Silicon Road: Great Engine Games! Introducing Crazy Leela’s GROB Semi Slav! Part 1

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! You tell Leela “Look I’m playing White against an opponent rated 400 ELO lower than me. Can you suggest some ideas in the opening to maximise my winning chances against such an opponent?” During analysis, Leela will look to sharpen the play to a degree appropriate to the ELO difference! AND, EVEN better... well, you'll have to watch the video to learn that secret! ;) Note that the analyses of these games in these videos reflect the thoughts I had during the game! I thought this made sense as we are using Leela to prepare against a human opponent so it seems right to describe how it feels! For the objective truth, take a look at the analysis of my games against Leela by Stockfish and Dragon which is available from the usual place: http://cloudserver.chessbase.com/MTIy...

Check out the Leela blog for more technical explanations: https://lczero.org/blog/2023/07/the-l...
My blog entry "Getting Leela to analyse and play in the style you want! Part 1 - Setting up WDL Contempt" https://matthewsadler.me.uk/engine-ch... explains how to set this feature up in the superb Nibbler GUI.
For more information about how to set up Leela and the Nibbler GUI, take a look at the free supplementary material provided with my book "The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement" (https://www.newinchess.com/engine-tra...)


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)

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