Announcing the 2020 (Inaugural) Solo Antichess World 4 Player Chess Championship! (DISCUSSION)

At my level of play, without exception, mistakes are the decider of all games played. Your play must indeed be sublime to have transcended errors.

I can't help but ask you: what does an error-free antichess game look like?

@e4bc4qh5qf7 ... Given the obvious superiority of @Magicsteph, the tournament hardly seems necessary.

I don't want to hurt your feelings, but if you do not understand the concept, then you have indeed a problem of understanding of the game. It is exactly like having a discussion about why, in FFA, you kind of need to "Team" with your direct opponent at the beginning of the game, when you reach a certain level, versus the 1600 rated player that says no, it's FFA, I play solo.  You are right: when playing 4 players chess in FFA, you do not need to team. But while you are red, and blue and green are teaming against you with 2 queens, I wonder how long you will last if yellow doesn't "Defend" you a little ? I also wonder if you will be last or if you truly believe that you will win the game, having green and blue target you and yellow doing nothing at all, and I mean really nothing but maybe also use the opportunity to take some of your pieces ? 

We are currently having that type of discussion in antichess. If you are red, in antichess, and blue takes only yellow pieces, green also takes only yellow pieces, while yellow is taking only blue or green pieces: what happens ? They take each other's pieces, and you are left with all your burden pieces. Then, later in the game, once they are left with only pawns and a couple of Knights, they take the pawn that covers your rook. With your rook, you can now take all the left over pawns and pieces left in the game. Explain how you are going to win that game ?

You cannot, you will lose. No matter how skilled or strong of a player you are, you will lose because blue, green and yellow are only taking each other's pieces, and avoid you like the plague.  I can show you many games like this. Because you depend on other's player to take your pieces, if they take another color instead, even if it is a very poor play, you will lose. This is my point. 

In 4pc, if 3 players area teaming against you, it doesn't matter your rating or the way you play, you will lose. 

When you have King of the hill, if players do not take your pieces at all, you move your king to the center and win the game before they are done taking each other's pieces. And while they are going to realize that you are going to win, it forces them to take your pieces, to prevent you from wining the game. Having King of the Hill forces other players to take your pieces, while they wouldn't necessarily if they don't want to.  Do you understand now? 

That has nothing to do with strategic moves, or mistakes made. That has to do with the entire overall game, and the way you can WIN. Without KOTH, you can only win when other player's grant you the pleasure of winning. Show me any game you won in antichess without KOTH, and I can tell you how the game could have completely change to the point that in the exact same game, you would have ended up being 4th instead of 1st, because of a single decision that was made in your favor, that would have ruined your game to the point you would have lost. 

When you play with KOTH, and kings are still active, you do not depend on other players to win the game, therefore, it is a complete different game. One that requires skills and strategy not needed in basic antichess, because the main factor of winning in basic antichess is luck.

"If you are red, in antichess, and blue takes only yellow pieces, green also takes only yellow pieces, while yellow is taking only blue or green pieces: what happens ?"

But that's a plan, a strategy, something that explicitly contradicts an "It's all luck" argument. The luck apologist answers your question as follows: "It doesn't matter if you try a strategy, because what happens is always random."

"I don't want to hurt your feelings ..."

You cannot hurt my feelings. You don't have the emotional or intellectual leverage required.

Just played one game for fun, and sure enough, luck was the main factor of winning.  Game #3684015

This is exactly my point. If King of the Hill feature was in, I did not have to wait for yellow and green to take each other's pieces while standing by, then have luck decide of the faith of this game.

This was my last post too. Done talking about this. I think I made my point. No more blind than the one that doesn't want to see.

The time format is short IMO, what was the deciding factor to make it a bullet tournament?

1 min 5 increment is not bullet

15sec+0increment is bullet

Sorry I mistook the time, 1+5 seems legit. Magicsteph just check the games where I've won 4, 5 games in a row and tell me if it was luck or not. I built most of my rating playing anti normal, so I guess I'm a very lucky guy.

Under the assumption of randomness ("luck"), it's a sequence of independent Bernoulli trials with p=.25.

For an unspecified player to win four games in a row, the probability is 1.56%.

For a specified player (@viloski) to win four games in a row, the probability is 0.39%.

On the basis of @viloski's data, the "luck" hypothesis is rejected.

I've (we) have had more than a few qualifier games turn to mush[*] when a player resigned and was replaced by a bot. I realize this may get "but that's a variant of antichess!" replies, but for purposes of NOT allowing a game to turn to mush[*], consider (in future tourneys) that bot replacement should not happen. Pieces could disappear, or turn to stone, or something else that hasn't occurred to me yet.

[*] -- "mush" is when the bot makes random moves that a live player would not dream of making, such as instant captures of a live player's last remaining piece. Twice today, the bot did not have to end the game but did so by unnecessarily taking a last piece in a position that was undecided, thereby awarding an unearned win.

Hi, 

In the light of the tournament, the games last about 5 / 6 minutes on average. And because there is so much luck involved (Which will be even more visible next round once the field will level up), I wonder if the division games should be bump from best of 3 to best of 5 games maybe, and the final from 4 to 6 games, or something like this ?

It seems that the qualifier took 2 hours of play (Roughly 13 / 15 games played), the division and finals may last less than 30 minutes ?

Compare this to a standard FFA 4 PC, a game last roughly 15 / 20 minutes, antichess games are short.

Also, do you have the list of the current qualified players ?

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/2020-online-world-4-player-chess-championships-solo-antichess-information-results

> 3-5 games prelims

> 4-6 games finals

This is being put to a vote.

was in a game but dumb noob aborted it

Thank you for voting. If it's the best of 3 games, and everyone wins 2, down to the last game. It will represent a grand total of 9 games played. 9 games x 5 minutes = 45 minutes.  Say a player wins 3 in a row:  3 games x 5 minutes = 15 minutes. So the way it is, your division win will last between 15 and 45 minutes maximum. This means that it will probably take longer to have all 4 players connected to play these 3 games, than the games themselves...

Bumping it to best of 5 games. Let say everyone win 4 games down to the last one : 17 games played. 17 x 5 minutes = 85 minutes. 5 games won in a row = 25 minutes. Still shorter than the qualifier, but better at least.

And bumping it will reduce the incidence of the luck factor.

If it was up to me, I would probably even go deeper, and bump it to the best of 7 or 8 games. The winner would most likely be the best player by boosting it up significantly. Best of 7 = 25 games maximum, = between 35 minutes up to 2 hours of play.

Prelims confirmed first to 4 games.

Sounds better already. We are now talking 20 minutes up to 1 hour of play. Still better than 15 min - 45 min.

I see above @magicsteph ask when was the last time anyone won four antichess games in a row. Well that was earlier today for me in one of the arenas. In the arenas you can see the players who are getting better at the game continually rising to the top.

Early this evening we have one game that had four of five top ranked players in the arena. All of us were certainly looking for the forced captures not just our own but the other three players in sequence. This is skill not luck involved in doing that. Also there is skill in the promotion piece selected so as not to automatically give someone else victory. Anyway seems like Magicsteph is still prepapred to show us all how lucky his is in antichess which is good for us skill players.

Skills are one thing, luck is another one. If you are skilled and lucky, you will win all the time. It just sucks that you need both to win a chess game, a game that should be based on skills only, not skills and luck.

Now, I do understand that people like to gamble. Poker is a very popular game. Many players will tell you that it is a game of skills. I will argue with you that it's a game of luck, skills and luck. Just like antichess the way it is set. 

A skilled player should win every games if it is based on skills only. Play a chess game against Magnus Carlsen, if you win, luck is not a winning factor.

The reason is simple. There is a finite goal to achieve to be the winner. Once you check mate someone, the game is over. It is based 100 % on your skills. Luck factor is 0%

Antichess the way it is set has a luck factor because you cannot reach the end of the game on your own. You need other players to do it. You can call it skills, I call it luck. That luck factor can be removed if there is a finite goal that can be reached interdependently from other player's decision, such as King of the Hill. When you add that feature in a game of antichess, the luck factor goes down from 30 % to 0 %. Take a minute, and review the game # 3684015. As you can see the outcome of this game is based on luck only. No matter how good you are, luck is a decisive factor, because you depend on the decision of another player to win, or worse, from the bot in that particular case.

Of course, skills is also a factor. That is why when 10 or 15 games are played, you will see a pattern. The best player will be among the top, the worst among the bottom. At a higher level, luck will be an important decisive factor, much more often than when one or multiple players are making blunder after blunder...