Category: Engine Chess

March 16, 2025 Matthew Sadler No comments exist

As followers of my YouTube channel will know, I have been experimenting with a number of chess variants studied by Google DeepMind (together with ex-World Champion Vladimir Kramnik) in their interesting paper “Assessing Game Balance with AlphaZero: Exploring Alternative Rule Sets in Chess”. This paper can be viewed at https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.04374 I’ve put together a playlist…

April 2, 2024 Matthew Sadler 2 comments

Lichess was the host for a fascinating match on Saturday 30th March between GM David Navara and Leela Zero at knight odds chess. I had the privilege of commentating on the match and the complete recording is available here on my Silicon Road YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/live/b04MPlCSL24 All the games of the match are available here on the Lichess Events page: https://lichess.org/broadcast/leela-vs-gm-david-navara-knight-odds-match/match/U8CvXKoW#boards The Leela team blog article on the match is here: https://lczero.org/blog/2024/03/leela-vs-gm-david-navara/

April 2, 2024 Matthew Sadler 6 comments

Leela’s wonderful new WDL Contempt feature – discussed in earlier posts and also in a series of videos on my Silicon Road YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxhvNMc95Uo9N6W48TUAyIwkjK0w1wHKj&si=IK9OpgsfWB-wktZ1) – continues to inspire new avenues of chess investigation. One event that created a stir was the fascinating David Navara – Leela match at knight odds on which I commentated here: https://www.youtube.com/live/b04MPlCSL24?si=ybsivb7HM3HnosEa I’ll most likely dedicate some blog space to that match in the future, but this blog post focuses on a lovely little programming project by grizzled veteran TCEC chatter mrbdzz who many of you will know from my streams as “Leela’s Greatest Fan”!

March 20, 2024 Matthew Sadler 8 comments

When I started playing again after a break of some 8-9 years, my opening choices were driven by a fervent desire to do something different to what I had done before, and by some strange feelings of nostalgia.

March 14, 2024 Matthew Sadler 10 comments

A little while back, I published some blog articles and some videos on Dragon’s creative 5.Qd2!? idea in the Pirc (https://matthewsadler.me.uk/openings/a-stunning-dragon-idea-against-the-pirc-5-qd2/ and https://youtu.be/DuFfJwBgMD8 to start you off!) A lively Twitter discussion followed with Ali Mortazavi (English IM) and Peter Heine Nielsen (GM and of course Magnus Carlsen’s second) that moved on to debate the relative merits of the Pirc