Answers.Body: <p>You might be interested in Boris Trapsky, a Lichess bot that &quot;estimate[s] your skill&quot;, then plays &quot;interesting, tricky moves for you&quot;.</p>
  <p><a href="https://lichess.org/@/Boris-Trapsky" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://lichess.org/@/Boris-Trapsky</a></p>
  <p>The sentiment above that &quot;engines are built to find the highest win-rate moves&quot; is wrong. Engines are built to find the &quot;best&quot; moves, with the enginemaker choosing the definition of best; it just so happens that most makers of engines are interested in &quot;highest win-rate&quot;. The discussion above about only caring about the best move, not the second best, is not a fact of chess engines in general, it's only a fact of chess engines that use maximin.</p>
  <p>This engine's goal is to give its opponent some swashbuckling fun, and I believe it uses the &quot;find a move that's crushing against suboptimal responses&quot; method you propose.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-04-19T00:49:21.460Z
Answers.Text: Very cool, I just played a game and it really feels interesting to play against, I'd say much more fun than the typical medium-difficulty engine.
Answers.UserDisplayName: MaxD
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Answers.UserDisplayName: Natalie Merson
Answers.Body: <p>There are no current engines that currently have a &quot;reckless&quot; setting, but there is no reason that it could not be done.</p>
  <p>It is simply because &quot;reckless&quot; moves have a way of making the engine lose more often than it wins. However, the AlphaZero and Leela Chess Zero engines are known for playing aggressive and unpredictable moves that can lead to very sharp positions.</p>
  
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Answers.UserDisplayName: Starship
Answers.Body: <p>There is no such setting, because engines are built to find the best moves, not the ones against which the best move is &quot;really hard to find&quot;. For what it's worth, humans should <em>also</em> not make such moves either. Let's say you make a move that opponent has 20 possible responses to. Of those responses, 19 of them lead to you winning, and the 20th leads to you losing. Do you make the move? If your position is already objectively lost then maybe, but otherwise, I hope you say no.</p>
  <p>See <a href="https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/40979/why-dont-chess-engines-take-into-account-the-time-left-by-each-player/40988#40988">my answer to another question for an example</a>.</p>
  
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Answers.Text: It definetly depends what level you are playing at
Answers.UserDisplayName: Starship
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Answers.UserDisplayName: Allure
Body: <p>How I'd define a &quot;reckless&quot; move is that a perfect chain of response moves will quickly put the engine at a disadvantage, but any slightly suboptimal response will make the engine win very fast. I guess you could call them &quot;polarizing&quot; moves if that makes sense.</p>
  <p>Does any engine/setting/etc. exist that behaves like this?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2022-10-28T20:33:17.527Z
Comments.Text: May try http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/opental/
Comments.UserDisplayName: Michael West
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Comments.CreationDate: 2022-10-30T08:54:58.910Z
Comments.Text: Exactly. Ninja'ed. :-) Thus likely a duplicate, although this https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9029/engine-not-necessarily-playing-strong-but-attractive/12530#12530 isn't the one I dimly remember.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Hauke Reddmann
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2022-10-31T13:23:12.193Z
Comments.Text: See also: ["sharp" positions](https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16175/what-does-it-mean-to-call-a-line-sharp)
Comments.UserDisplayName: Ashlin Harris
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Comments.CreationDate: 2022-11-02T00:30:00.997Z
Comments.Text: What do you mean by "a perfect chain of response moves will quickly put the engine at a disadvantage"?
Comments.UserDisplayName: ferdy
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Comments.CreationDate: 2023-04-03T12:42:07.063Z
Comments.Text: Possibly close is contempt setting in Stockfish. It won't make engine prefer worse moves, but in situation where two candidates have approximate same evaluation high contempt will make it choose "less drawish" move (quoatiton marks due to vagueness of what less drawish actually means).
Comments.UserDisplayName: Matija Sirk
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Comments.CreationDate: 2023-04-14T20:19:50.613Z
Comments.Text: Lets say I have the white pieces I go Bxf7+, and if you go Kd7, then white is winning and my move worked out for me. However, if you play the perfect response, Kxf7, then I don't have a good follow up and I've just sacrificed material for a little bit black's king safety. This sounds like it meets your definition of reckless: black has to respond perfectly or is losing. So the question is, how do we differentiate between what I described and what you want, which is some kind of sacrificial/exciting/speculative chess, without my reckless moves being easily countered?
Comments.UserDisplayName: rajb245
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Comments.CreationDate: 2023-04-14T20:22:24.693Z
Comments.Text: My point is that finding polarizing moves is not hard, what is hard is finding polarizing moves for which the optimal response (or line) is hard for the opponent to find. That's why I think engines don't / can't play like this yet. It isn't that they can't find polarizing moves or polarizing lines (they can), they can't evaluate how hard it is for a human to spot the optimal responses.
Comments.UserDisplayName: rajb245
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Comments.CreationDate: 2024-06-27T10:42:46.357Z
Comments.Text: Related question: [Engine not necessarily playing strong but "attractive"](https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/9029/14678)
Comments.UserDisplayName: Cyriac Antony
Tags: <engines><aggressive-play>
Title: Is there an engine (setting) that favours "reckless" moves?
ThreadText: # Is there an engine (setting) that favours "reckless" moves?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2022-10-28)
  
  How I'd define a "reckless" move is that a perfect chain of response moves will quickly put the engine at a disadvantage, but any slightly suboptimal response will make the engine win very fast. I guess you could call them "polarizing" moves if that makes sense.
  
  Does any engine/setting/etc. exist that behaves like this?
  
  **Tags:** engines, aggressive-play
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: May try http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/opental/  
  > **username_2**: Exactly. Ninja'ed. :-) Thus likely a duplicate, although this https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9029/engine-not-necessarily-playing-strong-but-attractive/12530#12530 isn't the one I dimly remember.  
  > **username_3**: See also: ["sharp" positions](https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16175/what-does-it-mean-to-call-a-line-sharp)  
  > **username_4**: What do you mean by "a perfect chain of response moves will quickly put the engine at a disadvantage"?  
  > **username_5**: Possibly close is contempt setting in Stockfish. It won't make engine prefer worse moves, but in situation where two candidates have approximate same evaluation high contempt will make it choose "less drawish" move (quoatiton marks due to vagueness of what less drawish actually means).  
  > **username_6**: Lets say I have the white pieces I go Bxf7+, and if you go Kd7, then white is winning and my move worked out for me. However, if you play the perfect response, Kxf7, then I don't have a good follow up and I've just sacrificed material for a little bit black's king safety. This sounds like it meets your definition of reckless: black has to respond perfectly or is losing. So the question is, how do we differentiate between what I described and what you want, which is some kind of sacrificial/exciting/speculative chess, without my reckless moves being easily countered?  
  > **username_6**: My point is that finding polarizing moves is not hard, what is hard is finding polarizing moves for which the optimal response (or line) is hard for the opponent to find. That's why I think engines don't / can't play like this yet. It isn't that they can't find polarizing moves or polarizing lines (they can), they can't evaluate how hard it is for a human to spot the optimal responses.  
  > **username_7**: Related question: [Engine not necessarily playing strong but "attractive"](https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/9029/14678)  
  
  ---
  
  ## 3 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_8 on 2023-04-18. Score: 3 | Accepted answer
  
  You might be interested in Boris Trapsky, a Lichess bot that "estimate[s] your skill", then plays "interesting, tricky moves for you".
  
  <https://lichess.org/@/Boris-Trapsky>
  
  The sentiment above that "engines are built to find the highest win-rate moves" is wrong. Engines are built to find the "best" moves, with the enginemaker choosing the definition of best; it just so happens that most makers of engines are interested in "highest win-rate". The discussion above about only caring about the best move, not the second best, is not a fact of chess engines in general, it's only a fact of chess engines that use maximin.
  
  This engine's goal is to give its opponent some swashbuckling fun, and I believe it uses the "find a move that's crushing against suboptimal responses" method you propose.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Very cool, I just played a game and it really feels interesting to play against, I'd say much more fun than the typical medium-difficulty engine.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_9 on 2023-04-02. Score: 2
  
  There are no current engines that currently have a "reckless" setting, but there is no reason that it could not be done.
  
  It is simply because "reckless" moves have a way of making the engine lose more often than it wins. However, the AlphaZero and Leela Chess Zero engines are known for playing aggressive and unpredictable moves that can lead to very sharp positions.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_10 on 2023-04-17. Score: 0
  
  There is no such setting, because engines are built to find the best moves, not the ones against which the best move is "really hard to find". For what it's worth, humans should *also* not make such moves either. Let's say you make a move that opponent has 20 possible responses to. Of those responses, 19 of them lead to you winning, and the 20th leads to you losing. Do you make the move? If your position is already objectively lost then maybe, but otherwise, I hope you say no.
  
  See [my answer to another question for an example](https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/40979/why-dont-chess-engines-take-into-account-the-time-left-by-each-player/40988#40988).
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_9**: It definetly depends what level you are playing at  
  
  ---
  
  