Hi. I am a competent, but rusty chess player. With a bit of practice, I’m probably around 1450 on Chess.com. I have so far only looked at the fixed debate. In total, I used somewhere between 20-25 minutes deciding my move.
Before consulting the AIs, I spent a few minutes analyzing the board myself. I settled on nC5. Then I read the AI suggestions, and neither wanted that move. qC5 was closer to my thought (I actually missed this as a candidate move).
Initially, this biased me toward Alice (A) being the ally, and Bob (B) being the deceiver. I saw that the white queen couldn’t easily capture b7 without being trapped. Bob suggested that b7 was vulnerable, and that felt wrong to me. Afterall, after qC5, RFD1, black could play bC4, and I don’t see a good refutation. At this point, I was solidly team Alice.
However. Alice didn’t suggest bC4. The line she does suggest is hard for me to follow. Too many moves out given the amount of time I am spending. The moves in that line are impossible for me to verify. Why RF1? Seems like white could have any number of hidden refutations at that point which I am unable to see. For instance, why not use the queen to take the vulnerable knight on A6? The analysis seemed deceptive. Deceptive enough that even though I agree with the move, I no longer trust Alice, and will go with Bob’s suggestion.
Final answer: qxB5
Reflection. I thought I would be able to make an informed decision based on my chess abilities. By the end, I had changed and gone against my intuition to side with Bob. Once a line gets 3+ moves in, I have to acknowledge my inability to spot hidden traps without some deep analysis. This creates a problem. Now I have to choose whichever AI is more persuasive, and for all I know, Alice was being totally truthful, and was simply unable to convey her thoughts clearly to someone of my Elo. Overall, I have low confidence in my ability to choose the safe AI.
Other notes: I did not know how to flip the board until after. Wonder if that hurt my playing. Woops! Also, I think I made a mistake in my method. I spent too much time trying to verify Alice’s logic. By the time I got suspicious, I was too burnt out to do the same level of analysis on Bob. If I had analyzed Bob first, maybe I would have developed the same distrust towards him, since both players would use logic I could not follow. Final note: I would have preferred the refutations to follow a single line at a time. Instead of Opening Statement A, Opening Statement B, Line A refutation, Line B refutation etc, I would have preferred Opening Statement A, Line A refutation, refutation response, Opening Statement B, Line B refutation etc. Studying both at once was too much for my little brain to handle.
Good job really approaching this properly in the spirit. Clearly my explanations are off and need to be more persuasive. I was worried about creating a giant wall of text and tried to be limited and choose only what I thought were more intuitive moves, but it’s probably pointless because there are so many continuations possible. So AIs arguing with each other about tactical lines won’t lead to a resolution.
But… positions are dependent on concrete lines and I can’t just argue on basic principles (both sides could do this equally well too probably)
Yeah, I think the problem is just very difficult, especially since the two moves aren’t even that different in strength. I’d try a longer but less complex debate (i.e., less depth), but even that probably wouldn’t be enough (and you’d need people to read more).
Replying to my own comment here after evaluating with stockfish. Interesting. It appears that I was both right and wrong in my analysis. The undefended knight on A6 is not a viable target. Black has a mate in 2 if you take that bait. I guess that was the limit of my foresight. HOWEVER, Alice actually did miss qC5 RFD1, bC4, which was the best move. It was her missing this that started to erode my confidence in her.
Hm… Still really tough. Also interesting that both suggested moves were probably better than my own move of nC5.
Hi. I am a competent, but rusty chess player. With a bit of practice, I’m probably around 1450 on Chess.com.
I have so far only looked at the fixed debate. In total, I used somewhere between 20-25 minutes deciding my move.
Before consulting the AIs, I spent a few minutes analyzing the board myself. I settled on nC5. Then I read the AI suggestions, and neither wanted that move. qC5 was closer to my thought (I actually missed this as a candidate move).
Initially, this biased me toward Alice (A) being the ally, and Bob (B) being the deceiver. I saw that the white queen couldn’t easily capture b7 without being trapped. Bob suggested that b7 was vulnerable, and that felt wrong to me. Afterall, after qC5, RFD1, black could play bC4, and I don’t see a good refutation. At this point, I was solidly team Alice.
However. Alice didn’t suggest bC4. The line she does suggest is hard for me to follow. Too many moves out given the amount of time I am spending. The moves in that line are impossible for me to verify. Why RF1? Seems like white could have any number of hidden refutations at that point which I am unable to see. For instance, why not use the queen to take the vulnerable knight on A6? The analysis seemed deceptive. Deceptive enough that even though I agree with the move, I no longer trust Alice, and will go with Bob’s suggestion.
Final answer: qxB5
Reflection. I thought I would be able to make an informed decision based on my chess abilities. By the end, I had changed and gone against my intuition to side with Bob. Once a line gets 3+ moves in, I have to acknowledge my inability to spot hidden traps without some deep analysis. This creates a problem. Now I have to choose whichever AI is more persuasive, and for all I know, Alice was being totally truthful, and was simply unable to convey her thoughts clearly to someone of my Elo. Overall, I have low confidence in my ability to choose the safe AI.
Other notes: I did not know how to flip the board until after. Wonder if that hurt my playing. Woops!
Also, I think I made a mistake in my method. I spent too much time trying to verify Alice’s logic. By the time I got suspicious, I was too burnt out to do the same level of analysis on Bob. If I had analyzed Bob first, maybe I would have developed the same distrust towards him, since both players would use logic I could not follow.
Final note: I would have preferred the refutations to follow a single line at a time. Instead of Opening Statement A, Opening Statement B, Line A refutation, Line B refutation etc, I would have preferred Opening Statement A, Line A refutation, refutation response, Opening Statement B, Line B refutation etc. Studying both at once was too much for my little brain to handle.
Good job really approaching this properly in the spirit. Clearly my explanations are off and need to be more persuasive. I was worried about creating a giant wall of text and tried to be limited and choose only what I thought were more intuitive moves, but it’s probably pointless because there are so many continuations possible. So AIs arguing with each other about tactical lines won’t lead to a resolution.
But… positions are dependent on concrete lines and I can’t just argue on basic principles (both sides could do this equally well too probably)
Hmm...
Yeah, I think the problem is just very difficult, especially since the two moves aren’t even that different in strength. I’d try a longer but less complex debate (i.e., less depth), but even that probably wouldn’t be enough (and you’d need people to read more).
Replying to my own comment here after evaluating with stockfish. Interesting. It appears that I was both right and wrong in my analysis. The undefended knight on A6 is not a viable target. Black has a mate in 2 if you take that bait. I guess that was the limit of my foresight. HOWEVER, Alice actually did miss qC5 RFD1, bC4, which was the best move. It was her missing this that started to erode my confidence in her.
Hm… Still really tough. Also interesting that both suggested moves were probably better than my own move of nC5.