LW - Deception Chess: Game #1 by Zane

Link to original article

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Deception Chess: Game #1, published by Zane on November 3, 2023 on LessWrong.
This is the first of my analyses of the deception chess games. The introduction will describe the setup of the game, and the conclusion will sum up what happened in general terms; the rest of the post will mostly be chess analysis and skippable if you just want the results. If you haven't read
the original post
, read it before reading this so that you know what's going on here.
The first game was between
Alex A
as player A, Chess.com computer
Komodo 12
as player B, myself as the honest C advisor, and
aphyer
and
AdamYedidia
as the deceptive Cs. (Someone else randomized the roles for the Cs and told us in private.)
The process of selecting these players was already a bit difficult. We were the only people available all at once, but Alex was close enough to our level (very roughly the equivalents of 800-900 USCF to 1500-1600 USCF) that it was impossible to find a B that would reliably beat Alex every time but lose to us every time. We eventually went with Komodo 12 (supposedly rated 1600, but the Chess.com bots' ratings are inflated compared to Chess.com players and even more inflated compared to over-the board, so I would estimate its USCF rating would be in the 1200-1300 range.)
Since this was the first trial run, the time control was only 3 hours in total, and all in one sitting. Komodo makes its moves within a few seconds, so it's about the same as a 3 hour per side time control from Alex's perspective. We ended up using about 2.5 hours of that. The discussion took place between all four of us in a Discord server, with Alex sending us screenshots after each move.
The game
The game is available at
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/pgn/4MUQcJhY3x
. Note that this section is a summary of the 2.5-hr game and discussion, and it doesn't cover every single thing that we discussed.
Alex flipped to see who went first, and was White. He started with
1. e4
, and Black replied
1... e5
. Aphyer and Adam had more experience with the opening we would enter into than myself, and since they weren't willing to blow their covers immediately, they started by suggesting good moves, which Alex went along with.
After
2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4
, Black played
3... Nf6
, which Aphyer and Adam said was a bit of a mistake because it allowed
4. Ng5
. Alex went ahead, and we entered the main line from there
4... d5 5. exd5 Na5
.
Aphyer and Adam said the main line for move 6 was Bb5, but I wanted to hold onto the pawn if possible. I recommended
6. d3
in order to respond to 6... Nxd5 with 7. Qf3, and Alex agreed. Black played
6... Bg4
, and although Adam recommended 7. Bb5, we eventually decided that was too risky and went with
7. f3
. Afterwards, Adam suspected that his suggestion of 7. Bb5 may have tipped Alex off that he was dishonest - although the engine actually says 7. Bb5 was about as good as 7. f3.
After
7... Bf5
, we discussed a few potential developing moves and decided on
8. Nf3
. The game continued with
8... Nxc4 9. dxc4 h6 10. Nge4 Bb4
. We considered Bd2, but decided that since the knights defended each other, castling was fine, and Alex castled.
11. O-O O-O
.
Alex played
12. a3
, and after
12... Nxe4
, we discussed 13. fxe4, but didn't want to overcomplicate the position and instead just took back with
13. Nxe4
. The game continued with
13... Be7 14. Be3 Bxe4 15. fxe4 Bg5
. Although I strongly recommended trading to simplify the position, Aphyer advised Alex not to let him develop his queen to g5, and he quickly played
16. Bc5
instead.
Black played
16... Re8
, and that was where we reached White's first big mistake of the game
17. d6
, which Adam suggested with little backlash. I saw that White would do well after 17... dxc6 or 17. c6, but I didn't notice Black's actual move:
17... b6
. According to the engine...