Hikaru Takes on LeelaKnightOdds
World #2 Hikaru Nakamura is the latest to take on the Leela engine with knight odds, as offered on Lichess. In contrast to Joel Benjamin’s classical match, Nakamura opted for 3+2, and Leela, as White, played without the knight on g1. The result? Well, similar to other top players in the faster format: a resounding win for the machine.
Early in the first game, Nakamura made an ironic comment: “Qe2 was a good move…” It’s a natural thing to say in a game between humans, but of course that is a safe assumption when playing against Leela. He did get off to a good start, taking his time to successfully convert rook, bishop, and pawn against rook and pawn.
The second game was less successful: 13. …e5?? 14. Bh3.
The evaluation is actually still equal, despite the queen blunder, but computers are ruthless, and it soon turned into Leela’s first win.
The next couple games followed a common pattern, with Nakamura continuing to focus on trying to trade pieces, but inexorably getting squeezed into a losing position. Noticeably, Leela liked to expand with pawns on the kingside. Game four ended with another flash: 36. Qxg6!.
36. …hxg6 37. h7+! and White has mate in two or three. “One more!” said Nakamura, “I’m not going to play any more after this.” Words said by many a chess player. Game five was a draw out of what he felt was a promising attack: “There’s always a trick with the stupid computer,” he grumbled.
Finally, after 10 straight losses, Nakamura earned a second draw and called it a day. “I’ve gotten adopted by…” the sentence trailed off. Final score: 14-2.
You can watch Hikaru’s video on Youtube.
