For these super engines the draw rate is way lower than standard chess .. looking good!
Black has a slightly higher win rate than white, but white also wins some games. Games are much less static with less simple swap offs, and yet they are still fairly balanced in a very dynamic way.
PS I had books_off. These are the first moves I used to stop white castling kingside:
1. Nf3 Nc6 2. Rg1 Nb8 3. Rh1 Nc6 4. Ng1 Nb8
1 move to prepare?
black doesnt start hunting on move 1...
you mean 1 extra move than black to prepare?
1 move to prepare?
black doesnt start hunting on move 1...
you mean 1 extra move than black to prepare?
White starts preparing for the king hunt on move 1. White moves first, just like normal, but white cannot castle kingside. And so Black threatens to open the centre or storm the kingside. A very common theme is that white's kingside rook is unable to get to the central files. Sometimes white's kingside rook is left useless until white is mated, other times white gets it out for some crazy dynamic action in front of or behind the white kingside pawns and white gets chances to win.
It seems the good engines often play openings reversed, with black looking to really press the pace playing what looks like the white side of openings.
I played 60 games with various forced move 1. options between
Stockfish_14.1_win_x64_avx2 v Stockfish_14.1_win_x64_popcnt
With normal castling they had 96% draw rate (and the only win was as black when I forced white to play 1 g4).
With the King Hunt variant they had 66% draws and 33% wins - all as black. Much more exciting!
I am now running a King Hunt tournament with The two Stockfishes, Lc0, Berserk, Slow64 qand Koivisto to see how well the best engines win. 360 games will take a while to play. I will then try the same for normal castling. Early results are that Stockfish is regularly winning with both white and black, and also drawing about 50% against the other engines.
I have been playing Stockfish14 v Stockfish14 and Stockfish14 v lc0 on my computer ... with no king-side castling by white (black can castle as normal).
Games often involve a king hunt by black. White gets one move to prepare so the games can go either way, with a slight edge for black.
I have been experimenting with different first moves for white to find the best. I will post these when I get more data.
PS - I simply made up the name "King Hunt Variant" . I first tried no white castling at all, but found black won more often, then my son suggested trying just to stop white KS castling.