Komodo 9 odds matches against GMs

By Jesse Gersenson

‘Well-balanced mismatches’ are equally exciting in chess. Indeed, there is a long tradition in chess of giving odds: the stronger player being handicapped, so the weaker player has at least the ghost of a chance.

In the 19th century, Paul Morphy famously played many games while giving odds. The handicaps made the matches about equal and Morphy occasionally lost, though, being the best player in the world, he often won. Perhaps the triumph of his career was a match at knight odds against James Thompson, a leading US player of the time and founder of the New York City Chess Club, which Morphy “won decisively”. Indeed, after Morphy's triumphs in Europe he would only play odds matches!

Don Dailey, the late programmer of Komodo, won the 1993 ACM computer chess championship giving ‘CPU odds’ to the other machines – though not intentionally. His program, Socrates II, later rebranded Kasparov's Gambit, ran on a dinky Intel 486/50 MHz (Ed: this was pre-Pentiums even) and beat CrayBlitz which ran on a much more powerful Cray supercomputer.

Don Dailey, the late programmer of Komodo, in 1993

Previously, player strengths were measured not by the Elo system but, like modern-day golf, by a system ranking players according to the handicap they would need against the strongest players. Perhaps because of the use of Elo, in the modern era most chess players have forgotten the fun (and art) of making an uneven fight more balanced with the help of a handicap. But the strongest players haven't forgotten. Carlsen has given blindfold simuls, Kasparov has played clock simuls against entire national teams (and slaughtered them) and also gave two-pawn odds to FM Terry Chapman. Now Komodo, the top-rated chess engine, is playing a series of Man vs. Machine odds matches against GMs in Prague.

The first of these historic (yet state-of-the-art) 6-game matches was played August 4th–5th, 2015 against GM Petr Neuman (2464). Neuman faced Komodo with the engine giving two-pawn odds (pawns on c2 and f2 removed) for five games and one final game at pawn-and-move odds (f7 removed). The tempo was 45 minutes plus 15 seconds per move.

GM Petr Neuman

The first two games were exciting draws, including a jaw-dropping piece sacrifice in Game one:

Komodo is still struggling with its initial two-pawn deficit, hence the missing
pawns on c- and f-, but quickly restores balance with the superb 17. Nxf5!!
which gave it enough of an attack to hold the game.

Here is the full game. The evlauations, times and annotations are by Komodo itself as it played the game.

Then Neuman found a plan. He set up a solid pawn structure and forced piece exchanges and went into winning endgames, tranquilizing the lizard and walking all over it – winning Games 3, 4 and 5. It was clear Neuman had found the machine's on-off switch at these odds, and he now wanted to try something more competitive! So in Game 6 Komodo gave 'just' pawn-and-move odds, removing the pawn on f7 and playing Black. It was a murderous romp. Neuman resigned after just 34 moves.

Overall Neuman easily won the match by a score of +3 / =2 / –1.

The games of Komodo 9.1 vs GM Petr Neuman:

Click on drop-down to select game

Typical odds and estimated Elo

Komodo 9.1 (24-core) vs Sergei Movsesian

On September 9-10, Komodo took on its strongest opponent to date, Sergey Movsesian, a player who graced the world's Top Ten in 2009. Granted he is no longer at his absolute peak, but that sort of standard bespeaks of a bag of tricks and subtleties only the very best have in their arsenal. Over the course of the two days, he played six games, three per day at the sumptuous Hotel Julis Chess Café.

The beautiful Hotel Julis Chess Café

Chess Café continues the tradition of the legendary Café Julis, which was operated in the
hotel during so-called First Republic in the beginning of 20th century

Komodo was playing on the Komodo team's 24 core server, using a small handicap opening book to provide variety. The handicap was four games at the traditional "pawn and move" handicap, the f7 pawn, which is considered the most difficult pawn for Black to give up.

Sergei Movsesian faced his strongest opponent ever

Behind the computer was Jesse Gersenson. Jesse Gersenson is an IT guy, a club player, and
Komodo’s webmaster. He is organizing the Prague odds matches. Born in the US he lives in the
Czech Republic, programming, writing and translating.

The other two games are at Exchange (rook for knight) handicap; Komodo plays White without a1 rook, Movsesian plays without b8 knight and places his queen's rook on b8 instead of a8. The reason for this was to not allow Black to castle long, since White couldn't. Time limit once again was 45 minutes plus 15 seconds increment per move.

One question that some readers might ask themselves, is why the handicapped matches at all? GM Larry Kaufman explains his point of view on this: "There are recorded handicap games by several of the World Champions after Steinitz, and Bobby Fischer is known to have played hundreds (if not thousands) of games giving pawn and move or moves to masters. Even Kasparov played a two pawn handicap match. To me handicap chess is very much a part of our classical chess heritage. I myself have played thousands (literally) of handicap games. I much prefer to stick to the classical handicaps when it is reasonable to do so. In my opinion, the only interesting match we could have with a top GM that did not modify the starting position would be to give him White pieces, draw odds, and no opening book for the computer. I hope we can try that eventually."

Ultimately, Movsesian succumbed 4.5-1.5 to the silicon beast

Ultimately, Komodo is a gloriously strong analyst. It will show you what should have happened in your games, and will help you spring 3300-rated opening variations on your next opponent. But it's also a world-class sparring partner. Sure, from the usual starting position, Komodo will crush every human mercilessly. But nudge the balance in the human’s favour, and you can have a great fight.

Text by Jesse Gersenson and Albert Silver

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