Silicon Road: Leela gives KNIGHT Odds! Morphy returns!

In July 2023, the Leela team introduced a feature called WDL (Win/Draw/Loss) Contempt. Behind this austere technical name, there's something amazingly cool! Leela is able to play in a risky and aggressive style, unbalancing positions to maximise its winning chances. One of the cool side-efects of this ability is an amazing strength at odds (handicap) chess, where Leela gives the opponent a knight's start!
Back in March, we watched Grandmaster David Navara take on and beat Leela in a knight-odds match (https://youtube.com/live/b04MPlCSL24 was the livestream on this channel) but developments have continued and by all accounts, Leela has made another huge jump in strength. In this series, we are going to look at some of the spiciest games... and they are AMAZING!
This game evokes the spirit of the 19th century odds games of the great Paul Morphy! Leela sacrifices 4 kingside pawns on top of the odds knight to secure forced mate by move 16 against a 2570-rated Lichess player!

The Leela odds bots are here:
https://lichess.org/@/LeelaKnightOdds https://lichess.org/@/LeelaRookOdds
https://lichess.org/@/LeelaQueenOdds
The Navara-Leela games are here: https://lichess.org/broadcast/leela-v...

Check out the Leela blog for more technical explanations: https://lczero.org/blog/2023/07/the-l... and the recent blog post on the odds bots https://lczero.org/blog/2024/11/fine-...

I’m grandmaster Matthew Sadler, a 2-times British Champion, and ranked in the world’s top 50 for many years. I’m also a prolific author. My latest book "Re-Engineering the Chess Classics" appeared in May 2023. It uses the techniques described in "The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement" to analyse afresh thirty-five of the most fascinating and complex chess games ever played by World Champions and other top grandmasters.

"Re-Engineering the Chess Classics" is available from here:
https://www.newinchess.com/re-enginee... (Paperback English edition)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Re-Engineeri... (Paperback English edition)

"The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement" – which came out in October 2021 is, just like this channel, all about learning from and training with engines. My previous book, the award-winning Game Changer – written together with Natasha Regan – brought the amazing chess games of DeepMind’s AlphaZero to the world.

The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement is available from here:
https://www.newinchess.com/engine-tra... (Paperback English edition)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/905... (Paperback and Kindle)
https://forwardchess.com/product/the-... (Digital)

"Game Changer" came out on 20th January 2019 and won the prestigious ECF Book of the Year and FIDE Book of the Year prizes for 2019! The Game Changer chess book is available in print and digital versions from these links:
http://newinchess.com/game-changer (Paperback English edition)
https://forwardchess.com/product/game... (Digital)
https://www.chessable.com/game-change... (Digital)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/905... (Paperback and Kindle)
https://www.amazon.de/Zeitenwende-Sch... (Hardback German edition)

#siliconroad
#matthewsadler
#tcec