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A Data-Driven Exploration of the Evolution of Chess 109

Posted by samzenpus from the what-does-the-horse-do-again? dept.
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.
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A Data-Driven Exploration of the Evolution of Chess More

A Data-Driven Exploration of the Evolution of Chess

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  • checkmate (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    first post.

    • shouldnt that be last post?

  • fun or obsession? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by swell ( 195815 ) <jabberwock@poetic.com> on Friday April 10, 2015 @12:53AM (#49444267)

    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?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PRMan ( 959735 )

      It ceased to be fun for me about the 2-3 time I played it.

      Give me Scrabble!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Long ago I gave up this game for this very reason. In most games at certain skill level it becomes more about who makes a mistake vs who adopts or invents a better strategy, as all optimal strategies become known. At this level games cease to be fun for me. When a game is so over analyzed that it becomes clear "You must do X or you will lose" it is just not fun. You become forced to play a certain way.

      • as all optimal strategies become known.

        Either you're a grandmaster, or you're a long way away from achieving this. I assume that it's the latter, but please forgive me if it's the former.

        • I think he means "known" in the sense of "documented in the literature". Chess becomes boring when improvement just means looking up another strategy in a book, and when your opponent can beat you not through being more intelligent or creative or practiced than you, but just because he's spent more time reading than you.

      • To some people, obsessions are fun.

        I was going to make a serious statement about coding and people on Slashdot here, but instead, I think I'll just say "there's fan fiction" and leave it at that.

      • You should try world of warcraft hardcore raiding, it is nothing like that.

    • If you are the type that enjoys hard core analysis and reading strategy books, then I suspect you would enjoy high-level chess.

      As for myself, I wish I could analyze 10 moves deep and keep all the branches of the tree straight. That would make me feel cool. I would be cool.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kipsate ( 314423 )
      Yes, perhaps the chess game should be started with the first row in random order. So we can at least ditch the opening theories.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        That exists but is only moderately poplular:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960

      • I dont know about you, but I always play with the second row in a random order.

    • At what point does the game cease to be fun and become an obsession?

      Why do you presume the two are mutually incompatible? (Other than the negative stereotyping of obsession.)

      I'm accumulating a library of haiku books, translations, commentaries, etc... but that doesn't mean that writing them has become less fun. On the contrary, the deeper I delve, the more fun I'm finding.

  • A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

  • 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.

    • Re:This isn't even a problem unique to chess. (Score:4, Funny)

      by wwphx ( 225607 ) on Friday April 10, 2015 @08:38AM (#49445447) Homepage
      I used to help direct tournaments, including the US Chess Championship. The number of draws is pretty amazing, and part of it is the level of competition. They get material reduced to a certain point and position, realize that neither player is likely to make a catastrophic mistake, and offer a draw. I watched Josh Waitzkin and Boris Gulko battle it out to a closed position where they had lots of movement available, but neither could get a decisive advantage without a blunder, and that just wasn't going to happen. They drew, then went back to the break room to replay the game and see if there was a way around it.

      And then there's a certain player who would offer a quick draw then go to the nearest casino to play poker, which he was quite good at and normally won more than the tournament would have produced. And still get his appearance fee for the tournament.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by mrzaph0d ( 25646 )
      i play "words with friends" with a guy from work, we usually have two or three games going at once. at the start, i'd played for awhile before he started playing. i trounced him. after awhile, he picked up on most of the words, and we were almost even in wins. later, as we each developed new (to us) tricks and strategies, we would leapfrog ahead of the other. now, its really down to luck of the draw. we each use the same tricks and strategies, and its reflected when one of us has say a string of turns w
  • More defensive and more draws. Sounds like chess is getting boring.
  • 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.
  • Not only is chess inherently racist it is also sexist and dangerously violent.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Less than 56% for White, really (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chipschap ( 1444407 ) on Friday April 10, 2015 @02:21AM (#49444485)

    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.

  • Computer chess, program error (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you have ever written a chess playing program, or only a chess move validator, you would have seen how hard this very issue is. It is only slightly easier than checkmate & stalemate detection. The reason being, that you have to analyze the opponents' moves. So before you know, even when only validating, you are already recursing.

      Then there are plenty ambiguous situations, like, a piece that could attack the back row, but cannot do so because it would place its king in check. Your next iteration will

  • Banalities.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by romit_icarus ( 613431 ) on Friday April 10, 2015 @02:37AM (#49444521) Journal
    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.

    • 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!

      Like so many on Slashdot, you don't grasp the difference between "Duh, everyone knows that" and "proven by analysis of the available data".

    • As someone who has played little chess but quite a few war/board games, the article is unsurprising, too. At first glance, chess looks like an offense heavy game. In offense heavy games, aggressive moves, even aggressive moves from novices, often provoke errors from novices forced onto defense. But as the game is studied, how to build efficient defenses with implied counterattacks converts offensive potential into defensive potential. Not every game works out that way, but the ones we keep going back to

  • buzz word (Score:3)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday April 10, 2015 @02:47AM (#49444545) Journal
    When did 'data driven' become a buzzword? And why is it a thing? Shouldn't every news article be data driven to some degree?

    • 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!"

    • Eh, I gave up fighting that fight when I started reading and hearing people referencing "The Cloud" everywhere.

      We kinda had that, it's just that we weren't calling it that, and not a lot of people realized it was there.

    • When did 'data driven' become a buzzword? And why is it a thing? Shouldn't every news article be data driven to some degree?

      Bennett Hazelton articles are an obvious exception. Unfortunately.

  • White consistently wins 56% and Black only 44%

    Que the SJW's in 3, 2, .... oh dang, someone's already done it.

  • RTS Chess (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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 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.

    • 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.

      This just turns a draw game into an endless game. Since captured pieces are redeployed, there will be no "true" late game if both players are skilled enough and make no big mistakes.

      • It just takes a slight shift of power, or one small mistake, for one player to get momentum and end up with the majority of pieces.

        • Letting the opponent captures a piece without any tradeoff is a huge mistake, not small mistake. So I would say for top-notch players, it's rare for one side to have majority of pieces that easily.

          The unit promotion mechanism also makes no pieces really "weak". Unlike internatioal chess, pawns don't need to reach the bottom to upgrade. Walking 2/3 of the board will do.

  • 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 (b

  • 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/... [reddit.com]

    Go has various board sizes. Why not chess?

  • Fun story to read.
    This posting made me think of it.

  • 600k games is a very limited dataset (Score:4, Informative)

    by gmiller123456 ( 240000 ) on Friday April 10, 2015 @08:06PM (#49450621) Homepage

    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.

    • 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.

      Actually, the Eli System is pretty much all they had in the past. As in, "Hey Eli, match up the all these chess players, will ya?"

      Now Elo [wikipedia.org], on the other hand... :)

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