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A Data-Driven Exploration of the Evolution of Chess
HughPickens.com writes Randy Olsen has a interesting article where he explores a data set of over 650,000 chess tournament games ranging back to the 15th century and looks at how chess has changed over time. His findings include:
Chess games are getting longer. Chess games have been getting steadily longer since 1970, increasing from 75 ply (37 moves) per game in 1970 to a whopping 85 ply (42 moves) per game in 2014. "This trend could possibly be telling us that defensive play is becoming more common in chess nowaday," writes Olsen. "Even the world's current best chess player, Magnus Carlsen, was forced to adopt a more defensive play style (instead of his traditional aggressive style) to compete with the world's elite."
The first-move advantage has always existed. White consistently wins 56% and Black only 44% of the games every year between 1850 and 2014 and the first-move advantage becomes more pronounced the more skilled the chess players are. "Despite 150+ years of revolutions and refinement of chess, the first-move advantage has effectively remained untouched. The only way around it is to make sure that competitors play an even number of games as White and Black."
Draws are much more common nowadays. Only 1 in 10 games ended in a draw in 1850, whereas 1 in 3 games ended in a draw in 2013. "Since the early 20th century, chess experts have feared that the over-analysis of chess will lead "draw death," where experts will become so skilled at chess that it will be impossible to decisively win a game any more." Interestingly chess prodigy and world champion Jose Raul Capablanca said in the 1920's that he believed chess would be exhausted in the near future and that games between masters would always end in draws. Capablanca proposed a more complex variant of chess to help prevent "draw death," but it never really seemed to catch on.
Chess games are getting longer. Chess games have been getting steadily longer since 1970, increasing from 75 ply (37 moves) per game in 1970 to a whopping 85 ply (42 moves) per game in 2014. "This trend could possibly be telling us that defensive play is becoming more common in chess nowaday," writes Olsen. "Even the world's current best chess player, Magnus Carlsen, was forced to adopt a more defensive play style (instead of his traditional aggressive style) to compete with the world's elite."
The first-move advantage has always existed. White consistently wins 56% and Black only 44% of the games every year between 1850 and 2014 and the first-move advantage becomes more pronounced the more skilled the chess players are. "Despite 150+ years of revolutions and refinement of chess, the first-move advantage has effectively remained untouched. The only way around it is to make sure that competitors play an even number of games as White and Black."
Draws are much more common nowadays. Only 1 in 10 games ended in a draw in 1850, whereas 1 in 3 games ended in a draw in 2013. "Since the early 20th century, chess experts have feared that the over-analysis of chess will lead "draw death," where experts will become so skilled at chess that it will be impossible to decisively win a game any more." Interestingly chess prodigy and world champion Jose Raul Capablanca said in the 1920's that he believed chess would be exhausted in the near future and that games between masters would always end in draws. Capablanca proposed a more complex variant of chess to help prevent "draw death," but it never really seemed to catch on.
first post.
... a poorly designed game if you are trying to make the game deep enough so that it cannot be easily mathematically or theoretically analysed.
We evolve as chess players from enthusiastic amateurs who leverage our native skills to hard core analysts with a library of books on chess strategy. At what point does the game cease to be fun and become an obsession?
...omphaloskepsis often...
Dude, _you_ searched for it. Now the algorithm gonna show you ads for it until you reset your browser.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
. .
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God dammit... alright I'll give you credit for actually getting me with that one you motherfucker...
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Is there a noscript way to remove any stories by this guy? I'll read his blog if I end up wanting to hear more from him.
Unless mechanics prevent them by some hard method any sufficiently analyzable game will inevitably result in nothing but draws between two sufficiently skilled players. There will be variation on an individual level of course, nobody plays at the top of their game all the time, but as a whole the larger trend will be towards universal stalemates. Only games where mechanics do not permit stalemates by optimal play will avoid this.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
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More defensive and more draws. Sounds like chess is getting boring.
2D chess is for old people in backwater shitholes like North Korea.
Draws are much more common nowadays, because in 1850 there was no ELO system and competitors were more likely at different levels. Nowadays, in official competitions a lot of games have people with similar ELO playing together, increasing drastically the odds of a draw.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Not only is chess inherently racist it is also sexist and dangerously violent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I actually had to read the article to figure this out. The statement that White wins 56% and Black 44% is for games in which a non-draw decision is reached (per the actual article). But with 10% to 33% draws, the actual difference in score is definitely lower. Conventional scoring is 1 for a win and 0.5 each for a draw.
So White does have a persistent advantage, but the spread is lower than 8% going by score. And I think you have to go by score, that's what counts in tournament play.
Let's say over the time period in question there are 20% draws (just for the sake of calculation). Out of 1000 games there are 200 draws. White wins 56% of 800 or 448, so Black wins 352. White scores 548, Black 452, or 54.8% to 45.2%. Still a clear White advantage, but somewhat less, and lesser still as we approach the modern 33% drawn.
I had a chess computer, maybe a Kasparov 1985 16K. It had a 'behavioral' error. It would allow it's side to "castle" when the king was in check, a violation of the rules. It would enforce the rule and not allow "your" side to do that.
As evidence that the programming in chess computer games has been recycled, I have seen that same error happening in a few other chess games on computers, including a mid-2000 'oughts' computer chess by Ubisoft. Check Wikipedia Chessmaster, which only mentions games after 1988.
Hmmm...
First, for someone who has been playing chess competitively for the last twenty years, none of the results of the analysis is a revelation. Like so many "data" posts that seem to be in vogue, this one states quite the obvious viz the game of chess has evolved and has improved in quality. Hence opening colour matters, games are longer and many end in draws. DUH! As a secondary point, the OP makes a big show of the "steady increase" increase in length of game from the 1970s. On closer inspection, what is implied is that the average game has gone from 37 moves to 42 moves. For a chess player, that increase is hardly significant and can be attributed more as a result of prevailing opening theory and chess playing style than reflective of anything else. A clear case of data-blindness.
is chess inherently racist
And what about when a Black man is offered to play first with the whites against a White man who has the blacks?
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When did 'data driven' become a buzzword? And why is it a thing? Shouldn't every news article be data driven to some degree?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The study does not mention what games it used (top level, or all levels) or what time control used. There are far more quick games recorded today than earler.
The study completely ignores the fact that time controls have undergone changes.
Back in the 40s and 50s players were given 2.5h per 30 moves (5 mins per move). In the 80s and 90s the standard was 2h for the first 40 moves and thereafter 1h extra for each 20 moves (3 mins per move). Today FIDE is pushing for faster and faster games. 90 minutes per games and 30s increment per move is the standard (in practice this is much quicker chess than 40 moves in 2h). Games getting quicker means more errors. Whether this is any factor i don't know, but something the study should address.
Otherwise known to the rest of us civilized folks as "next game".
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
depicts shit.
Sage.
White consistently wins 56% and Black only 44%
Que the SJW's in 3, 2, .... oh dang, someone's already done it.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
I propose getting rid of the First Move advantage by getting rid of turns entirely. Either side can move whenever they want, first come first serve. Should also take care of that trend of chess games taking longer.
It's actually worse!
Old stories were written with the story idea first, then data to back it up.
You can tell from this one that someone said "look! I have a bunch of data hanging around! Let's give it a driver's seat and make up a story to go with it!"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The first post meme began about a week after Slashdot started in the 90s. Ask anyone with a 5 digit uid.
It's the least amount of moves (duh) involves the Bishop and Queen, you can get away with it once per player - I figure nobody expects a fast game and doesn't see it coming. and the dumb founded look is priceless.
I don't like to play chess cause I might lose, but when forced into it and I have been; I always win. No brag just a fact. One person demanded a second chance and won that one as well. He was the "chess master" and beat everybody he played, I wouldn't play him and how I was forced into it.
I always liked the Shogi variant of chess. Other than a slightly larger board (9x9), and a few more pieces (20), you also have unit promotions, and deployment of captured pieces. The deployment of captured pieces especially keeps the late game from becoming simplified.
We used to play a version of chess whereby the purpose was to lose the game. You played in reverse where you were trying to get yourself to lose your king. The wrinkle on playing is that you have to have the rule that if a piece CAN be captured during a players turn then the piece MUST be captured. If there is more than one option to capture the player being forced to capture has choice unless the King is one of the options. (can be played King capture optional too) If your King is captured, you win (by losing).
It's kind of an interesting mental exercise to play this way because it makes you think about the game very differently.
I propose increasing the number of squares to double or quadruple to drastically reduce the number of draws and discourage opening 'book knowledge' over pure brainpower. As a side effect, we may even bew able to beat the top computers gain. I wrote about such a topic on Reddit here: http://www.reddit.com/r/chess/...
Go has various board sizes. Why not chess?
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
The chess board seems very confined. All the same moves and plays have been performed hundreds of thousands of times over.
I'd take Feudal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal_%28game%29 over Chess almost anyday.
It has a couple setup scenarios where you have to house rule (no archers in the castle for instance) but other than that, an awesome game with more variety than chess, but still along the same lines.
Chess is a huge jumbled mess of completely arbitrary rules and pieces. Play Go instead, where the ruleset is tiny, the gameplay rich and beautiful and draws are astronomically rare.
I have to wonder if you'd reach the same conclusion if you used this sort of analysis to examine court battles, elections, political conflicts, education, engineering, weather prediction models, etc.
A side effect of expanding knowledge density in a particular field. Everyone has access to information that predicts outcomes in ever-increasing levels of resolution.
Fun story to read.
This posting made me think of it.
Every time I play against myself I end in a draw. That obviously imply that I'm a master.
Play Go then. Black moves first.
Happy people make bad consumers.
There are about 300k games played per week just on FICS. There are a few hundred USCF games played each week just in Louisville KY (where I play). I would imagine if you managed to pull from all of the sources, 600k wouldn't even amount to a day's worth of games.
The set the author used suffers greatly from selection bias. Games are usually only included in commercial databases because they're interesting, or were played by interesting people. So I'm not sure anything interesting can be drawn from his results.
Also, there needs to be some control put in place to account for rating differences. The Eli system isn't that old, and in the past players with drastically different levels of skill were more likely to play each other.
"Despite 150+ years of revolutions and refinement of chess, the first-move advantage has effectively remained untouched. The only way around it is to make sure that competitors play an even number of games as White and Black."
Or you just adjust the komi...
Yavoch.com.
3-D chess, poker and dice rolled into one.
Fun game, haven't had a draw yet. Sometimes my daughter even wins.