💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Dec 10, 2018 08:36 PM UTC:
I did recall the Kaufman study, although that I count (correctly or not) as a 'computer study' of sorts; it is relying on statistical analysis of games that may not have approached close to perfect play in a considerable number of the cases. Ideally, B vs. N studies that involve humans would include only, say, the top 200 in the world chess players playing each other. Maybe even just top 10, although the sample size would be too small I suppose for many years to come. Bobby Fischer's virtuoso exploitation of B over N in certain endgames of his is not something everyone could do, at least in his day. A statistical study of today's top engines playing each other a large number of B vs.N positions ought to be revealing, if it's ever been done. Otherwise, I had recalled that your own B vs. N study with engines playing themselves (Fairy-max?!) you wrote had a result that matched Kaufman's result, and that's from what is clearly a computer study.
Kaufman's study I admit I'm now unfamiliar with the lowest ratings of the human players in the games he included, but I was assuming the average rating of the players involved was not incredibly high (i.e. not even making it to 2500 FIDE, or minimum grandmaster, level), as I recall a very large number of games were involved in his statistical study, and any grandmasters involved apparently thus could not have played just with their own peers (or with super-grandmasters) in those games. I may have looked at a link to the study long ago, perhaps.
I'd heard or seen somewhere that Kaufman was in on giving his piece values for the programing of one engine (can't recall which), including the values that equate single B=N, so what you say about engines regularly slightly rating B's over Ns even nowadays is even more interesting to me.
I did recall the Kaufman study, although that I count (correctly or not) as a 'computer study' of sorts; it is relying on statistical analysis of games that may not have approached close to perfect play in a considerable number of the cases. Ideally, B vs. N studies that involve humans would include only, say, the top 200 in the world chess players playing each other. Maybe even just top 10, although the sample size would be too small I suppose for many years to come. Bobby Fischer's virtuoso exploitation of B over N in certain endgames of his is not something everyone could do, at least in his day. A statistical study of today's top engines playing each other a large number of B vs.N positions ought to be revealing, if it's ever been done. Otherwise, I had recalled that your own B vs. N study with engines playing themselves (Fairy-max?!) you wrote had a result that matched Kaufman's result, and that's from what is clearly a computer study.
Kaufman's study I admit I'm now unfamiliar with the lowest ratings of the human players in the games he included, but I was assuming the average rating of the players involved was not incredibly high (i.e. not even making it to 2500 FIDE, or minimum grandmaster, level), as I recall a very large number of games were involved in his statistical study, and any grandmasters involved apparently thus could not have played just with their own peers (or with super-grandmasters) in those games. I may have looked at a link to the study long ago, perhaps.
I'd heard or seen somewhere that Kaufman was in on giving his piece values for the programing of one engine (can't recall which), including the values that equate single B=N, so what you say about engines regularly slightly rating B's over Ns even nowadays is even more interesting to me.