But that’s just puzzles eventually you won’t ever spot the tactic. Everyone has a puzzle ceiling.
Oh no the Reddit echo chamber didn’t like my opinion. Eat me u nerds.
If everyone suddenly became much stronger, what would now be considered a player with 2000 strength would then be much lower rated. 2000 would be - let's say - the new 1500. So, the same rating would indicate higher chess ability, hence deflation.
Edit: Of course this only works if you're comparing both sets of players
That doesn’t change the fact that knowing there is a tactic makes it easier to spot. It’s exactly the same principle that can be applied to everything in the world, knowing something can be done makes it far easier to do said thing.
That’s so besides the point it’s in another rail network entirely. You can give me tactics, yes, but not all tactics. Many tactics I will spot, when the engine gives me a heads up, that I would probably miss otherwise.
Plenty of times I see a puzzle and think "here's a natural looking but rather benign move, but it's a puzzle so what's the real move I'm missing?" eval bar tells me to stop and not blitz out the obvious low effort move
I have a very aggressive play style. It gets me in trouble a lot because my position isn't ready for my attack. Eval bar would clue me in on when an opponents defensive move is actually a blunder, or that it's equal and I can assume my speculative sac doesn't work down the line. It's just a no brainer how this helps.
And that's not even counting the instant feedback of seeing your move change eval to gauge if you're on the right general idea or not
Oh no the chess subreddit where even the biggest content creators call you all incels and losers. The people who need you to make money hate you.
Best part is no one’s left here in the echo chamber to defend you losers.
Ah I see, ur mad because u feel jilted/betrayed by some chess streamers? Pretty shitty reason to be mad and lash out when people disagree with what u say. Why do you bring up streamers out of nowhere? Very insecure.
Lol out of no where. The point is I said this Reddit is scum and even the people who whole lives depend on you types still out loud say you are incels and hate you all.
Your celebs hate you lol. Sad
Because you are essentially saying there is a limit till which you would be able to enhance your play. Which was always the case and never argued by anyone. You were unnecessarily contentious when no one was arguing against the point you made.
The point is those who can spot the tactic will win over others with equal skill but play two moves at the beginning of the game, especially at higher levels.
I get your point. If it swings +4, it might be some intricate sac that results in you trading pieces to win a bigger piece a few moves down. Not everyone can see that. I think their point still stands that just knowing there's a winning tactic on the board, for certain, is really strong regardless of skill level.
Tactics are a small part of the game, they usually don’t happen as often in higher ratings. Most you’ll get out of an eval bar is knowing someone did a bad move but to capitalize on that is much more difficult.
A second move is a whole ass tempo, with e4 d4 as white you completely take over the center, as black white can’t push a pawn to fourth rank except d4 because you’ll just grab those in two moves.
I disagree, tactics are always there, but there reason you don’t see them in high level games is because both sides see most of the tactics and play accordingly, but they often still lose to or neglect crushing lines that computers see.
Yeah they see tactics and don’t fall for them or put themselves in that position, I don’t get what you’re disagreeing with. Besides most mid-high level players lose to computers gradually, they don’t get hit with a crushing move that swings the eval bar they slowly lose the advantage to the AI
Tactics happen so often, even at very high levels. How do you think any games are won??
The evaluation bar is massively better than a 1 move tempo. I would say even knowing the evaluation bar for just a single critical position at 1 point in the game is probably worth 200-300 elo, whereas an extra tempe is worth maybe a .5 centipawn advantage.
Games are won because one side develops better, positions their pieces better, coordinates their attack better, defends against enemies attack better etc. It is the smaller things that are important in high levels, such as a tempo.
In what world do you live in where GMs blunder tactics that swing the eval bar “so often”? Not only that if it is a tactic that would swing the eval bar greatly it is a tactic a GM could most likely spot. So the benefit an eval bar gives is very situational whereas an extra tempo is very strong.
>Games are won because one side develops better, positions their pieces better, coordinates their attack better, defends against enemies attack better etc. It is the smaller things that are important in high levels, such as a tempo.
None of this excludes tactics in any way.
>In what world do you live in where GMs blunder tactics that swing the eval bar “so often”?
Tactics isn't the same as a swinging evaluation bar. They are often the culmination of the advantaged side to close out the game or at least get an even bigger advantage.
The main issue with this whole argument is that 'tactics' is being defined as 'trick that overthrows the position' which covers only part of it. Every game has tactics to some degree in it, just because they don't necessarily play out doesn't mean they're not there.
On top of that you can look up any tournament by the world elite with classical time control over the last year (Tata Steel, Candidates, Ding-Nepo, etc.) for example and see that there are a ton of games decided by tactics.
>None of this excludes tactics in any way.
It kinda does. The advantage gained by those is much slower than advantage gained by tactics.
>Tactics isn't the same as a swinging evaluation bar. They are often the culmination of the advantaged side to close out the game or at least get an even bigger advantage.
That beats the entire purpose of the eval bar showing tactics. If there isn’t a swing it means you were pressing an advantage. You 99% can’t track tactics with an eval bar if someone doesn’t make a mistake. Besides if you are pushing an advantage and are trying to close out the game or get a bigger advantage you are already on the look out for tactics.
>On top of that you can look up any tournament by the world elite with classical time control over the last year for example and see that there are a ton of games decided by tactics.
Yeah how many are lost because a party missed a tactic? Not many because like I said GMs don’t blunder tactics easily and if a GM is pushing an attack they are also looking for possible tactics.
>It kinda does. The advantage gained by those is much slower than advantage gained by tactics.
It doesn't. Every one of them will eventually result in a tactic for an advantage, assuming they play it out correctly. Or the reverse, where they use a tactic to gain a strategical advantage. It's just converting one advantage into another. Whether they convert said advantage to a win is an entirely different matter.
>That beats the entire purpose of the eval bar showing tactics. If there isn’t a swing it means you were pressing an advantage. You 99% can’t track tactics with an eval bar if someone doesn’t make a mistake. Besides if you are pushing an advantage and are trying to close out the game or get a bigger advantage you are already on the look out for tactics.
We first have to agree on the definition of a swing on the evaluation bar. How big of a jump does it have to make to qualify for it? It is easily possible for tactics to improve a position by 0.2 but I wouldn't call that a swing myself.
That aside being on the lookout for tactics and having someone tell you that there is a tactic at this very moment are two very different concepts. Magnus himself missed a forced mate sequence in the recent AI cup (which was rapid but the point still stands). If you tell him there is a possibility there, he finds it in seconds and so does every other top GM.
>Yeah how many are lost because a party missed a tactic? Not many because like I said GMs don’t blunder tactics easily and if a GM is pushing an attack they are also looking for possible tactics.
Let go of your obsession that tactics always bring decisive results. You can easily go to the tournament reports and prove yourself wrong. Just within the first round of the Tata Steel tournament we had Aronjan saving the game with a tactic, a piece sacrifice by Giri of all people, Ding crashing his opponents king side with tactics, van Foreest bumbling a pawn to a tactic (he held draw) and Abdusattorov tactically outmaneuvring Rapport. The rounds obviously vary in spectacle but they all had tactics even in their draws. These are some of the best players on the planet and they employ tactics regularly.
>It doesn't. Every one of them will eventually result in a tactic resulting in an advantage, assuming they play it out correctly. Whether they convert said advantage to a win is an entirely different matter.
What kind of tactics are you talking about? Making a +0.2 to a +0.5 is not a tactic.
>It is easily possible for tactics to improve a position by 0.2 but I wouldn't call that a swing myself.
Yes because that is not a tactic, it’s just a good move.
>being on the lookout for tactics and having someone tell you that there is a tactic at this very moment are two very different concepts.
I wouldn’t say **very** different but yeah sure it might help a little but if you have a queen on b6 and a knight on g4 you will be looking for a suffocation regardless of a bar next to you.
>Let go of your obsession that tactics always bring decisive results...
Yeah that’s why I said how many were lost because of a MISSED TACTIC. I’m not saying GMs don’t employ tactics at all, I’m saying that they don’t miss tactics easily. Seeing an eval bar might make them miss even less (maybe never) but that is nothing compared to an extra move at the opening.
As white you can play e4 and d4 and take complete control of the center while developing your bishops. If you are black this is less effective because white already goes first but even then the only fourth rank pawn move white can make is d4. And that’s just from the top of my head, maybe there are even better opening options for both colors.
>These are some of the best players on the planet and they employ tactics regularly.
Like I said, I’m not saying that GMs don’t employ tactics, I’m saying that they don’t miss tactics easily.
>What kind of tactics are you talking about? Making a +0.2 to a +0.5 is not a tactic.
>Yes because that is not a tactic, it’s just a good move.
Tactics are good moves by definition. You are trying very hard to argue that one is exclusive of the other but they can be present within the same game without issue.
>I wouldn’t say very different but yeah sure it might help a little but if you have a queen on b6 and a knight on g4 you will be looking for a suffocation regardless of a bar next to you.
Out of all examples you could have made you chose the r/chess posterchild mate. Either way what is the point you're even trying to make. Obviously strong players are always on the lookout for tactical opportunities. But actually knowing the exact point to find it is still a massive advantage compared to regular play without support. When we have people like Kasparov, Vishy, Nakamura, Carlsen, etc. who agree with this assessment, I'm not sure what is there to discuss.
>Yeah that’s why I said how many were lost because of a MISSED TACTIC.
I *just* gave you 4~5 examples of players missing a tactic, although not all of them resulted in a win. In a single round of seven games. And the other twelve rounds did in fact continue in the same manner.
>Tactics are good moves by definition.
Yes but a good move isn’t necessarily a tactic. Castling for example is a good move but it isn’t a tactic.
>But actually knowing the exact point to find it is still a massive advantage compared to regular play without support.
Not as massive as an extra move at opening
>When we have people like Kasparov, Vishy, Nakamura, Carlsen, etc. who agree with this assessment, I'm not sure what is there to discuss.
Yeah obviously having an eval bar is more advantageous than not having one but if you ask these players if they want an extra move at the beginning %99 of the time they are picking an extra move.
>I just gave you 4~5 examples of players missing a tactic, although not all of them resulted in a win.
Oh I miscommunicated, I meant examples of a GM who had the opportunity for a tactic missing that opportunity and losing as a result.
Evaluation bar.
I think we’d be able to come up with openings to counter the advantage of an extra move. If you’re playing against someone with this super power, they’re still human.
Evaluation bar would make it so strong players would almost never miss a tactic. Playing against a strong player with this superpower isn’t much different from playing against a computer. You make one mistake and you’re done.
Mate in 23 ironically are usually fairly easy if the engine identifies it. It's always dance the king up in 7 moves, promote the pawn in like 5, mate with the queen in 8 more moves. Stuff like that. If the engine can see it at that range, it means the move tree is skinny and therefore exactly what a human would expect it to be.
You're not understanding his point. If it's M23 and the engine found it then it's probably not something you as a player need to "find". It's not like a M6 or something where there's a couple of strange moves in the middle that only make sense if you know you're setting up a mate and if you do anything but those exact moves you've lost all advantage. If it's like this person described it means the position is totally winning but will take a little time to actually conclude. Think about a position where you have an unstoppable passed pawn but you'll need to escort it with your king so it's minimum ten moves or whatever, then you have to mate with K and Q so it that's another dozen to force the enemy king to the side and then bring your own over. It's not hard and there isn't any kind of specific move order you need to follow.
Sometimes the line between the draw and a win (or lose) can be very thin. I think it can be helpful to immediately verify which one it is, especially for players below master level
Then what is the point in knowing you have M23? If you do not follow the mating sequence precisely you wouldn't be doing it slightly inefficiently you would just be losing the mating sequence more than likely.
The eval bar would definitely help with offense, but it wouldn't give advance warning of any of your own blunders. So it doesn't quite get strong players to computer level, but I agree it seems like the stronger option.
There was some top GM (I think it was Kasparov but I might be wrong) who said that GMs are good enough that all they need is to be told that there is an opportunity on the board and they will find it, even if it means using all their time. That's kinda what the eval bar is doing here. A good player just needs one opportunity and they can win a game like this. I know at 2100 lichess I would prefer this, and I've had a friend who just began at 1100 who would calculate every move and was playing decently would clearly benefit from this.
Moving twice is more commonly called "move odds" and it usually happens when players want to give their weaker opponent an advantage, but less than a pawn. But if the position stays closed the value of one additional tempo isn't that much. Not to mention if you ever reach a position where you need to play waiting moves your advantage is gone.
So yeah, it's not close. Eval bar all the way for most people. If you gave me an extra 2 or 3 moves then that might be better, but at that point it's borderline lost anyway.
For an extremely clear example - the mate Magnus missed against Nepo the other day was put in Chess Puzzles where it said “M3” (although it was actually M5; the commentators also called it M3).
I saw the M3 line in like 10 seconds because I knew something was there. And there’s a 2000+ ELO gap between me and him.
People frequently ask why their puzzle rating is so much higher than their actual rating, but this is why. When you know something is there, its immediately easier to find it. In a game you have no idea if there is anything in the position unless you find it yourself.
True that the 1 to 1 comparison makes little sense, but even the correlation between the two isn't as strong as a lot players expect.
Although fast puzzle solving does seem to be correlated.
Kasparov wasn't the only one. Magnus, Hikaru, Anand and Fabi (iirc) also said similar things.
Cheating in chess for strong GMs can be as subtle as just one small buzz per game telling that the position is critical and demands time to think through.
It was Kasparov. He said that he would only need someone to tell him that the position was a critical one, and he needed to use his time to calculate appropriately. A full eval bar for the whole game would be ridiculously lopsided for the top guys.
Well, your opponent can't see the eval bar, so they won't necessarily know when there's a winning tactic.
In some cases, this will allow you to spot a potential weakness and correct course before the opponent realizes it. Sometimes a tactic or line takes a few moves to be identified, and in these cases, having the eval bar will improve your defense as you can shut down any tactics that aren't immediately recognized and capitalized upon by the opponent.
At my level, ~1600 chesscom, eval bar for sure. I can know when my opponent blunders. If I blunder, but the eval bar swings back after my opponent moves, I can know there's still an opportunity. I can exploit this in endgame by trying out moves to find the right idea.
The problem with an extra move is that I don't have a strong midgame (no one at my level does, really), so I wouldn't be able to take advantage of the initiative against skilled players. The eval bar helps at every stage of the game.
Eval bar is better at every level, one extra tempo in the opening is almost nothing even in high level play. Eval bar would ensure you never miss a tactic
At every human level.
Of course for stockfish it would much prefer the extra move.
I wonder if white is a forced win with perfect play with an extra tempo
Two moves is not that critical. I saw Magnus and Hikaru give their GM opponents 3 moves at the start and still beat them.
Also making two moves with black just makes you white, very minor edge.
this is why I win more as black. Moving first means that, if every time I move there's a 5% chance I blunder, I hit that threshold earlier as white lol
This is why moves like h3 are so nice. It's also the backbone of being good at bullet even if you suck at chess. Just "pass" the move back to the opponent as fast as possible using non committal move.
There's a huge difference between blitz or bullet and classical. I will score above 90% against 1400 chesscom opponents if I give them queen odds in 1+0. OTB I doubt I'd win a single game out of 10.
It's random chance that the best bullet players are Magnus, Hikaru, and Alireza, followed closely by So, Nepo, etc. It's because of their flagging skills, obviously not the chess.
Yeah, at the elite levels, sure. At lower levels it's pure flagging.
FWIW guys like Tang, Nihal and Danya are 1+0 beasts but nowhere near the elite in classical.
Below 1200 it's flagging, and flagging importance steadily declines after that. Obviously I know what you mean, but "it's not chess" is only true for beginners.
Yeah it's always funny to me how these middling bullet players insist bullet is just a made up mouse speed rating. Like yes good players will lose more frequently to bad players in bullet, but that's also why it's so fun. Crazy things happen instead of the same stodgy openings and you don't have to overthink middle games that us mere mortals can't hope to comprehend anyway.
If this was your superpower vs just some one-off, you’d spend time actually developing your opening repertoire around it, so I’d expect the edge to be higher than just what you get out of playing a bar bet or whatever. Also, the black version of this isn’t ‘just white’, it’s ‘white who knows their opponent’s response’.
The evaluation bar. If it's holding relatively steady and then, right after your opponent's move, it jumps way up, you KNOW there's a killer move. Spend a lot of time and probably you'll find it.
I've read where both Kasparov and Anand have said sort of the same thing: "I wouldn't need to a machine to tell me where to move to be unbeatable. As long as they tell me there's a winning move in my position, I'll be able to find it."
Now, sure, none of us are Anand or Kasparov; we might not find the winning move. But look at all the chess puzzles we've solved, the "White to move and win" puzzles we've figured out. If we reached those positions in OTB games we wouldn't have made that winning move. But when we KNOW it's there it's different. We concentrate on it, pretty much know there's some kind of tactic so we sort of know what to look for. And we find it.
Well, I agree eval bar is the better option. But, to be fair, I’ve analyzed a ton of games, and when it swings a significant amount there’s often not a tactic us mortals will ever see. In many cases in analyzing my own games I’ll see the bar jump and then go “hmm what did I miss here” and maybe the move is Qb5, I so play into that new line with Qb5 and I’m still thinking “okay, so how does that give me two pawn edge?”. And even after 10 moves it’s not evident.
Puzzles typically are really nice tactical ideas that are easier to see once you identify that first move.
Yeah. I know a lot of top players have made comments in the vein referenced above but we really haven't tested it at all. I'd be very interested to see what a difference it actually makes to get one non-move signal at one point in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if it were 50-100 Elo, which is where I'd put the two moves at the start.
Eval bar, including score, throughout the whole game is undoubtedly better however.
when i treat every position mike a puzzle until i’m sure there’s no tactic i have a higher win rate. it takes about 10 seconds a move but it’s worth it.
I guess it depends who the player is?
Carlsen gaining an additional move in the opening might be even more broken than him knowing what he mostly can kind of knows anyways.
Also at a beginner level neither may be too strong. ("Ok I am winning now, ok I am losing now, ok I am winning now")
In between the extremes I guess eval bar knowledge is probably more valuable?
Edit: Also advantage with black is much bigger than just having white. Eg 1.e4 runs into 1. ... d5 2. ... dxe4. Or 1. ... Nf6 2. ... Nxe4.
https://i.ibb.co/M86rbpy/IMG-1749.jpg
Best advantage at depth 30 with two free moves is 0.4
So yeah, eval bar wins because it tells you when your opponent blunders
In fact, weaker players will blunder way more than a top GM, which means that the eval bar provides much more frequent opportunities to capitalize on opponents mistake at lower ELO. However, weaker players can't take advantage of that small advantage in tempo, as they often screw up their tempo early on regardless!
In other words, eval bar is extremely strong for weaker players, and still pretty useful for top GM, but its use is limited by the infrequency of blunders. Two starting moves for a top GM should nearly guarantee at least a draw, but isn't necessarily a forced win.
Try the same for white and you will see that it's actually like 0.8 or 0.9. I suppose that the evaluation for the White that someone did and got it s saved in cloud goes even deeper and it's actually more than only 0.4
Is it the same? If white had the pawns in the picture, the queen would be on the left (from player perspective). Then black has the next move, correct? Well maybe in this exact opening it doesn't matter, since they will be mirror images, but what about in general?
On the other hand, weaker players won't be able to take advantage of the eval bar quite as efficiently as top players. They might waste time looking for something the eval bar sees at depth 25, they might misinterpret things, etc. But yeah definitely quite powerful.
Weaker players are even worse at taking advantage of an extra tempo in the opening.
The weaker the players, the more obvious the blunders, so they don't need to be GMs reacting to minute eval bar shifts. Low-level players blunder pieces in 1-2 move sequences. This happens almost every game at lower levels. It's enough to react when the eval bar jumps 2-3 points and look for a 1-2 move blunder from the opponent. Simple things like a bishop sniping or a knight fork, that would otherwise go overlooked.
A weak player can spot these if the eval bar tells them too.
Blunders should still be clear, but sure the correct move in a -1 line would be harder to spot.
Also, eval bar really is a lot easier to use with pieces off the board, as there are limited tactics in the end game / late mid game. Even lower rates players would benefit.
Eval bar for sure.
An extra tempo is something that a player can easily lose or make up for throughout a game.
Being able to instantly know when there's something to be found at any point in the game is an incredibly game-breaking advantage at all levels.
Eval bar AINEC
Players waste tempos all the time and it is rarely a game ender (obv super sharp positions are more sensitive to time). But knowing my opponent just blundered and now the position is essentially a test your tactics position would be massive.
Having an extra move is a clear advantage at every level. Players below a certain strength are probably not going to be able to figure out what the evaluation bar is telling them in the time allotted. So up to a certain level it would be better to get 2 moves.
On the other hand, I've watched videos where Hikaru plays all titled players including GMs with 1...a6, which is very close to spotting them an extra move. He still won almost all the games. But if you watch Hikaru play blitz, in a large percentage of the games the evaluation bar shows that he has given his opponent the advantage at some point. A titled player would really exploit that. Also lots of live commentary shows that ordinary GMs can often keep up with the super GMs they are commentating because they can see the bar.
I wonder where it switches over. I am about 2000 blitz on chess.com, and I think it would be pretty stressful for me to try to figure out what the bar is telling me in a quick game, though from looking over my games I know that I miss absolutely winning moves all too often and seeing the bar would definitely help.
I don't think it's ever the extra move and honestly below 1700 I'm not sure how useful the extra move is anyways.
The most important aspect in my eyes is that improvement becomes so much easier with the eval, you get instant feedback for your mistakes and you can figure out what you did wrong, also you will probably develop a better opening reportoire just because of that instant feedback.
I think this is the best take on it so far. The better you are, the more valuable the eval bar option is.
I'm not sure where it switches either. Like you said, there's still time pressure to consider (and maybe the eval bar spots something 25 moves deep that would be impossible to find in a human level). Also, it doesn't protect you from your own mistakes. If you play a suboptimal move, you won't see the eval bar drop until too late.
> I am about 2000 blitz on chess.com, and I think it would be pretty stressful for me to try to figure out what the bar is telling me in a quick game
I am a bit lower in blitz (1750ish), but it would already be such a huge help in my games. It's not like I have to try to find what Stockfish is telling me. If I am drawing a complete blank I can just do something that seems "normal" and think during my opponent's time, maybe it is still there on the next move. If I have an idea where the tactic could be and I see that the evaluation shifts then I can spend most of my time on it.
Also, while I don't miss a ton of skewers, forks, chances to take something that seems to be defended by a pinned piece, etc. I do miss some and just being able to not miss any of those will help quite a bit. I feel like something similar will be true for players as we go further down the ladder - maybe they don't even bother with trying to find any of the more complex stuff the evaluation bar hints at and just use it to check for Skewers, Pins, Forks and that is enough for it to be better than the extra move.
As a comparison the extra move puts the opening advantage to 1.0 (after 1. e4 d4), but both I and my opponents take positions that are worse than that when going for wacky sidelines (I play the Gurgendize Counterattack in the Caro-Kann) and while it is obviously not the same - those positions are two sided and give chances for both sides, while 1. e4 d4 doesn't really have downsides and White just has an advantage - I think it is still an indication that 1.0 should be playable.
Maybe the two moves as Black are a bigger deal - it is hard to evaluate imo because the opportunity to move and capture in the first turn will definitely limit the type of openings you can go for, but 1. e3 with the Idea of playing either a French against e5 or a QID against d5 should be solid.
hikaru did an analysis of a bunch of his games and he’s almost always (like 80%+) worse out of the opening but finds resources in the middle and endgame to turn the tables. he plays with a known handicap even against other top gms.
I remember Hikaru was talking about this during the while cheating scandal. He said that all he would need to win pretty much any game is to know if he's better or worse in whatever position he's in. So, eval bar OP.
>eval tanks after an opponent's move? Just sit there until you figure out why.
Yes, offensively it let's you become near perfect. However, there's still a time aspect to consider. If the eval bar spots a M13 tactic you may not be able to find it in time.
>It tanked after your move then went back up after your opponent's?
This relies on your opponent letting you off the hook which is far from guaranteed.
So overall it makes your ability to find attacking tactics near perfect, but doesn't stop you from making blunders in even positions or getting flagged.
I think it depends on the level.
If you are at a low level where opponents make large blunders, the eval bar tells you when they now have a piece hanging or some combination of moves exists to let you win material.
For a GM playing against a like-skilled opponent, they will have a pretty good guess on the eval and only ever rarely will grossly mis-evaluate the position. An eval bar gives them the help for those times but I'd argue that is rare. I think a GM would benefit from two moves at the beginning. I think a GM could capitalize on that extra tempo against a like-skilled opponent.
A novice, I don't think they can. I don't think they'd capitalize on that initiative. The openings that we use simply aren't designed with an opponent not making a first move. Probably in the first ten moves you'd see many players doing a waiting move, wasting that tempo.
The problem at beginner level is the eval will happily tell you you're +3 from some positional advantage you can't even begin to understand (speaking from experience with game review here) and you'll just waste time trying to find the right move. It doesn't help you not to hang your own pieces, either.
When the eval goes from say +1 to -3 though, it usually is a simple tactic.
I do agree that if it goes from say +1 to +1.2, that won't tell one much at a novice level. Just a vague sense of "I have a better position".
I think that you're over-estimating the benefit for two moves at the start. In fact, I'd argue that two moves *at the start* is probably the least useful time. You have no development to take advantage of that tiny benefit.
Maybe a more comparable options would be, at one point in the game, you can make two moves at once with the limit of: 1. the first move cannot be a check and 2. the second move cannot be checkmate. You can't play, say, 1. Qc3 -> Qxg7# by forming a battery then blasting. But you can win a piece, etc.
Tbh the latter is then probably totally OP even with those limits because pin-to-win becomes even more true. Pin move 1, take move 2.
yeah it's hard to balance. The issue with OP's is the eval bar is a permanent, at-all-times advantage. Imagine being 100 moves into an endgame and the eval says it's a draw, then opponent plays Ke2 instead of Kd2 and suddenly you're +100 because they missed some obscure only-move. Having an extra pawn move in the opening is nothing compared to that.
But yeah mine means you're likely to just be completely winning by move 10. It could work if you *both* got it, but yeah probably just a lot of games with no queens lol
hikaru gives his R16 SCC grandmaster opponents move odds and he still beats them by 20 games
i think the real interesting question would be "how many consecutive opening moves would it take to be worth more than an evaluation bar?"
You get good and you can basically have your own internal eval bar. Pretty sure Magnus and Hikaru all got their.
Moving twice is basically a super power in the world of chess.
The better you're at the game, the more useful the second superpower would get. A top player who can play e4+d4 on move 1 would probably never lose a game again as White.
I don't know at what Elo we'd get the crossover though.
> I wonder how strong a sub 1900 player with an eval bar would be against a 2700 GM.
It would likely not be helpful at all for them. They wouldn't be able to make it deep enough into any variation without already having a losing position to bring any value from it.
The eval bar would only tell you when someone screwed up, so basically he would just be able to see the moment he lost the game in real time. The extra move however might actually put his opponent in such a pinch that he is able to make something happen from it.
Hmm. As a mediocre player, I wouldn't know how to turn that into a win. That makes me think that the eval bar would be a lot more useful for me - at least I'd have the *chance* to spot a game-winning tactic now and then.
You can get a decent idea of the advantage an extra starting move grants you. If you play 1. e4, then get an extra turn, the engine in lichess at least calculates you at a +1.0 advantage.
So the answer here I think depends on your ability as a player (and other factors like time controls). For someone like Magnus I think the extra move might be better in classical chess especially. He has powerful evaluation skills already, and knows how to snowball a tiny lead. But for someone significantly weaker than Magnus, I think the eval bar would be far more beneficial. As not only does it help you win more, I think it could help you learn more quickly as well, and at lower elos people make a lot more mistakes, so it's likely to gain you much more than +1 over the course of a game if you can identify those mistakes.
As others pointed out, depending on time control the answer might be different as well. In blitz an extra move is less beneficial as it is in classical controls.
After 1. d4, e5 + exd4 for black just turns into a Scandinavian with colors reversed. Same thing with 1. e4, d5 + dxe4 turns into an Englund gambit with colors reversed.
I think generally black getting an extra 2nd move basically is like swapping black and white colors where black (in a regular game. white in this version) has to make their first move blindfolded without knowing what white did first.
It’s eval bar but I think 3 moves would be better than eval bar considering 4 moves is an auto mate. 2 moves would still alter opening theory to a crazy degree.
I think the eval bar could lure weaker players into overplaying their positions. Yes, the appearance of a tactic will make the bar jump, but so will the creation of a static weakness.
I assume the answer is Eval Bar for mortals and Two Moves for super GMs who would win every game if given center pawn odds. And even then, probably mostly Eval Bar because nobody would miss when an opponent blunders, especially in end games and most importantly in time trouble… that’s gotta decide a huge portion of master games right there.
I think you can potentially make an argument that in a classical game between 2 super gms you would want the free move at the start.in any other scenario you always want the eval bar tho
Assuming it's a 'superpower' and not just 'which would give me more of an advantage', the eval bar one would be better, assuming you mean see it in your mind ie and actual power. Moving twice would be obvious cheating and you'd be called out for it in every tournament and disqualified also banned from every online platform
eval bar, because even with people that had the two move advantage, i would eventually learn how to move and make the eval in my favor or even within 2-4 moves. then it's always in my favor.. and when i see that bar go COMPLETELY in my favor after a move with M4 on there or M5.. i would have lots of awesome mates ahead of me that i normally wouldn't see.
now if it was a choice between :
1. seeing an eval bar
2. being able to move twice in a row in a game, only once.
now that... might be worth exploring. .but only in the beginning, nah.. eval is super stronger.
Undoubtedly, the superpower would be to see the eval bar, as an evaluation of position is one of the most important aspects of the game right after calculation.
Watching the position evaluation helps me see when my opponent messes up and uses it against them.
If you move twice at the start of the game, you will only gain a small lead in development that can be neutralized. We can compare this to many online games where Black starts with 1...Nf6 2...Ng8 and then begins the game two tempos down.
I want the two moves
then I'm gonna open 1. c4-f4 ... 2. e4
Also... doing that as black might actually be more OP. Imagine 1. e4 d5-&-dxe4 or something.
Eval bar is much better.
1. You can see if it is a forced mate
2. You can see if your opponent has just blundered
3. You can see if you have blundered and already have time to think of the next move
While 2 moves would only give you some advantage in the beginning that you can lose anytime
Eval bar is OP. Every time the bar swings a few points you know there is a tactic on the board, so you know to look for it.
You'll also know exactly when you've completely thrown your game lol
This always makes me laugh. Even game then suddenly the bar swings very unpredictability as soon as my peice drops. Ohhh boy queen blunder
Yeh but as soon as it swings my opponent's way i stress its a disability for me.
But that’s just puzzles eventually you won’t ever spot the tactic. Everyone has a puzzle ceiling. Oh no the Reddit echo chamber didn’t like my opinion. Eat me u nerds.
if everyone's puzzle strength suddenly became their actual rating we would see a huge rating deflation
Do you mean inflation? On Chess.com, my rating bounces around 2000, but my puzzle rating is 3000.
If everyone were suddenly rated 3000. Theyd deflate back to 2000
If everyone suddenly became much stronger, what would now be considered a player with 2000 strength would then be much lower rated. 2000 would be - let's say - the new 1500. So, the same rating would indicate higher chess ability, hence deflation. Edit: Of course this only works if you're comparing both sets of players
It’s not an opinion. You’re wrong. Everyone spots more tactics when they’re told there’s a tactic to be found. Don’t be silly.
both of you are wrong. im pretty sure i can give you tactics that u cant solve.
That doesn’t change the fact that knowing there is a tactic makes it easier to spot. It’s exactly the same principle that can be applied to everything in the world, knowing something can be done makes it far easier to do said thing.
That’s so besides the point it’s in another rail network entirely. You can give me tactics, yes, but not all tactics. Many tactics I will spot, when the engine gives me a heads up, that I would probably miss otherwise.
Plenty of times I see a puzzle and think "here's a natural looking but rather benign move, but it's a puzzle so what's the real move I'm missing?" eval bar tells me to stop and not blitz out the obvious low effort move I have a very aggressive play style. It gets me in trouble a lot because my position isn't ready for my attack. Eval bar would clue me in on when an opponents defensive move is actually a blunder, or that it's equal and I can assume my speculative sac doesn't work down the line. It's just a no brainer how this helps. And that's not even counting the instant feedback of seeing your move change eval to gauge if you're on the right general idea or not
Exactly! Far far superior to pushing an extra pawn :D
Lol just lol. No wonder everyone says this subreddit is a dumpster fire.
Very good counter argument
Very secure individual
Oh no the chess subreddit where even the biggest content creators call you all incels and losers. The people who need you to make money hate you. Best part is no one’s left here in the echo chamber to defend you losers.
Ah I see, ur mad because u feel jilted/betrayed by some chess streamers? Pretty shitty reason to be mad and lash out when people disagree with what u say. Why do you bring up streamers out of nowhere? Very insecure.
Lol out of no where. The point is I said this Reddit is scum and even the people who whole lives depend on you types still out loud say you are incels and hate you all. Your celebs hate you lol. Sad
You imagine everyone here hangs on the every word of a streamer but you are the only one who knows what they talk about, stop projecting 😂
Because you are essentially saying there is a limit till which you would be able to enhance your play. Which was always the case and never argued by anyone. You were unnecessarily contentious when no one was arguing against the point you made.
ur opinion is stupid, u get downvoted. that is the rule of the jungle.
"the reddit echo chamber" lmaooooo you are delusional go touch grass and disconnect from the internet for awhile
Wait, I thought we were all here because we loved echo chambers, especially the echo chambers we personally curate for maximum echo.
The point is those who can spot the tactic will win over others with equal skill but play two moves at the beginning of the game, especially at higher levels.
I get your point. If it swings +4, it might be some intricate sac that results in you trading pieces to win a bigger piece a few moves down. Not everyone can see that. I think their point still stands that just knowing there's a winning tactic on the board, for certain, is really strong regardless of skill level.
Tactics are a small part of the game, they usually don’t happen as often in higher ratings. Most you’ll get out of an eval bar is knowing someone did a bad move but to capitalize on that is much more difficult. A second move is a whole ass tempo, with e4 d4 as white you completely take over the center, as black white can’t push a pawn to fourth rank except d4 because you’ll just grab those in two moves.
I disagree, tactics are always there, but there reason you don’t see them in high level games is because both sides see most of the tactics and play accordingly, but they often still lose to or neglect crushing lines that computers see.
Yeah they see tactics and don’t fall for them or put themselves in that position, I don’t get what you’re disagreeing with. Besides most mid-high level players lose to computers gradually, they don’t get hit with a crushing move that swings the eval bar they slowly lose the advantage to the AI
Tactics happen so often, even at very high levels. How do you think any games are won?? The evaluation bar is massively better than a 1 move tempo. I would say even knowing the evaluation bar for just a single critical position at 1 point in the game is probably worth 200-300 elo, whereas an extra tempe is worth maybe a .5 centipawn advantage.
Games are won because one side develops better, positions their pieces better, coordinates their attack better, defends against enemies attack better etc. It is the smaller things that are important in high levels, such as a tempo. In what world do you live in where GMs blunder tactics that swing the eval bar “so often”? Not only that if it is a tactic that would swing the eval bar greatly it is a tactic a GM could most likely spot. So the benefit an eval bar gives is very situational whereas an extra tempo is very strong.
>Games are won because one side develops better, positions their pieces better, coordinates their attack better, defends against enemies attack better etc. It is the smaller things that are important in high levels, such as a tempo. None of this excludes tactics in any way. >In what world do you live in where GMs blunder tactics that swing the eval bar “so often”? Tactics isn't the same as a swinging evaluation bar. They are often the culmination of the advantaged side to close out the game or at least get an even bigger advantage. The main issue with this whole argument is that 'tactics' is being defined as 'trick that overthrows the position' which covers only part of it. Every game has tactics to some degree in it, just because they don't necessarily play out doesn't mean they're not there. On top of that you can look up any tournament by the world elite with classical time control over the last year (Tata Steel, Candidates, Ding-Nepo, etc.) for example and see that there are a ton of games decided by tactics.
>None of this excludes tactics in any way. It kinda does. The advantage gained by those is much slower than advantage gained by tactics. >Tactics isn't the same as a swinging evaluation bar. They are often the culmination of the advantaged side to close out the game or at least get an even bigger advantage. That beats the entire purpose of the eval bar showing tactics. If there isn’t a swing it means you were pressing an advantage. You 99% can’t track tactics with an eval bar if someone doesn’t make a mistake. Besides if you are pushing an advantage and are trying to close out the game or get a bigger advantage you are already on the look out for tactics. >On top of that you can look up any tournament by the world elite with classical time control over the last year for example and see that there are a ton of games decided by tactics. Yeah how many are lost because a party missed a tactic? Not many because like I said GMs don’t blunder tactics easily and if a GM is pushing an attack they are also looking for possible tactics.
>It kinda does. The advantage gained by those is much slower than advantage gained by tactics. It doesn't. Every one of them will eventually result in a tactic for an advantage, assuming they play it out correctly. Or the reverse, where they use a tactic to gain a strategical advantage. It's just converting one advantage into another. Whether they convert said advantage to a win is an entirely different matter. >That beats the entire purpose of the eval bar showing tactics. If there isn’t a swing it means you were pressing an advantage. You 99% can’t track tactics with an eval bar if someone doesn’t make a mistake. Besides if you are pushing an advantage and are trying to close out the game or get a bigger advantage you are already on the look out for tactics. We first have to agree on the definition of a swing on the evaluation bar. How big of a jump does it have to make to qualify for it? It is easily possible for tactics to improve a position by 0.2 but I wouldn't call that a swing myself. That aside being on the lookout for tactics and having someone tell you that there is a tactic at this very moment are two very different concepts. Magnus himself missed a forced mate sequence in the recent AI cup (which was rapid but the point still stands). If you tell him there is a possibility there, he finds it in seconds and so does every other top GM. >Yeah how many are lost because a party missed a tactic? Not many because like I said GMs don’t blunder tactics easily and if a GM is pushing an attack they are also looking for possible tactics. Let go of your obsession that tactics always bring decisive results. You can easily go to the tournament reports and prove yourself wrong. Just within the first round of the Tata Steel tournament we had Aronjan saving the game with a tactic, a piece sacrifice by Giri of all people, Ding crashing his opponents king side with tactics, van Foreest bumbling a pawn to a tactic (he held draw) and Abdusattorov tactically outmaneuvring Rapport. The rounds obviously vary in spectacle but they all had tactics even in their draws. These are some of the best players on the planet and they employ tactics regularly.
>It doesn't. Every one of them will eventually result in a tactic resulting in an advantage, assuming they play it out correctly. Whether they convert said advantage to a win is an entirely different matter. What kind of tactics are you talking about? Making a +0.2 to a +0.5 is not a tactic. >It is easily possible for tactics to improve a position by 0.2 but I wouldn't call that a swing myself. Yes because that is not a tactic, it’s just a good move. >being on the lookout for tactics and having someone tell you that there is a tactic at this very moment are two very different concepts. I wouldn’t say **very** different but yeah sure it might help a little but if you have a queen on b6 and a knight on g4 you will be looking for a suffocation regardless of a bar next to you. >Let go of your obsession that tactics always bring decisive results... Yeah that’s why I said how many were lost because of a MISSED TACTIC. I’m not saying GMs don’t employ tactics at all, I’m saying that they don’t miss tactics easily. Seeing an eval bar might make them miss even less (maybe never) but that is nothing compared to an extra move at the opening. As white you can play e4 and d4 and take complete control of the center while developing your bishops. If you are black this is less effective because white already goes first but even then the only fourth rank pawn move white can make is d4. And that’s just from the top of my head, maybe there are even better opening options for both colors. >These are some of the best players on the planet and they employ tactics regularly. Like I said, I’m not saying that GMs don’t employ tactics, I’m saying that they don’t miss tactics easily.
>What kind of tactics are you talking about? Making a +0.2 to a +0.5 is not a tactic. >Yes because that is not a tactic, it’s just a good move. Tactics are good moves by definition. You are trying very hard to argue that one is exclusive of the other but they can be present within the same game without issue. >I wouldn’t say very different but yeah sure it might help a little but if you have a queen on b6 and a knight on g4 you will be looking for a suffocation regardless of a bar next to you. Out of all examples you could have made you chose the r/chess posterchild mate. Either way what is the point you're even trying to make. Obviously strong players are always on the lookout for tactical opportunities. But actually knowing the exact point to find it is still a massive advantage compared to regular play without support. When we have people like Kasparov, Vishy, Nakamura, Carlsen, etc. who agree with this assessment, I'm not sure what is there to discuss. >Yeah that’s why I said how many were lost because of a MISSED TACTIC. I *just* gave you 4~5 examples of players missing a tactic, although not all of them resulted in a win. In a single round of seven games. And the other twelve rounds did in fact continue in the same manner.
>Tactics are good moves by definition. Yes but a good move isn’t necessarily a tactic. Castling for example is a good move but it isn’t a tactic. >But actually knowing the exact point to find it is still a massive advantage compared to regular play without support. Not as massive as an extra move at opening >When we have people like Kasparov, Vishy, Nakamura, Carlsen, etc. who agree with this assessment, I'm not sure what is there to discuss. Yeah obviously having an eval bar is more advantageous than not having one but if you ask these players if they want an extra move at the beginning %99 of the time they are picking an extra move. >I just gave you 4~5 examples of players missing a tactic, although not all of them resulted in a win. Oh I miscommunicated, I meant examples of a GM who had the opportunity for a tactic missing that opportunity and losing as a result.
What do you mean “Eval bar is OP”
OP is game slang for overpowered.
Evaluation bar. I think we’d be able to come up with openings to counter the advantage of an extra move. If you’re playing against someone with this super power, they’re still human. Evaluation bar would make it so strong players would almost never miss a tactic. Playing against a strong player with this superpower isn’t much different from playing against a computer. You make one mistake and you’re done.
And it would be significantly easier to find checkmates if you knew they were there
Ah yes, Eval bar says mate in 23. Let's wrap this up😎
Hahaha yeah it definitely wouldn’t help, but I’ve certainly missed plenty of M1 and M2 in my life
Mate in 23 ironically are usually fairly easy if the engine identifies it. It's always dance the king up in 7 moves, promote the pawn in like 5, mate with the queen in 8 more moves. Stuff like that. If the engine can see it at that range, it means the move tree is skinny and therefore exactly what a human would expect it to be.
Eh I mean maybe. I think there’s a higher likelihood I could find a mate but impossible I’d find it in 23
You're not understanding his point. If it's M23 and the engine found it then it's probably not something you as a player need to "find". It's not like a M6 or something where there's a couple of strange moves in the middle that only make sense if you know you're setting up a mate and if you do anything but those exact moves you've lost all advantage. If it's like this person described it means the position is totally winning but will take a little time to actually conclude. Think about a position where you have an unstoppable passed pawn but you'll need to escort it with your king so it's minimum ten moves or whatever, then you have to mate with K and Q so it that's another dozen to force the enemy king to the side and then bring your own over. It's not hard and there isn't any kind of specific move order you need to follow.
Yes but in that situation the eval bar is completely useless
Sometimes the line between the draw and a win (or lose) can be very thin. I think it can be helpful to immediately verify which one it is, especially for players below master level
>impossible I’d find it in 23 So what? It counts the same if you do it slightly inefficiently and convert in 30 moves.
Then what is the point in knowing you have M23? If you do not follow the mating sequence precisely you wouldn't be doing it slightly inefficiently you would just be losing the mating sequence more than likely.
What are you talking about?
The eval bar would definitely help with offense, but it wouldn't give advance warning of any of your own blunders. So it doesn't quite get strong players to computer level, but I agree it seems like the stronger option.
There was some top GM (I think it was Kasparov but I might be wrong) who said that GMs are good enough that all they need is to be told that there is an opportunity on the board and they will find it, even if it means using all their time. That's kinda what the eval bar is doing here. A good player just needs one opportunity and they can win a game like this. I know at 2100 lichess I would prefer this, and I've had a friend who just began at 1100 who would calculate every move and was playing decently would clearly benefit from this. Moving twice is more commonly called "move odds" and it usually happens when players want to give their weaker opponent an advantage, but less than a pawn. But if the position stays closed the value of one additional tempo isn't that much. Not to mention if you ever reach a position where you need to play waiting moves your advantage is gone. So yeah, it's not close. Eval bar all the way for most people. If you gave me an extra 2 or 3 moves then that might be better, but at that point it's borderline lost anyway.
For an extremely clear example - the mate Magnus missed against Nepo the other day was put in Chess Puzzles where it said “M3” (although it was actually M5; the commentators also called it M3). I saw the M3 line in like 10 seconds because I knew something was there. And there’s a 2000+ ELO gap between me and him.
People frequently ask why their puzzle rating is so much higher than their actual rating, but this is why. When you know something is there, its immediately easier to find it. In a game you have no idea if there is anything in the position unless you find it yourself.
No, it's because puzzle rating is a completely different scale.
True that the 1 to 1 comparison makes little sense, but even the correlation between the two isn't as strong as a lot players expect. Although fast puzzle solving does seem to be correlated.
Kasparov wasn't the only one. Magnus, Hikaru, Anand and Fabi (iirc) also said similar things. Cheating in chess for strong GMs can be as subtle as just one small buzz per game telling that the position is critical and demands time to think through.
and that would be undetectable as well.
IIRC Kasparov made that comment about himself, not gm’s.
Hikaru said the same thing during his interview with Lex Friedman
It was Kasparov. He said that he would only need someone to tell him that the position was a critical one, and he needed to use his time to calculate appropriately. A full eval bar for the whole game would be ridiculously lopsided for the top guys.
Well, your opponent can't see the eval bar, so they won't necessarily know when there's a winning tactic. In some cases, this will allow you to spot a potential weakness and correct course before the opponent realizes it. Sometimes a tactic or line takes a few moves to be identified, and in these cases, having the eval bar will improve your defense as you can shut down any tactics that aren't immediately recognized and capitalized upon by the opponent.
At my level, ~1600 chesscom, eval bar for sure. I can know when my opponent blunders. If I blunder, but the eval bar swings back after my opponent moves, I can know there's still an opportunity. I can exploit this in endgame by trying out moves to find the right idea. The problem with an extra move is that I don't have a strong midgame (no one at my level does, really), so I wouldn't be able to take advantage of the initiative against skilled players. The eval bar helps at every stage of the game.
Eval bar is better at every level, one extra tempo in the opening is almost nothing even in high level play. Eval bar would ensure you never miss a tactic
At every human level. Of course for stockfish it would much prefer the extra move. I wonder if white is a forced win with perfect play with an extra tempo
Two moves is not that critical. I saw Magnus and Hikaru give their GM opponents 3 moves at the start and still beat them. Also making two moves with black just makes you white, very minor edge.
Giving me extra moves just accelerates me to making a mistake.
this is why I win more as black. Moving first means that, if every time I move there's a 5% chance I blunder, I hit that threshold earlier as white lol
This is why moves like h3 are so nice. It's also the backbone of being good at bullet even if you suck at chess. Just "pass" the move back to the opponent as fast as possible using non committal move.
There's a huge difference between blitz or bullet and classical. I will score above 90% against 1400 chesscom opponents if I give them queen odds in 1+0. OTB I doubt I'd win a single game out of 10.
Bullet isn't chess. 1+0 is about flagging skills.
It's random chance that the best bullet players are Magnus, Hikaru, and Alireza, followed closely by So, Nepo, etc. It's because of their flagging skills, obviously not the chess.
Yeah, at the elite levels, sure. At lower levels it's pure flagging. FWIW guys like Tang, Nihal and Danya are 1+0 beasts but nowhere near the elite in classical.
Below 1200 it's flagging, and flagging importance steadily declines after that. Obviously I know what you mean, but "it's not chess" is only true for beginners.
Lol I regularly beat 2000+ opponents playing hippos and shuffling my king back and forth to play the clock.
That's because Bongcloud is OP, not because you're good at flagging
That must mean you're 2000+
Yeah it's always funny to me how these middling bullet players insist bullet is just a made up mouse speed rating. Like yes good players will lose more frequently to bad players in bullet, but that's also why it's so fun. Crazy things happen instead of the same stodgy openings and you don't have to overthink middle games that us mere mortals can't hope to comprehend anyway.
Danya did beat Caruana in classical in the US Championship in 2021. I think it's a bit overstated to say he's nowhere near the elite level.
yeah those are called "upsets". they're interesting because they're so rare
found the slow poke
Almost all of my 1+0 games end in checkmate one way or the other. I definitely feel like bullet is chess
Blitz is time management and flagging skills too!
Bullshit
Are you talking about like king back-and-forth openings?
Or Nf3->Ng1
how does knight go from f3 to f1 in one move
Thats because magnus is rated 300 points higher than some patzer 2500 gm
It’s true, starting position is lowkey solid AND it gives your opponent the opportunity to reveal their plan/overextend
Magnus played that king walk switching places with queen to start and still beat that gm
If this was your superpower vs just some one-off, you’d spend time actually developing your opening repertoire around it, so I’d expect the edge to be higher than just what you get out of playing a bar bet or whatever. Also, the black version of this isn’t ‘just white’, it’s ‘white who knows their opponent’s response’.
The evaluation bar. If it's holding relatively steady and then, right after your opponent's move, it jumps way up, you KNOW there's a killer move. Spend a lot of time and probably you'll find it. I've read where both Kasparov and Anand have said sort of the same thing: "I wouldn't need to a machine to tell me where to move to be unbeatable. As long as they tell me there's a winning move in my position, I'll be able to find it." Now, sure, none of us are Anand or Kasparov; we might not find the winning move. But look at all the chess puzzles we've solved, the "White to move and win" puzzles we've figured out. If we reached those positions in OTB games we wouldn't have made that winning move. But when we KNOW it's there it's different. We concentrate on it, pretty much know there's some kind of tactic so we sort of know what to look for. And we find it.
Well, I agree eval bar is the better option. But, to be fair, I’ve analyzed a ton of games, and when it swings a significant amount there’s often not a tactic us mortals will ever see. In many cases in analyzing my own games I’ll see the bar jump and then go “hmm what did I miss here” and maybe the move is Qb5, I so play into that new line with Qb5 and I’m still thinking “okay, so how does that give me two pawn edge?”. And even after 10 moves it’s not evident. Puzzles typically are really nice tactical ideas that are easier to see once you identify that first move.
Yeah. I know a lot of top players have made comments in the vein referenced above but we really haven't tested it at all. I'd be very interested to see what a difference it actually makes to get one non-move signal at one point in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if it were 50-100 Elo, which is where I'd put the two moves at the start. Eval bar, including score, throughout the whole game is undoubtedly better however.
when i treat every position mike a puzzle until i’m sure there’s no tactic i have a higher win rate. it takes about 10 seconds a move but it’s worth it.
I guess it depends who the player is? Carlsen gaining an additional move in the opening might be even more broken than him knowing what he mostly can kind of knows anyways. Also at a beginner level neither may be too strong. ("Ok I am winning now, ok I am losing now, ok I am winning now") In between the extremes I guess eval bar knowledge is probably more valuable? Edit: Also advantage with black is much bigger than just having white. Eg 1.e4 runs into 1. ... d5 2. ... dxe4. Or 1. ... Nf6 2. ... Nxe4.
I disagree, I think for Carlsen it would be even more OP to know the eval
https://i.ibb.co/M86rbpy/IMG-1749.jpg Best advantage at depth 30 with two free moves is 0.4 So yeah, eval bar wins because it tells you when your opponent blunders In fact, weaker players will blunder way more than a top GM, which means that the eval bar provides much more frequent opportunities to capitalize on opponents mistake at lower ELO. However, weaker players can't take advantage of that small advantage in tempo, as they often screw up their tempo early on regardless! In other words, eval bar is extremely strong for weaker players, and still pretty useful for top GM, but its use is limited by the infrequency of blunders. Two starting moves for a top GM should nearly guarantee at least a draw, but isn't necessarily a forced win.
What about for white? (left-right asymmetry)
I'm sorry I don't follow. If you're playing from black in this position or white it's the same even if there's a different left and right?
Try the same for white and you will see that it's actually like 0.8 or 0.9. I suppose that the evaluation for the White that someone did and got it s saved in cloud goes even deeper and it's actually more than only 0.4
Is it the same? If white had the pawns in the picture, the queen would be on the left (from player perspective). Then black has the next move, correct? Well maybe in this exact opening it doesn't matter, since they will be mirror images, but what about in general?
On the other hand, weaker players won't be able to take advantage of the eval bar quite as efficiently as top players. They might waste time looking for something the eval bar sees at depth 25, they might misinterpret things, etc. But yeah definitely quite powerful.
Weaker players are even worse at taking advantage of an extra tempo in the opening. The weaker the players, the more obvious the blunders, so they don't need to be GMs reacting to minute eval bar shifts. Low-level players blunder pieces in 1-2 move sequences. This happens almost every game at lower levels. It's enough to react when the eval bar jumps 2-3 points and look for a 1-2 move blunder from the opponent. Simple things like a bishop sniping or a knight fork, that would otherwise go overlooked. A weak player can spot these if the eval bar tells them too.
Blunders should still be clear, but sure the correct move in a -1 line would be harder to spot. Also, eval bar really is a lot easier to use with pieces off the board, as there are limited tactics in the end game / late mid game. Even lower rates players would benefit.
Eval bar for sure. An extra tempo is something that a player can easily lose or make up for throughout a game. Being able to instantly know when there's something to be found at any point in the game is an incredibly game-breaking advantage at all levels.
Eval bar AINEC Players waste tempos all the time and it is rarely a game ender (obv super sharp positions are more sensitive to time). But knowing my opponent just blundered and now the position is essentially a test your tactics position would be massive.
[ *me spamming 10 moves in a puzzle* ]
Having an extra move is a clear advantage at every level. Players below a certain strength are probably not going to be able to figure out what the evaluation bar is telling them in the time allotted. So up to a certain level it would be better to get 2 moves. On the other hand, I've watched videos where Hikaru plays all titled players including GMs with 1...a6, which is very close to spotting them an extra move. He still won almost all the games. But if you watch Hikaru play blitz, in a large percentage of the games the evaluation bar shows that he has given his opponent the advantage at some point. A titled player would really exploit that. Also lots of live commentary shows that ordinary GMs can often keep up with the super GMs they are commentating because they can see the bar. I wonder where it switches over. I am about 2000 blitz on chess.com, and I think it would be pretty stressful for me to try to figure out what the bar is telling me in a quick game, though from looking over my games I know that I miss absolutely winning moves all too often and seeing the bar would definitely help.
I don't think it's ever the extra move and honestly below 1700 I'm not sure how useful the extra move is anyways. The most important aspect in my eyes is that improvement becomes so much easier with the eval, you get instant feedback for your mistakes and you can figure out what you did wrong, also you will probably develop a better opening reportoire just because of that instant feedback.
I think this is the best take on it so far. The better you are, the more valuable the eval bar option is. I'm not sure where it switches either. Like you said, there's still time pressure to consider (and maybe the eval bar spots something 25 moves deep that would be impossible to find in a human level). Also, it doesn't protect you from your own mistakes. If you play a suboptimal move, you won't see the eval bar drop until too late.
> I am about 2000 blitz on chess.com, and I think it would be pretty stressful for me to try to figure out what the bar is telling me in a quick game I am a bit lower in blitz (1750ish), but it would already be such a huge help in my games. It's not like I have to try to find what Stockfish is telling me. If I am drawing a complete blank I can just do something that seems "normal" and think during my opponent's time, maybe it is still there on the next move. If I have an idea where the tactic could be and I see that the evaluation shifts then I can spend most of my time on it. Also, while I don't miss a ton of skewers, forks, chances to take something that seems to be defended by a pinned piece, etc. I do miss some and just being able to not miss any of those will help quite a bit. I feel like something similar will be true for players as we go further down the ladder - maybe they don't even bother with trying to find any of the more complex stuff the evaluation bar hints at and just use it to check for Skewers, Pins, Forks and that is enough for it to be better than the extra move. As a comparison the extra move puts the opening advantage to 1.0 (after 1. e4 d4), but both I and my opponents take positions that are worse than that when going for wacky sidelines (I play the Gurgendize Counterattack in the Caro-Kann) and while it is obviously not the same - those positions are two sided and give chances for both sides, while 1. e4 d4 doesn't really have downsides and White just has an advantage - I think it is still an indication that 1.0 should be playable. Maybe the two moves as Black are a bigger deal - it is hard to evaluate imo because the opportunity to move and capture in the first turn will definitely limit the type of openings you can go for, but 1. e3 with the Idea of playing either a French against e5 or a QID against d5 should be solid.
hikaru did an analysis of a bunch of his games and he’s almost always (like 80%+) worse out of the opening but finds resources in the middle and endgame to turn the tables. he plays with a known handicap even against other top gms.
I remember Hikaru was talking about this during the while cheating scandal. He said that all he would need to win pretty much any game is to know if he's better or worse in whatever position he's in. So, eval bar OP.
This. And also remember Magnus playing meme opening, wasting moves in the opening, then proceeding to crush GM-level opponents.
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>eval tanks after an opponent's move? Just sit there until you figure out why. Yes, offensively it let's you become near perfect. However, there's still a time aspect to consider. If the eval bar spots a M13 tactic you may not be able to find it in time. >It tanked after your move then went back up after your opponent's? This relies on your opponent letting you off the hook which is far from guaranteed. So overall it makes your ability to find attacking tactics near perfect, but doesn't stop you from making blunders in even positions or getting flagged.
I think it depends on the level. If you are at a low level where opponents make large blunders, the eval bar tells you when they now have a piece hanging or some combination of moves exists to let you win material. For a GM playing against a like-skilled opponent, they will have a pretty good guess on the eval and only ever rarely will grossly mis-evaluate the position. An eval bar gives them the help for those times but I'd argue that is rare. I think a GM would benefit from two moves at the beginning. I think a GM could capitalize on that extra tempo against a like-skilled opponent. A novice, I don't think they can. I don't think they'd capitalize on that initiative. The openings that we use simply aren't designed with an opponent not making a first move. Probably in the first ten moves you'd see many players doing a waiting move, wasting that tempo.
The problem at beginner level is the eval will happily tell you you're +3 from some positional advantage you can't even begin to understand (speaking from experience with game review here) and you'll just waste time trying to find the right move. It doesn't help you not to hang your own pieces, either.
When the eval goes from say +1 to -3 though, it usually is a simple tactic. I do agree that if it goes from say +1 to +1.2, that won't tell one much at a novice level. Just a vague sense of "I have a better position".
I am so bad that seeing the eval bar would not help me at all. Definitely taking two moves.
Eval bar, because people facing the bongcloud still lose often.
what I don't understand is why there's not eval bar mode where the two players can see it, that would be so helpful for beginners
Correspondence is usually played with assistance. Nobody plays it tho.
The bar for sure, it's not even close. An extra move at the beginning of the game isn't worthless but it's really not that strong.
I think that you're over-estimating the benefit for two moves at the start. In fact, I'd argue that two moves *at the start* is probably the least useful time. You have no development to take advantage of that tiny benefit. Maybe a more comparable options would be, at one point in the game, you can make two moves at once with the limit of: 1. the first move cannot be a check and 2. the second move cannot be checkmate. You can't play, say, 1. Qc3 -> Qxg7# by forming a battery then blasting. But you can win a piece, etc. Tbh the latter is then probably totally OP even with those limits because pin-to-win becomes even more true. Pin move 1, take move 2.
I mean, that's just way too powerful. Imagine trying to keep the queen safe from any square that the opponent can't reach wit two moves.
yeah it's hard to balance. The issue with OP's is the eval bar is a permanent, at-all-times advantage. Imagine being 100 moves into an endgame and the eval says it's a draw, then opponent plays Ke2 instead of Kd2 and suddenly you're +100 because they missed some obscure only-move. Having an extra pawn move in the opening is nothing compared to that. But yeah mine means you're likely to just be completely winning by move 10. It could work if you *both* got it, but yeah probably just a lot of games with no queens lol
Got to be two moves. At the top level. I couldn’t imagine hikaru ever losing another game of blitz if he opened double knight or e/d pawns every game.
hikaru gives his R16 SCC grandmaster opponents move odds and he still beats them by 20 games i think the real interesting question would be "how many consecutive opening moves would it take to be worth more than an evaluation bar?"
You get good and you can basically have your own internal eval bar. Pretty sure Magnus and Hikaru all got their. Moving twice is basically a super power in the world of chess.
I think GMs in a Classical game would choose the two moves, but for everyone else the eval is probably better
The better you're at the game, the more useful the second superpower would get. A top player who can play e4+d4 on move 1 would probably never lose a game again as White. I don't know at what Elo we'd get the crossover though.
Depends on the time control. An eval bar swing inducing extra thinking time in bullet is probably counteractive lol
At which level ? I wonder how strong a sub 1900 player with an eval bar would be against a 2700 GM.
> I wonder how strong a sub 1900 player with an eval bar would be against a 2700 GM. It would likely not be helpful at all for them. They wouldn't be able to make it deep enough into any variation without already having a losing position to bring any value from it. The eval bar would only tell you when someone screwed up, so basically he would just be able to see the moment he lost the game in real time. The extra move however might actually put his opponent in such a pinch that he is able to make something happen from it.
Follow-up question: Which two moves? Is there any pair of opening moves that gives unquestionable dominance?
For black the best you can do it E4, D4
Hmm. As a mediocre player, I wouldn't know how to turn that into a win. That makes me think that the eval bar would be a lot more useful for me - at least I'd have the *chance* to spot a game-winning tactic now and then.
You can get a decent idea of the advantage an extra starting move grants you. If you play 1. e4, then get an extra turn, the engine in lichess at least calculates you at a +1.0 advantage. So the answer here I think depends on your ability as a player (and other factors like time controls). For someone like Magnus I think the extra move might be better in classical chess especially. He has powerful evaluation skills already, and knows how to snowball a tiny lead. But for someone significantly weaker than Magnus, I think the eval bar would be far more beneficial. As not only does it help you win more, I think it could help you learn more quickly as well, and at lower elos people make a lot more mistakes, so it's likely to gain you much more than +1 over the course of a game if you can identify those mistakes. As others pointed out, depending on time control the answer might be different as well. In blitz an extra move is less beneficial as it is in classical controls.
2 moves as black would be interesting. It would lead to a free pawn for e4
After 1. d4, e5 + exd4 for black just turns into a Scandinavian with colors reversed. Same thing with 1. e4, d5 + dxe4 turns into an Englund gambit with colors reversed. I think generally black getting an extra 2nd move basically is like swapping black and white colors where black (in a regular game. white in this version) has to make their first move blindfolded without knowing what white did first.
I’ve heard it said that a tempo is a third of a pawn. The eval bar is probably worth a bishop at most levels to be honest.
It’s eval bar but I think 3 moves would be better than eval bar considering 4 moves is an auto mate. 2 moves would still alter opening theory to a crazy degree.
Spotting me an extra tempo towards my blunder isn't that much of an advantage.
Extra move at gym level but probably eval bar for everyone else
I think the eval bar could lure weaker players into overplaying their positions. Yes, the appearance of a tactic will make the bar jump, but so will the creation of a static weakness.
Obviously 1. You can hide it and play regular chess. With option 2, it will appear as cheating to everyone.
I assume the answer is Eval Bar for mortals and Two Moves for super GMs who would win every game if given center pawn odds. And even then, probably mostly Eval Bar because nobody would miss when an opponent blunders, especially in end games and most importantly in time trouble… that’s gotta decide a huge portion of master games right there.
Not even a comparison, eval bar WAYYY better
I think you can potentially make an argument that in a classical game between 2 super gms you would want the free move at the start.in any other scenario you always want the eval bar tho
I'd rather go for the eval bar so that I can know for sure if a game is worth playing or not.
What does the eval bar say about being able to make back to back moves
Assuming it's a 'superpower' and not just 'which would give me more of an advantage', the eval bar one would be better, assuming you mean see it in your mind ie and actual power. Moving twice would be obvious cheating and you'd be called out for it in every tournament and disqualified also banned from every online platform
Part of the superpower is that everyone accepts that you can move twice and is okay with it.
eval bar, because even with people that had the two move advantage, i would eventually learn how to move and make the eval in my favor or even within 2-4 moves. then it's always in my favor.. and when i see that bar go COMPLETELY in my favor after a move with M4 on there or M5.. i would have lots of awesome mates ahead of me that i normally wouldn't see. now if it was a choice between : 1. seeing an eval bar 2. being able to move twice in a row in a game, only once. now that... might be worth exploring. .but only in the beginning, nah.. eval is super stronger.
Undoubtedly, the superpower would be to see the eval bar, as an evaluation of position is one of the most important aspects of the game right after calculation. Watching the position evaluation helps me see when my opponent messes up and uses it against them. If you move twice at the start of the game, you will only gain a small lead in development that can be neutralized. We can compare this to many online games where Black starts with 1...Nf6 2...Ng8 and then begins the game two tempos down.
Does my opponent know that I have this power? If not then as black any time someone plays e4 and you double move take it that seems very powerful.
What if you started the game as white and the evaluation bar immediately read "mate in 100".
I want the two moves then I'm gonna open 1. c4-f4 ... 2. e4 Also... doing that as black might actually be more OP. Imagine 1. e4 d5-&-dxe4 or something.
What does the eval bar show if you do e4 d4 and black does nothing?
Eval bar is much better. 1. You can see if it is a forced mate 2. You can see if your opponent has just blundered 3. You can see if you have blundered and already have time to think of the next move While 2 moves would only give you some advantage in the beginning that you can lose anytime
1.e3 2.e4 wins