The Art and Science of Alpha Zero: A Conversation with Thomas Seneca

I feel like there's some smart move that I'm totally missing, yeah, that seems reasonable but I'm not going to tell you a second point okay, that's what you mean, yeah, I'm going to go here and you can just eat away at the eat away at your stuff all right, this is not this is slowly slowly constricting you, yeah, it's only going to take all your pawns, you play very well though, lex, you haven't made any major mistakes, it's just slow slow slow death, the internet honestly will very much disagree but um let's see this, a slow death is better than than a fan of foster embarrassing in the beginning we said I didn't get checkmate in the first few minutes exactly, this feels very constrained, yeah, you're very slowly constrained, I'm trying to play like alpha zero, um, is that that would have been a kind of controlled uh controlled end, you know, the interesting thing is the willingness to sacrifice pieces by us, yes, that's so beautiful, it is beautiful. See, so now I'm going to make use of all these pawns I've taken, um, would you say your alpha zero is much better than you at sacrificing pieces, oh yeah, intentionally, I sometimes you know lose them by mistake but alpha zero is planning to lose them, it feels extremely constraining, yeah, how close do you check me, is there any way for me out of this, no really no, so these pieces can yeah, I'm getting basically all your pieces are getting constrained, I'm just going to march these pawns down here or bring this rook to help out okay, so if I take this knight with the rock, yeah, you could do that that would be a final sort of um hope my night's you see how strong my night's been in this game compared to your bishop, yeah, it's done all the damage, yeah, you can get rid of him now but I think he's already, it's really oh and my time right now, and your time right now, but now I'm gonna get take advantage of your background weakness all right, and uh right, and then this pawn structure you're gonna bring out the other, yeah, I'm gonna bring the other finally gonna swing the other rook into the game check, and I'm just going to keep running okay, how many uh moves would you estimate here, uh, it's going to be about 10 from here, I'm going to swap your rook off your final defensive piece, I'm going to take is there's no that's that's fine well, you can, i'll check you here, oh yeah, and he's just marched there, we're gonna march his phone to the end now. Well, I think this is uh a good time, he played well, honor, uh, to have been defeated, so gracefully, he played very very well, I was impressed, I was impressed, you did, you did great, I didn't ask you what do you think is the most beautiful thing you've seen alpha zero do, oh yes personally, yes.

The Immortal Zogswang Game: A Masterclass in Sacrifice

Personally, yes. So there was actually the most beautiful game that I've seen alpha zero play, and it's being dubbed the immortal zogswang game by uh uh akadamata on the one of youtube brilliant youtube uh commentators uh uh, and he it was alpha zero playing and sacrificing a load of pieces to uh get stockfish all of the sockfish's major pieces queen and two rooks stuck in the corner basically sealed them up like in a tomb and zugswang means at that uh any move that the player makes will make their position worse and um it's never been done to stockfish before, and alpha zero did it super elegantly through sacrificing sacrificing pieces. Yeah, it's a beautiful video online on it.

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Alpha Zero: The Book

The book was written by um the british chess champion and uh and uh women international master natasha reagan and matthew sadler, and we gave i known them both for years for my chest days as a kid, and um when they heard about alpha zero uh before we released it they they they wanted to come in and try it out we gave them full behind-the-scenes access to it, and then um matthew sadler said to me it's like discovering the notebooks of a of a of a hidden champion that no one knew about, and he then wrote this book about all of the different ideas that alpha zero had, and the cool thing is in there in that book so this is it's a chess book but also the first few chapters about about how we built alpha zero our journey towards it, and then magnus carlsen was one of the first people we gave the book to, and he said it's really interesting stuff, and I think it's worth checking out.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou probably need to uh have multiple agents running in your head so one agent is how do i play good chess yeah second agent how do i play not too good of chess and third agent is how do i help lex uh move correctly correctly sure okay we have five minutes each uh looks like i've got you've given me white legs which is nice of you uh we will start the clock so my clock's counting down okay non-standard yeah the english opening you know i'm english so i have to do that so you know you press the clock when you're when you've done your move that's a good starting move very solid legs oh that's not good no this is good this is very solid okay we're quite far away from the uh from the board oh yeah yeah i'll press your clock for you don't worry all right are we far away from the english opening at this no this is a this is a good line you're playing very um very standard you have to get used to this they always do the funny thing where uh very nice pinning you have to take notes of actually what move your you've taken yes uh yeah that's a good always a good plan keeping the king safe i'm gonna do the same play very well so far would you would you say yeah you made it no nothing so far this is i'm not gonna here's the bishop night swap that we were talking about earlier right the tension you're creating the tension in the creator you're leaving the tension exactly all right now it gets harder now you have to come up with your middle game plan would you say you did a very good opening so you're you're in a fine position so far yeah very nice very nice what's your strongest opener opening game or end game i would say probably in the middle game middle games at this kind of this kind of point very good very good very aggressive very aggressive legs if i could sacrifice pieces you tried that's not a good move isn't it that's a good move that's a very nice move um are you afraid of using the queen ah yeah the queen you know you've got to be careful when you use the queen i need to complicate the game a little bit for you you're you're doing too well like oh am i losing a piece here no you're not losing a piece you're doing okay actually i'm going to take it anyway it's only a pawn how's those that's how it starts but it's only a porn very good this is not teleport i'm only a porn star i have to uh i don't feel comfortable with you having a queen on the board take the queens off that's dangerous it makes me feel as much yeah so now we're in the end game now so you're you're on better territory what's the definition of an end game well the queen's coming off is usually the beginning of the end game it's not the only um part of the end game but it's it's one bit of the end game see there's a pretty cool idea what you've done there i'll take off your night now i think the internet is gonna disagree with that now i'm gonna see this is interesting dynamic position with your bishop and my knight but my knight's in a good good strong spot there ah so you're attacking the bishop my my oh the bishop is not so what do i do with this bishop yeah maybe i should use some other kind of way all right yeah uh but then you're gonna attack there i don't know i think i'm just running scared running scared fear can't run running um okay yeah that's not is that oh that's okay actually this is the only one all right it feels like there's not much to do here well you gotta you have to have to come at something good here oh boy and the time's running out and time's running out escape that's a good escape for your king i'm gonna come here now yeah there's nothing else there's nothing else i cannot get another one of your pawns i feel like there's some smart move that i'm totally missing yeah that seems reasonable but i'm not going to tell you a second point okay that's what you mean yeah i'm going to go here and you can just eat away at the eat away at your stuff all right this is not this is slowly slowly constricting you yeah it's only going to take all your pawns you play very well though lex you haven't made any major mistakes it's just slow slow slow death the internet honestly will very much disagree but um let's see this a slow death is better than than a fan of foster embarrassing in the beginning we said i didn't get checkmate in the first few minutes exactly this feels very constrained yeah you're very slowly constrained i'm trying to play like alpha zero um is that that would have been a kind of controlled uh controlled end you know the interesting thing is the willingness to sacrifice pieces by us yes that's so beautiful it is beautiful see so now i'm going to make use of all these pawns i've taken um would you say your alpha zero is much better than you at sacrificing pieces oh yeah intentionally i sometimes you know lose them by mistake but alpha zero is planning to lose them it feels extremely constraining yeah how close do you check me is there any way for me out of this no really no so these pieces can yeah i'm getting basically all your pieces are getting constrained i'm just going to march these pawns down here or bring this rook to help out okay so if i take this knight with the rock yeah you could do that that would be a final sort of um hope my night's you see how strong my night's been in this game compared to your bishop yeah as we were talking about it yeah it's done all the damage yeah you can get rid of him now but i think he's already it's really oh and my time right now and your time right now but now i'm gonna get take advantage of your background weakness all right and uh right and then this pawn structure you're gonna bring out the other yeah i'm gonna bring the other finally gonna swing the other rook into the game check and i'm just going to keep running okay how many uh moves would you estimate here uh it's going to be about 10 from here i'm going to swap your rook off your final defensive piece i'm going to take is there's no that's that's fine well you can i'll check you here oh yeah and he's just marched there we're gonna march his phone to the end now well i think this is uh a good time he played well honor uh to have been defeated so gracefully he played very very well i was impressed i was impressed you you did you did great i didn't ask you what do you think is the most beautiful thing you've seen alpha zero do oh yes personally yes so there was actually the most beautiful game that i've seen alpha zero plays is being dubbed the immortal zogswang game by uh uh akadamata on the one of youtube brilliant youtube uh commentators uh uh and he it was alpha zero playing and sacrificing a load of pieces to uh get stock fishes all of the sockfish's major pieces queen and two rooks stuck in the corner basically sealed them up like in a tomb and zugswang means at that uh any move that the player makes will make their position worse and um it's never been done to stockfish before and alpha zero did it super elegantly through sacrificing sacrificing pieces yeah it's a beautiful video online on it and thank you for giving me and signing this book you're welcome uh what's what is the book the book was written by um the british chess champion and uh and uh women international master natasha reagan and matthew sadler and we gave i known them both for years for my chest days as a kid and um when they heard about alpha zero uh before we released it they they they wanted to come in and try it out we gave them full behind-the-scenes access to it and then um matthew sadler said to me it's like discovering the notebooks of a of a of a hidden champion that no one knew about and he then wrote this book about all of the different ideas that alpha zero had and the cool thing is in there in that book so this is it's a chess book but also the first few chapters about about how we built alpha zero our journey towards it and then magnus carlsen was one of the first people we gave the book to and he uh he sort of probably said it was very useful to him and he's incorporated a lot of the ideas into his own play the new ideas you could say created by alpha alpha zero to lex a fellow explorer of the mysteries of the universe thomas that thank you so much thank you for everything you doyou probably need to uh have multiple agents running in your head so one agent is how do i play good chess yeah second agent how do i play not too good of chess and third agent is how do i help lex uh move correctly correctly sure okay we have five minutes each uh looks like i've got you've given me white legs which is nice of you uh we will start the clock so my clock's counting down okay non-standard yeah the english opening you know i'm english so i have to do that so you know you press the clock when you're when you've done your move that's a good starting move very solid legs oh that's not good no this is good this is very solid okay we're quite far away from the uh from the board oh yeah yeah i'll press your clock for you don't worry all right are we far away from the english opening at this no this is a this is a good line you're playing very um very standard you have to get used to this they always do the funny thing where uh very nice pinning you have to take notes of actually what move your you've taken yes uh yeah that's a good always a good plan keeping the king safe i'm gonna do the same play very well so far would you would you say yeah you made it no nothing so far this is i'm not gonna here's the bishop night swap that we were talking about earlier right the tension you're creating the tension in the creator you're leaving the tension exactly all right now it gets harder now you have to come up with your middle game plan would you say you did a very good opening so you're you're in a fine position so far yeah very nice very nice what's your strongest opener opening game or end game i would say probably in the middle game middle games at this kind of this kind of point very good very good very aggressive very aggressive legs if i could sacrifice pieces you tried that's not a good move isn't it that's a good move that's a very nice move um are you afraid of using the queen ah yeah the queen you know you've got to be careful when you use the queen i need to complicate the game a little bit for you you're you're doing too well like oh am i losing a piece here no you're not losing a piece you're doing okay actually i'm going to take it anyway it's only a pawn how's those that's how it starts but it's only a porn very good this is not teleport i'm only a porn star i have to uh i don't feel comfortable with you having a queen on the board take the queens off that's dangerous it makes me feel as much yeah so now we're in the end game now so you're you're on better territory what's the definition of an end game well the queen's coming off is usually the beginning of the end game it's not the only um part of the end game but it's it's one bit of the end game see there's a pretty cool idea what you've done there i'll take off your night now i think the internet is gonna disagree with that now i'm gonna see this is interesting dynamic position with your bishop and my knight but my knight's in a good good strong spot there ah so you're attacking the bishop my my oh the bishop is not so what do i do with this bishop yeah maybe i should use some other kind of way all right yeah uh but then you're gonna attack there i don't know i think i'm just running scared running scared fear can't run running um okay yeah that's not is that oh that's okay actually this is the only one all right it feels like there's not much to do here well you gotta you have to have to come at something good here oh boy and the time's running out and time's running out escape that's a good escape for your king i'm gonna come here now yeah there's nothing else there's nothing else i cannot get another one of your pawns i feel like there's some smart move that i'm totally missing yeah that seems reasonable but i'm not going to tell you a second point okay that's what you mean yeah i'm going to go here and you can just eat away at the eat away at your stuff all right this is not this is slowly slowly constricting you yeah it's only going to take all your pawns you play very well though lex you haven't made any major mistakes it's just slow slow slow death the internet honestly will very much disagree but um let's see this a slow death is better than than a fan of foster embarrassing in the beginning we said i didn't get checkmate in the first few minutes exactly this feels very constrained yeah you're very slowly constrained i'm trying to play like alpha zero um is that that would have been a kind of controlled uh controlled end you know the interesting thing is the willingness to sacrifice pieces by us yes that's so beautiful it is beautiful see so now i'm going to make use of all these pawns i've taken um would you say your alpha zero is much better than you at sacrificing pieces oh yeah intentionally i sometimes you know lose them by mistake but alpha zero is planning to lose them it feels extremely constraining yeah how close do you check me is there any way for me out of this no really no so these pieces can yeah i'm getting basically all your pieces are getting constrained i'm just going to march these pawns down here or bring this rook to help out okay so if i take this knight with the rock yeah you could do that that would be a final sort of um hope my night's you see how strong my night's been in this game compared to your bishop yeah as we were talking about it yeah it's done all the damage yeah you can get rid of him now but i think he's already it's really oh and my time right now and your time right now but now i'm gonna get take advantage of your background weakness all right and uh right and then this pawn structure you're gonna bring out the other yeah i'm gonna bring the other finally gonna swing the other rook into the game check and i'm just going to keep running okay how many uh moves would you estimate here uh it's going to be about 10 from here i'm going to swap your rook off your final defensive piece i'm going to take is there's no that's that's fine well you can i'll check you here oh yeah and he's just marched there we're gonna march his phone to the end now well i think this is uh a good time he played well honor uh to have been defeated so gracefully he played very very well i was impressed i was impressed you you did you did great i didn't ask you what do you think is the most beautiful thing you've seen alpha zero do oh yes personally yes so there was actually the most beautiful game that i've seen alpha zero plays is being dubbed the immortal zogswang game by uh uh akadamata on the one of youtube brilliant youtube uh commentators uh uh and he it was alpha zero playing and sacrificing a load of pieces to uh get stock fishes all of the sockfish's major pieces queen and two rooks stuck in the corner basically sealed them up like in a tomb and zugswang means at that uh any move that the player makes will make their position worse and um it's never been done to stockfish before and alpha zero did it super elegantly through sacrificing sacrificing pieces yeah it's a beautiful video online on it and thank you for giving me and signing this book you're welcome uh what's what is the book the book was written by um the british chess champion and uh and uh women international master natasha reagan and matthew sadler and we gave i known them both for years for my chest days as a kid and um when they heard about alpha zero uh before we released it they they they wanted to come in and try it out we gave them full behind-the-scenes access to it and then um matthew sadler said to me it's like discovering the notebooks of a of a of a hidden champion that no one knew about and he then wrote this book about all of the different ideas that alpha zero had and the cool thing is in there in that book so this is it's a chess book but also the first few chapters about about how we built alpha zero our journey towards it and then magnus carlsen was one of the first people we gave the book to and he uh he sort of probably said it was very useful to him and he's incorporated a lot of the ideas into his own play the new ideas you could say created by alpha alpha zero to lex a fellow explorer of the mysteries of the universe thomas that thank you so much thank you for everything you do\n"