Engines will show a +2, +3 advantage even for 2 knights vs lone king, even though that's an easy draw. I think as long as the chance is non-zero for one side to lose, such as black not keeping his king in front of the pawns, it will register as an advantage, but it isn't always the case. I've seen stockfish rate positions as 0.00 in middlegames with 20 pieces on the board.
Studies to Troll your engines with
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Apr 10, 2023
0
#83
Arisktotle wrote:
drdos7 wrote in #73:
Check out what the modified version of Stockfish designed specifically for studies and mates (named Crystal 5 KWK) does with that mate in 5:
This is searching only 1 line and it finds the solution in not even 1 second
FEN: 8/2Nb4/pp6/4rp1p/1Pp1pPkP/PpPpR3/1B1P2N1/1K6 w - - 0 1
Crystal 5 KWK avx2:
NNUE evaluation using nn-ad9b42354671.nnue enabled
AND here is the same engine with 10 lines enabled, it finds 10 different mates in 1 second :
Right! Those are the results I was looking for. There is a massive difference between a game engine and a composition engine as there is a massive amount of meta-logic connected to solving compositions. Notably knowing the goal is achievable and knowing maximum duration prunes the search tree by 99.9999%. Obviously those additions change the "general purpose" game environment of a chess engine into a "dedicated" problem solving environment. There are already a number of dedicated solvers on the market like Popeye and WinChloe. I don't have one because I stopped installing software on my desktop. There is a similar addition for solving "fortresses" which may also be part of the Crystal package. I was told though that the fortress checks slow down the game analysis functions and fortresses are rare in chess games. Perhaps the composition solving module would do the same to game SF?
What is strange here is that chess.com offers us a Puzzle forum and loads of Puzzling options but did not implement software like Crystal to help us analyze and design puzzles. On top of the numerous errors in the Puzzle interface, it shows that chess.com is completely uninterested in puzzles. To them, puzzles are merely game fragments used by players in training sessions for tomorrow's' game. It is disgusting
Popeye is pretty good but there is a better and more up to date mate finder called "Chest 5.2" nowadays. I guess I should mention also that Crystal can play a full game of chess and that it is pretty strong, but not as strong as Stockfish, it's about 75-100 elo weaker it just happens to be better in highly tactical positions and at finding mates.
drdos7 wrote:
Popeye is pretty good but there is a better and more up to date mate finder called "Chest 5.2" nowadays. I guess I should mention also that Crystal can play a full game of chess and that it is pretty strong, but not as strong as Stockfish, it's about 75-100 elo weaker it just happens to be better in highly tactical positions and at finding mates.
Which suggests that the two approaches - game and composition - compete for supremacy and get it in their own domains. Which is only natural. Why would there have to be one key for two different door locks?
Thanks for the "Chest 5.2" tip. I'll add it to the shopping list for my next computing device!
Apr 10, 2023
0
#85
EndgameStudier wrote:
Did any engines solve this yet? It's only a few moves (I had the black king on the wrong square last time sorry) It has to understand when it's reached a drawn endgame position.
Ok, here is Stockfish on my workstation without tablebases:
it saw immediately the bishop "sacrifice" in order to draw the game and held onto the same line, I terminated the search at the 28 second mark.
FEN: 2r5/8/8/5bk1/8/5B2/5RPP/6K1 b - - 0 1
Stockfish_23040506_x64_bmi2:
NNUE evaluation using nn-dabb1ed23026.nnue enabled
57/84 00:28 1,103,943k 39,020k -0.86 0. ... Rc8-c1+ 1.Rf2-f1 Rc1xf1+ 2.Kg1xf1 Bf5-h3 3.g2xh3 Kg5-h6 4.Bf3-g2 Kh6-g6 5.Kf1-f2 Kg6-f6 6.Bg2-e4 Kf6-g7 7.h3-h4 Kg7-f8 8.Kf2-g2 Kf8-g7 9.Kg2-h3 Kg7-f7 10.Kh3-g4 Kf7-f8 11.h4-h5 Kf8-g7 12.Kg4-g3 Kg7-f8 13.Be4-h7 Kf8-g7 14.Bh7-d3 Kg7-h8 15.h5-h6 Kh8-g8 16.Kg3-f4 Kg8-h8 17.Kf4-e5 Kh8-g8 18.Ke5-d6 Kg8-h8 19.Bd3-g6 Kh8-g8 20.Kd6-e6 Kg8-h8 21.Ke6-f6 Kh8-g8 22.Kf6-g5 Kg8-h8 23.Kg5-g4 Kh8-g8 24.Kg4-h5 Kg8-h8 25.Bg6-f5 Kh8-g8 26.h2-h3 Kg8-h8 27.Bf5-d3 Kh8-g8 28.Kh5-h4 Kg8-h8 29.Kh4-g4 Kh8-g8 30.Kg4-f3 Kg8-h8 31.h3-h4 Kh8-g8 32.Bd3-e4 Kg8-h8 33.Be4-f5 Kh8-g8 34.Kf3-g4 Kg8-h8 35.Kg4-h5 Kh8-g8 36.Kh5-g5 Kg8-h8 37.Kg5-g6 Kh8-g8 38.Bf5-c8
Apr 10, 2023
0
#86
Here is a PGN (in German 
) of the postition that the German gentleman posted earlier, it was from a game in 1970:
I haven't looked at it too deeply with the engines yet but so far they seem to confirm what Arikstotle said...that white is not forced to accept the Queen sacrifice on b6 and that white will likely win after 1...Qb6!, however it does look like 1...Qb6 is blacks best chance and indeed the engines I have tried find the move.
drdos7 wrote in post #50:
Speaking of a Novotny, check this study out...it has one of the most beautiful Novotny moves I have ever seen. I call this study "The Immortal Novotny". It is not hard for engines, and I'm pretty sure you'll see it.
White to move and mate in 12
That's an excellent study with clever play around the castling. The f4-move is a good Novotny but not better than others I've seen. Studies like this one are composed back to front and the Novotny was probably part of the basic design. Double pawn promotions are one of the most common ways to justify the Novotny device and they fit in nicely with the destruction of the castling right to keep the second rook from controlling the 8th rank. The intro moves before the Novotny are skillful and attractive!
Directmate problems often show many Novotny's in one solution - some as tries or variations - in combination with Grimshaws or Plachutta's which illustrates the device is not that hard to deploy! They are not rare in endgame studies but do not come as thick and fast as in checkmate problems! Here's a colorful link: https://kmoen.people.ua.edu/by-play-blog/novotny
Btw, In 2022, Ivsanchuk played the most spectacular Plachutta ("Novotny-like") move in human history. He deserved to win the game for it but lost by mistakes later.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2416368
See move 26, I don't think he prepared it at home
Fun
Apr 13, 2023
0
#90
Arisktotle wrote:
Btw, In 2022, Ivsanchuk played the most spectacular Plachutta ("Novotny-like") move in human history. He deserved to win the game for it but lost by mistakes later.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2416368
See move 26, I don't think he prepared it at home
That was a very nice one and it is indeed unfortunate that he lost the game as he had a completely won game. It is rare for a Novotny to happen over the board, but when it does it is usually the victim of the Novotny that resigns soon afterwords
Apr 13, 2023
0
#91
Position #10
This one has an engine troll factor of about 7/10, there are a handful of engines that will solve this one and even Stockfish will "stumble" upon the solution if you run it searching 3 lines. and if you let it think long enough. The main thing is finding the first move 1 Qh3+!!.
white to play and DRAW
Apr 13, 2023
0
#92
newbie4711 wrote:
Here another position. Does the engine find the Draw? My old desktop PC (Duo core) thinks White is better.
White is indeed better here and wins in all scenarios, I have a couple of games that were played form this position from 2 engines that a friend at the Computer Chess Club ran and here they are:
Apr 19, 2023
0
#93
Position #11
The engine troll factor on this one is 9.9/10
White to play and win:
Apr 21, 2023
0
#94
Position #12
The engine troll factor on this one is 10/10 meaning that I know of absolutely NO engine that can solve this study YET. I'll post a PGN probably tomorrow.
White to play and WIN
Apr 21, 2023
0
#95
drdos7 escribió:
Position #1
Troll your engines with this!
White to play and win
The goal of this thread is to post positions that either engines can't solve or that are very difficult for engines to solve.
Wow that's awesome!
Apr 22, 2023
0
#96
drdos7 wrote:
Position #5
The engine troll factor on this one is 10/10
White to play and DRAW
This one really surprised me. But yeah, turns out white can simply play Ke2/Ke1/Kd2/Kd1 to guard either f2 or c1, the only points the queen can actually attack.
Apr 22, 2023
0
#97
drdos7 wrote:
Here is a PGN (in German ) of the postition that the German gentleman posted earlier, it was from a game in 1970:
I've seen this before, and it's interesting how white's queen just barely doesn't have enough time to infiltrate.
Apr 22, 2023
0
#98
BishopTakesH7 wrote:
drdos7 wrote:
Here is a PGN (in German ) of the postition that the German gentleman posted earlier, it was from a game in 1970:
I've seen this before, and it's interesting how white's queen just barely doesn't have enough time to infiltrate.
Actually that position is a win for white 
. I posted a couple of games played out by engines later in the thread. The trick is not to take the black Queen.
This puzzle is a draw according to Stockfish, however has an eventual forced mate.
Apr 22, 2023
0
#100
NumerousBadgers wrote:
This puzzle is a draw according to Stockfish, however has an eventual forced mate.
Here is a screenshot of my computer solving it:
This is actually a very well known "grotesque" study by Otto Blathy, and it is solved as a mate in 16 instantly by Stockfish 15 NNUE on my computer.
If you were wondering what the heck a "grotesque" study is then here is a link for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grotesque_(chess)
Did any engines solve this yet? It's only a few moves (I had the black king on the wrong square last time sorry) It has to understand when it's reached a drawn endgame position.
I'm at work right now, but looking at the position with the Android version of Stockfish 15 it does see the moves for the draw however it shows the silly evaluation of +2.79 for white. If I used my workstation it would easily solve it with or without the 6 man table bases I have installed on my workstation. After the exchange of rooks the 6 man table bases would take over and see the draw.