3045: AlphaMove - Revision history

FaviFake: /* Transcript */

2025-06-16T14:48:52Z

‎Transcript

FaviFake: /* Explanation */

2025-06-16T14:48:21Z

‎Explanation

172.69.22.169: /* Explanation */

2025-02-28T01:58:10Z

‎Explanation

Firestar233: they may have briefly tricked the bot, but not me

2025-02-22T07:02:49Z

they may have briefly tricked the bot, but not me

TheusafBOT: Reverted edit 366335 by 162.158.179.183 to 366333

2025-02-22T04:24:12Z

Reverted edit 366335 by 162.158.179.183 to 366333

162.158.179.183 at 04:23, 22 February 2025

2025-02-22T04:23:50Z

162.158.193.222 at 04:19, 22 February 2025

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162.158.193.45 at 04:18, 22 February 2025

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162.158.193.222 at 04:18, 22 February 2025

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162.158.193.223 at 04:18, 22 February 2025

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@@ Line 120: / Line 120: @@
 :[Caption below the panel:]
 :My new AlphaMove chess engine, which sorts the list of legal moves alphabetically and picks the middle one, was quickly defeated by stronger engines.
 {{comic discussion}}

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 ==Explanation==
 This comic shows a new {{w|chess engine}}, presumably created by [[Randall]], which takes a list of all legal moves (in {{w|Algebraic notation (chess)|algebraic notation}}) in alphabetical order and chooses the median. The name may also be intended to invoke {{w|AlphaGo}}, the first computer program to beat a professional human Go player.
 Algebraic notation begins with a symbol for which piece is being moved, which is always the first letter of the piece name, with the exception of knights (N) and pawns (nothing). This is then followed by the square that the piece is being moved to. For example, 'Rc4' would indicate a move that moved a rook to c4. Other symbols include a lowercase x before the destination, indicating that the move is a capture; a plus sign (+) after the destination, indicating that the move places the opposing king in check; and a hash sign (#) after the destination, indicating that the move places the opposing king in checkmate, thus winning the game. There are also O-O and O-O-O notations, which indicate that a player is castling kingside or queenside, respectively.

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 Algebraic notation begins with a symbol for which piece is being moved, which is always the first letter of the piece name, with the exception of knights (N) and pawns (nothing). This is then followed by the square that the piece is being moved to. For example, 'Rc4' would indicate a move that moved a rook to c4. Other symbols include a lowercase x before the destination, indicating that the move is a capture; a plus sign (+) after the destination, indicating that the move places the opposing king in check; and a hash sign (#) after the destination, indicating that the move places the opposing king in checkmate, thus winning the game. There are also O-O and O-O-O notations, which indicate that a player is castling kingside or queenside, respectively.
-In practice, this algorithm runs into a few issues. As seen in the comic, the algorithm rarely moves bishops and rooks due to their relative lack of moves in the early game, and their tendency to inhabit the edges of any list when they do have sortable moves. Among basic moves, only pawns destined to move in the first two files of a board can ever sort higher than bishops, and nothing other than another rook can be closer to the far end than a rook. The algorithm favors knight and king moves, with entries starting with the most alphabetically middling "K" and "N" list entries, and (to a lesser extent) pawns destined to move up the right side of the board, the "h"-file pawn generally having the greatest statistical chance. Castling moves would also occur near the middle of the list, as they are denoted with letter 'O' characters as O-O or O-O-O. The shortcomings of AlphaMove are instantly apparent from looking at the game board presented in the comic; roughly ten moves into the game, White has lost three pawns, captured nothing, and advanced their king into the open rather than developing any pieces, while Black (presumably being played by a 'stronger' conventional chess engine) has taken control of the center with a knight and two pawns, developed a bishop, and advanced their queen to f2.
+In practice, this algorithm runs into a few issues. As seen in the comic, the algorithm rarely moves bishops and rooks due to their relative lack of moves in the early game, and their tendency to inhabit the edges of any list when they do have sortable moves. Among basic moves, only pawns destined to move in the first two files of a board can ever sort higher than bishops, and nothing other than another rook can be closer to the far end than a rook. The algorithm favors knight and king moves, with entries starting with the most alphabetically middling "K" and "N" list entries, and (to a lesser extent) pawns destined to move up the right side of the board, the "h"-file pawn generally having the greatest statistical chance. Castling moves would also occur near the middle of the list, as they are denoted with letter 'O' characters as O-O or O-O-O, but could only appear in the list of legal moves after the bishops moved or were captured and before the associated king moved, which would be very unlikely. The shortcomings of AlphaMove are instantly apparent from looking at the game board presented in the comic; roughly ten moves into the game, White has lost three pawns, captured nothing, and advanced their king into the open rather than developing any pieces, while Black (presumably being played by a 'stronger' conventional chess engine) has taken control of the center with a knight and two pawns, developed a bishop, and advanced their queen to f2.
 The ''actual'' middle of the list might vary away from the usual alphabetic median if the moves (and the pieces removed by the opponent) are heavily biased to a particular subset of player-pieces. It is conceivable that an opponent could identify the AlphaMove strategy as being used, and then use their foreknowledge of the algorithm's 'developing game' to strategically make (normally non-optimal) moves designed explicitly to force the algorithm down their own choice of path, such as targeting undefended rooks and queens (either capturing them with impunity, or just strategically restricting their movements by moving into contact with them in a way that would normally be a suicidal sacrifice), in order to make certain other pieces take moves more advantageous to the opponent. However, given the established failings of uncritically sticking to the algorithmic plan, it is probably ''vastly'' more effort to precisely engineer a given game-state than to merely play properly and respond with half-decent responses to the overwhelmingly sub-optimal series of moves generated by AlphaMove. For example, setting Stockfish (Black) against AlphaMove (White) results in the following fifteen-move victory for black:

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 | date      = January 31, 2025
 | title     = AlphaMove
-| image     = enter-key.jpg
+| image     = alphamove_2x.png
 | imagesize = 500x526px
 | noexpand  = true

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 | date      = January 31, 2025
 | title     = AlphaMove
-| image     = example-image.png
+| image     = enter-key.jpg
 | imagesize = 500x526px
 | noexpand  = true