• Abolish Castling! Has Viktor Kramnik found the answer?

    From Quadibloc@21:1/5 to All on Fri Mar 12 16:57:56 2021
    Carlsen-Caruana... 12 draws in a row.
    Ever since Steinitz, Chess has not been as successful as a spectator sport as it was in the glory days of Labourdonnais and McDonnell or Anderssen and Kieseritzky.
    I have toyed with a number of suggestions to change that.
    But Vladimir Kramnik came up with a very simple idea - and had it tested
    out by Google's AlphaZero computer system: remove the privilege of Castling from the game of Chess.
    And it appeared that the desired result was obtained - exciting Chess play turned out to be the optimal strategy in that case.

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

    John Savard

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  • From William Hyde@21:1/5 to Quadibloc on Sat Mar 13 11:55:28 2021
    On Friday, March 12, 2021 at 7:57:58 PM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
    Carlsen-Caruana... 12 draws in a row.
    Ever since Steinitz, Chess has not been as successful as a spectator sport as it was in the glory days of Labourdonnais and McDonnell or Anderssen and Kieseritzky.
    I have toyed with a number of suggestions to change that.
    But Vladimir Kramnik came up with a very simple idea - and had it tested
    out by Google's AlphaZero computer system: remove the privilege of Castling from the game of Chess.
    And it appeared that the desired result was obtained - exciting Chess play turned out to be the optimal strategy in that case.

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

    He is just reviving an idea of Dr Lasker.

    William Hyde

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  • From The Horny Goat@21:1/5 to wthyde1953@gmail.com on Sat Mar 13 16:22:16 2021
    On Sat, 13 Mar 2021 11:55:28 -0800 (PST), William Hyde
    <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

    And it appeared that the desired result was obtained - exciting Chess play >> turned out to be the optimal strategy in that case.

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

    He is just reviving an idea of Dr Lasker.

    So we're all going to fianchetto our kings on g2 to get the rooks out?

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  • From Quadibloc@21:1/5 to William Hyde on Mon Mar 15 08:27:46 2021
    On Saturday, March 13, 2021 at 12:55:29 PM UTC-7, William Hyde wrote:

    He is just reviving an idea of Dr Lasker.

    Really?

    All I could find in a Google search was that Emanuel Lasker, in
    "Lasker's Manual of Chess", when describing the King's Fianchetto and
    King's Fianchetto openings (1. e4 g6 and 1. e4 b6 respectively) wrote:

    "Ancient Openings, presumably invented at a time before our rule of
    Castling was introduced, and when another form of Castling, a jump of
    the King over two squares was lawful. These were sane rules, and it
    would have been better if they had not been changed."

    This isn't quite the same thing as simply abolishing Castling completely.

    John Savard

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