System

"Chess is a war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent's mind."

– Bobby Fischer

***

[System Rebooting]

'Hmmm?'

'What's happening?'

John saw a floating screen on his eyes.

'Don't tell me?'

[System Initializing]

'A system?'

[Checking for Updates]

[…]

[…]

[No updates found]

[Rebooting to default settings]

[3…]

[2…]

[1…]

[ Stockfish – LCZero System Menu

1. Select Engine

2. Opening Book [1]

3. Tablebase [2]

4. PGN / FEN [3]

5. Engine Options

6. Game Options

]

'Wow, it really is a system'

John was shocked that it really happened. This finally confirmed his suspicion that he really is in the story he made up.

'Stockfish – LCZero System, huh. Well this system should better be good or I would throw a fit here for not having any perks transmigrating to another world'

He wished that this system is good enough to help him in this new life of his.

'Stockfish and Leela Chess Zero. The two chess engine overlords that were dominating the TCEC for the past years, well Leela is currently new to the field except Stockfish'

He commented and remembers the two powerhouses of the chess engine world. These two are the most if not the best chess engine in the world. These chess engines are so powerful that most of their competitions got grinded to dust and dumpster like trashes, the way these engine plays is like a God doing the absolute best but ingenious way.

Stockfish is by far the most powerful traditional chess engine that uses Alpha-Beta Search and combined with many search techniques, pruning, contempt factor, and years of tuning made by programmers to evaluate chess pieces and positions to find the best possible moves. The way Stockfish play is to attack and maneuver pieces in the best square to connect with the attack and also the constant tablebase position lookup to find the perfect end game position to its advantage which made it dangerous for the opponents to play.

Leela on the other hand is a neural network chess engine and it is similar to AlphaZero. It uses a neural network and an algorithm called Monte Carlo Tree Search to search for positions. The Monte Carlo Tree Search cannot function on its own and that's where the neural networks comes in as it receives the pieces on the board for the last few moves of the game as input and it estimates how likely the current player is to win and predicts which of the current available moves are likely to works best as output. 'She' is really good in such open positions, crippling the opponent's chess pieces and launching a massive attack. In her book if I must say she doesn't care even if she sacrifices her chess pieces as long as she can gain an advantage that will help in the long run. Heck, she even trolls a fellow chess engine to death by feeding all her chess pieces and only left a King and a Rook to checkmate.

John was happy with the system he got. In this world is where the skill on chess game matters the most. A zero-sum game where there can only be a winner and he will come out on top.

John clicked on the air to see if he can touch it but-

'I can't touch it?'

He touches again but this time using his two hands, he was waving it like he was having an opera doing his piece.

Now he looked like an idiot~

John reddens a bit and tried a different method.

"Select Engine!"

"Open Select Engine!"

"Choose Select Engine!"

"Execute Select Engine"

"Damn it, Open Sesame Select Engine"

"Execute Order 66 Select Engine, ahhh! F*cking dumb system!"

John called out different voice commands but it didn't work

'F*ck'

John's face and ears reddens and used his hands covered his face. He wanted to dig a hole to hide on and never come out. He was ashamed what he's doing, if someone on the previous world saw him, they would call out:

'Hey dude, look at that guy. Is he a mental? '

'Yeah I think so dude, we better not get close to him'

John imagined the scenario and shivered. 'I am not a goddamn mental, you are' F*cking system making me do idiotic things.

Finally, John willed his thoughts on the system and he finally controlled it. He navigates to the 'Select Engine Option'

[ Stockfish – LCZero System Menu

Select Engine

1. Stockfish

2. [Locked]

3. [Locked]

]

'I can only use Stockfish as of now'

A disappointment flash in his eyes, he was expecting that he could also use Leela but right now it is locked.

'Now the problem is how do I unlock this?'

John wondered a bit on how he should unlock this option. He was already happy that Stockfish is already there and wonders how he should use it in his games.

'There where some options available in the system, let's check that'

John willed his thoughts again to go back to the main menu.

John selected the Opening Book

[ Stockfish – LCZero System Menu

Opening Book

1. Create new Opening

2. Load Saved Opening

3. Use Default Opening

]

'I can create my own openings huh'

John felt thankful that this option exists and he navigate to the other options.

John selected the Default Opening.

[ Stockfish – LCZero System Menu

Default Opening

1. GM.bin ✓ [4]

2. [Locked]

3. [Locked]

]

'So, a chess grandmaster's prepared openings, good now I can use something in the opening'

John was elated that the system blessed him with an opening book too. Note that making an opening book is a really time-consuming job as you will need to test it if that book is good enough with other chess engines.

John saw a tablebase option but he ignores it for now as he needs to know the other three remaining options.

John selected the PGN / FEN Option

[ Stockfish – LCZero System Menu

PGN / FEN

1. Analyze

2. Import

3. History

]

'Pretty standard option, an analysis, import and history option'

John knows this pretty much coz there was one time in his game that his opponent is "really" good

that he got a draw with him. He analyzed that game and found out that every move is an engine move.

'That guy is a f*cking cheater'

He recalled of the past that he swore to beat that guy up in his game. If it wasn't that he didn't know that end game he would get f*cked and lose.

John navigated to Engine Options with anticipation.

[ Stockfish – LCZero System Menu

Engine Options - Stockfish

1. Nodes (300 nps)

2. Depth (10)

3. Skill level (20)

4. Thread (1)

5. Contempt (14)

]

'What's with this low values?!'

John wonders, this kind of values is very low especially the Nodes.

Nodes is what makes an engine stronger. Nodes is like a tree of chess piece that is used to search all the variations and positions. The deeper the nodes the better the evaluation and Stockfish with a very good hardware can even do a hundred million of nodes per second. The depth signifies how deep (ply) the engine search in the positions. The thread is how many processes running in parallel in searching and evaluating positions. And finally, the contempt factor is how likely the engine must pursue to achieve a win, tuning this option can change the chess engine's playing style.

John want to drown himself in disappointment.

'I want higher values, more nodes, depth, threads and set the contempt factor to 100, geez!'

John wished it was much higher, he was getting excited there for a moment but these low values is not enough. John wanted it at least a gazillion nodes but expectation meets reality.

'That's alright at least I had an opening book, yes an opening book to help me'

John comforted that everything will be daijoubu [5].

'Now let me see the tablebase hohohoho~'

John wants to hum a tune. He saves the best for last.

The table of predetermine end game.

The table where everything comes together in the end.

The God's End Game Chess.

[ Stockfish – LCZero System Menu

Tablebase

1. [Locked]

2. [Locked]

3. [Locked]

]

'.'

'..'

'…'

'Ahhh!!!, damn it! this f*cking system why you locked it?'

John wanted to throw a fit. He can't believe that his long awaited tablebase option got all of their options locked?!

It was like having a big present on a Christmas Day and you found out that on the cover is an Xbox but inside is a f*cking bananas.

[Host measly brain cannot handle the tablebase position]

'What? You can talk? Oi!'

[…]

John face twitches as the system didn't replied back to him. He was annoyed that it actually talked that he cannot handle all those tablebase position? I had a photographic memory fyi and I can even memorize all kinds of "position" and now you tell me I can't handle those?

He in the previous world can memorize anything he saw, be it books, journals, events, movies and a tablebase position. He was so good in memorizing that everything can play out vividly in his mind when he sleeps and it talks that his brain can't handle it?

He checked for a bit and understand what the system meant. His eyes scour the room and tried to memorize it in detail but he cannot remember it clearly like he used to.

'Now I can see why, the previous John is a blockhead. He's slow in memorizing things and maybe the punch to the head impacted my photographic memory'

He lamented that one of his abilities got disrupted, this will be detrimental to him who likes keeping information in his head for future reference. But, right now he is 'crippled' so he can only take note of the relevant information on a paper.

'That's alright, you are calm cultured person and this measly handicap didn't impact my thinking ability'

He consoled himself.

Information is the most important thing he needed right now. He needed to know the current affairs of the world, political situation, and most importantly the rule that were established in playing chess.

There are different races besides human and they had different backgrounds. The existence of magic made this situation a bit more complicated as humans have little to no mana in their bodies.

'But still this will be good, I had a system and my old trusty smart maybe I can pull this off'

He crossed his arms and laughs at the thought of conquering the continent.

'I wonder how they play'

John wonders about how the people living in this continent play chess and is the rules still the same.

He can't wait to find out.

***

[1] Opening book is a prepared set of opening moves upon starting the game.

[2] Tablebase is a table of chess position that have predetermined end games based on how many pieces are left and their positions on the board.

[3] PGN / FEN is a chess format that is used to display chess position upon inputting to a chess software.

[4] GM.bin the .bin is a format used by chess software for chess opening. There are other kinds of format which might be introduced later

[5] Daijoubu is a word in Japanese that means fine