The computer sees every tiny exception to the patterns and heuristics you've incorporated into your gut feel about positions. In a way these moves are right just because they're right, and that's what's jarring - there's no _principle_ behind them that can be learned and generalised, which is something humans struggle with in all walks of life.

Yeah. I'm stunned.

Except AlphaZero doesn't evaluate nearly as many moves as Stockfish (80Knps vs 70Mnps), so in a sense, it has exactly generalized a principle (or likely a whole lot of principles) that allows it to estimate positions much better than Stockfish.

Of course you are right about perfect play, but the human-like aspect is part of what is exciting about these new Alpha engines.

There's definitely nothing fishy going on, although it'd be nice to see a fully loaded Stockfish on its full complement of 512 cores and a proper endgame tablebase to really slog it out with AlphaZero.

Back to zero at 41 ply... I shan't give a running commentary anymore.

It's fascinating isn't it? I'd love to see this vs Magnus.

Pretty sure I input the moves wrong now I'm looking at it. Humans really have no place in chess. :P

> which would never be considered by ... a superhuman

How would you know?

Ask any GM.

How would a GM (human) know what would be played by a superhuman?

I don’t see it in my database, and it’s never been played on Lichess, even in bullet games.

Which, of course, is not evidence that a superhuman wouldn't consider such a move. AlphaGo also made unusual moves that looked like mistakes, but turned out to be insights.

Apologies, misread the parent comment!

The edits on this comment make it the second best HN comment of all time.

What's the first?

The "Did you win the Putnam?" comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079

The whole thread is pretty hilarious. In another part of the same thread there is this comment:

we're in a similar space -- http://www.getdropbox.com (and part of the yc summer 07 program) basically, sync and backup done right (but for windows and os x). i had the same frustrations as you with existing solutions.

let me know if it's something you're interested in, or if you want to chat about it sometime.

drew (at getdropbox.com)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35103

hmm...13.Nce5 looks like the move no strong human would play, and I suspect even engines after going sufficiently deep wouldn't choose it (I haven't checked it though).

My perspective as FIDE master who has played Ruy Lopez Exchange type of positions for 30+ years.

9. Qe1 is a pretty normal maneuvering move

13. Ncxe5??! looks like a major howler.

Ask 100 strong chess players and 99 of them would completely ignore it. You are giving up a piece for two pawns in an open position and black has no real weaknesses. There is no real basis for a sacrifice.

This shouldn't work. The crazy thing is that Stockfish almost makes it work.

It is the kind of move you play when you absolutely must win and must win now.

The only reason Stockfish considered it is because of white pawn on a5 giving additional tactics in breaking up black pawn chain with a6 a couple of moves down. With pawn on a4 Ncxe5 wouldnt be worth attempting.

The crazy thing is that being such a bully almost worked!

At move 28. White looks very solid, with 3 perfect pawns for the piece + black has horrible weaknesses. 29. g3 is a bit suspect but the next super computer move is

31. Qxc7 this has to be losing but it is a typical computer bully move.

Most strong human players would prefer to defend h3 hole with Kg2 (on Qh5 f5 looks fine).

The idea is that black's white square bishop is boxed in with white pawns.

There must be a concrete reason why Stockfish did not play Kg2.

Overall the impression one gets is of very "human" play by Alpha and ultra aggressive play by Stockfish.

EDIT: so extremely impressive play by Alpha but a bit suspicious aggression by Stockfish.

Thanks for the analysis

> It is the kind of move you play when you absolutely must win and must win now.

I agree Ncxe5 looks crazy, but the weirder thing to me is that Stockfish offers a repetition the very next move. So it can't be caused by having high contempt (favouring wins over draws).

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