Game #30 - Hallucinating

As a chess player, I have experienced a few moments in my games where I can't explain why I played a certain move. There have been instances in tournament games where I would have 20 minutes to think, I come up with the best move in 10 minutes and play a completely different move still thinking I played that move I came up with. Sometimes I would sit at the board with my clock time running without thinking anything and then after sitting there for about 15 minutes I would be like "Okay, now let's start thinking". Sometimes the tricks your mind can play on you are beyond your comprehension, especially when you have overthought your decisions in a chess game. This game was one of those cases. I still can't explain why I lost this game.

The Game

Lessons from this game:
> Don't overthink. Never in a chess position think for more than 10 minutes.

Intuition Guided Search

Step 01: Sensible moves

Get a list of moves that look sensible. If you have time, the best way to do this is to first look at all legal moves, and then select the moves which have the potential to be chosen as the best move. You should try to shorten your list as much as possible, but be careful not to leave out any moves with potential. According to this algorithm, this move selection should be done using intuition, or your feel about the position. In doing so, the fault is on you if you don't select the actual best move of the position for calculation.

Step 02: Sensible moves for opponent

Get a list of moves that look sensible for your opponent after your move. The same principles of shortening the list and not leaving out moves with potential apply.

Step 03: Repeat till a static position

Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you reach a static position. Positions in which none of the players can engage in concrete action can be called static positions. In other words, these positions do not allow considerable evaluation disparities between the resulting positions and the initial position.

Step 04: Evaluate

Now that you've reached a static position, it's time to evaluate. There are two methods of evaluation. The first one is comparison and the second one is linear evaluation.

1. Comparison - This is the faster evaluation function. In comparison, as the name suggests, you compare the positional factors of the resulting positions. This comparison of positional factors solely depends on your feelings about the position. After comparison, you choose the line that leads to the most favorable position for you.
2. Linear Evaluation - The evaluation function used by computers. In linear evaluation, you look at a few pre-specified positional factors and assign a value to the moves depending on how well their resulting positions fulfill them for one side compared to the other. This means you have to assign values for your position and your opponent's position and subtract your opponent's value from your value to get the evaluation of the position. King safety, Material, Piece activity, Pawn Structure, and Space are a few common factors considered by masters, but most of them use comparison as their evaluation function. You can find more information about linear evaluation by following this link: https://hxim.github.io/Stockfish-Evaluation-Guide/

Choose one of these methods and evaluate all resulting static positions.

Step 05: Compare the evaluations of the principal lines

The 5th step is to calculate the principal line after each sensible move of the initial position. The principal line is the line that includes the best moves for you and your opponent. Let me explain. Chess positions are of 4 types:

1. White can force Black into a worse position
2. Black can force White into a worse position
3. White forces Black into an equal position
4. Black forces White into an equal position

Every position belongs to one of the above categories. If you are White, your principal line will be the one that gives Black the least advantage. It can be a negative one (in which case you would be better), it can be 0.0 (a draw), or it can be a positive one (this is only when there is no way for you to give them an advantage of 0.0 or a negative advantage). If you are Black, your principal line will be the one that gives white the least advantage.

If you want to study the above concept in greater detail, read the following article. It contains examples which will help you understand the algorithm even more:
https://lichess.org/@/felew699/blog/intuition-guided-search-algorithm-a-deep-dive/wDyfmVXA

The Club of Believers...

I have created a club for all of the people out there in the chess world who believe we can make a comeback against the machines we built decades ago to beat us at our craft of chess. Join The Club of Believers today. In this team, we try to discover an algorithm that will be able to defeat Stockfish consistently in a series of games. But no algorithm will be of use without practice. So, after reaching 20 members, I will contact jeffforever to register our team for the Lichess Bundesliga! We already have 12 members in the team, we just need 8 more! This is the beginning of a new story. We can win the Bundesliga because we are believers! We can do anything we set our mind on. So I invite all my viewers to join this awesome club to look for the perfect algorithm and improve your level with constant training together with me.

External links

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@felew699
Twitter: https://x.com/felew699
Against Stockfish: https://lichess.org/study/2guM490P
The Club of Believers: https://lichess.org/team/the-club-of-believers

Special Thanks to...

Grammar Editor: https://app.grammarly.com/
Practicing and blog writing site: https://lichess.org/