From a chess programming perspective, your post definitely makes a lot of sense. If we do indeed want to "beat" computers, we'll have to expand the board size of chess, most likely (and add a couple of pieces, too). But then again, why do we care so much about "beating" computers? I mean, for all intents and purposes, chess computers have already put us in almost the exact same situation that would happen had they "solved" the game.
Mr. Stockfish, Mrs. Komodo, and baby Houdini can all crush Carlsen without any problems, so what difference does it make to our game if it's 2800+ vs. 3100+ or 2800+ vs. 10000+?
Computers are already too strong, but that doesn't mean human players can't enjoy the game!
So I read with interest Carlsen's visit to the MIPT a month ago, and while I've been meaning to call out a comment he made there, I was otherwise distracted (read: coding and debugging my admittedly very primitive chess engine) in the past month to do it. Anyway, you can read up the interview he gave there on Chessbase, I cannot post a link here, but search for 'Carlsen MIT Moscow' and it should be the first hit.
The offending comment was this: 'Maybe at some point the rules will have to change in chess because the computers know too much. I think the most obvious solution is the question of stalemate. I think if you change stalemate from a draw to a win for the attacking part [sic] the game will be completely different and harder, perhaps, to work out.'
Say what? To me this 'solution' is anything but 'obvious'. Am I missing something? There are a couple of reasons why I do not understand this statement:
1. In Chinese Chess, where a stalemate is a loss for the stalemated player, computers defeated grandmasters back in 2006. Incidentally, in Chinese chess, perpetual checks/perpetual threats (incessantly attacking an opponent's piece, causing a position to be repeated) are also losses for the checking/threatening side. Chinese chess actually has a slightly greater game-tree complexity than chess with an average branching factor of 38 as opposed to 35 in chess. There are fewer than 30 grandmasters out of perhaps more than 100 million Chinese chess players.
2. I should imagine that the proposed rule change would likely most affect the endgame – KP versus K only will always be a win, for example. Queen versus Pawn on seventh rank, KNN versus K also come to mind. Right, so the evaluations of these will have to be changed. However, most strong chess programs rely on pre-computed tablebases (or bitbases). After those are re-computed, the rule change will have zero impact on the strength of computers in these elementary endgames. Elsewhere, say in the middlegame, the main change that will have to be implemented would be something along these lines:
Instead of
if (position.isStalemate())
score_eval = 0;
let’s have
if (position.isStalemate())
score_eval = SCORE_CHECKMATE – depth;
Clearly, some adjustments will have to be made for the evaluation of endgames (and for the transitions into those), but will these significantly affect the strength of computers? Furthermore, what is stopping these new evaluation functions from becoming just as effective as the ones we currently have?
Far from reducing the strength of top engines, I believe the actual effect may be quite the opposite. Firstly, top engines will be able to score ‘extra’ wins whereas previously they would have been held to draws. Secondly, chess players used to the traditional rule-set (where stalemate is a draw) may have more trouble adjusting to the new rules than the computers.
Now I am no expert on computer chess, but is Carlsen’s remark just, well...wide of the mark? Then again, he is the world chess champion (and I’m just your regular woodpusher), so maybe he has some insight that I don’t? What does the Chess.com community think?