The LeelaChess play while being a Queen ahead.

What strategy does LeelaChess use to try and win?

I played a blitz match against LeelaChess with queen odds a few months ago. I never imagined that this task could be so arduous
I thought I could win even against a perfect game with such an advantage. My surprise was total!

I lost the match, and ever since, I've been trying to decipher the mechanisms Leela uses to baffle an opponent who is better armed at the outset.
The first thing that stands out is that he doesn't hesitate to sacrifice a pawn in the opening.

Far from being destabilized by the absence of a queen, he aggravates his deficit in order to open up a file and give himself future attacking possibilities.
His play in the center is timid, almost elusive: he prefers a flexible, slightly recessed structure, which avoids direct confrontations and premature exchanges, which would be unreasonable.

But on the wings, the opposite is true: the advance is wild, ferocious, and pawns become ammunition, sacrificed to create columns and diagonal openings.

He will avoid exchanging pieces as much as possible (since he is one of those new algorithm who estimate the chances of winning rather than judging the position according to the calculation of an absolute value), not hesitating to advance and then back off if necessary.
It loses time, but the flexibility of its structure makes it difficult to open, and so it is always very difficult to exploit our development lead.

Last but not least, LeelaChess' two spearheads, its main weapons, are the ability to coordinate its minor pieces together and to make the most of its past pawns when the endgame comes around, all with surgical precision.
This gives the impression of overpowering each of his pieces, giving them a “Kasparovian” aura that our own pieces generally lack.
And it reveals perhaps one of the most important aspects of the game of chess, and one that is being emphasized more and more: Synergy, or when the quality of the pieces in play magnifying each other is often more important than quantity.

(The game presented in this post shows a typical game in which LeelaChess makes the most of its pawn sacrifice by converging all its pieces on the king, and espially the g2 square).