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Did Leela Zero miss a win in this position?

Chess Asked on October 5, 2021

Did Leela Zero miss a win in this position from game 106 of the Computer Chess Championship, on move 83 with White to move?

[FEN "8/2p1r3/2P4k/1P1pB2p/K2NbP1R/P5r1/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

Here, Leela Zero played Bxc7? for their 83rd move. I went deep to analyze the position at 34/91 with Houdini 6.02 for one hour, and the game reached a position with White having a rook, bishop, knight and pawn against Black’s two rooks. I analyzed it again starting from there, and either White will increase his positional advantage or Black will be forced into simplifying into a tablebase win for White. Is all this true? Rh2 was the winning move according to Houdini 6.02.

3 Answers

For what that's worth, Stockfish 11 gives

  • Rh2 as +2.6
  • Kb4 as +2.2
  • Bxc7 as +0.6
  • other moves as 0.0

on my machine at depth 45 (will be updating this answer while it digs deeper). Rh2 and Kb4 occasionally switch positions as #1 and #2, so it's still unclear which one of these is truly best. Bxc7 surely isn't, however, at least if you believe Stockfish.

One important note: The top evaluation score has hovered between +2.0 and +2.6 since depth 15. Apparently, Stockfish has not found a way to substantially improve White's position (let alone win) in the last 30 plies. It's still possible that the game will end in a fortress situation with perfect play, and then Leela would in fact not have missed a win (despite having played a suboptimal move).


Edit:

At depth 54, it's

  • Rh2 as +3.9
  • Kb4 as +2.2
  • Bxc7 as +0.1
  • other moves as 0.0

Still not fully conclusive, but we're starting to get somewhere.

In any case, Bxc7 was certainly not the most optimal move that Leela could have played.

Answered by Annatar on October 5, 2021

Houdini is severely weaker than LC0. I have seen their evaulations of positions, such as in the Salvio Gambit, which Houdini evaluates as only slightly worse for White(clearly not true), where LC0 states that Black has a sizeable advantage.

Thus, it is more likely that Leela had played the best move. We cannot know for sure until we prove a forced win for White in N moves.

Answered by user24344 on October 5, 2021

Dunno but BxP on c7 looks like a winner to me.

Whether black captures with the rook or not the b pawn marches quickly to become a Q

Answered by edwina oliver on October 5, 2021

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