I think this is very interesting. One comment I have heard about Leelachess is that she, near the beginning of her training, would make the kinds of mistakes a 1500 player makes, then play like a 1900 player or so, before finally playing like a slightly passive and very strategic super Grandmaster.<p>One interesting thing to see would be how low-rated humans make different mistakes than Leela does with an early training set. How closely are we modeling how humans learn to play Chess with Leela?<p>Another thought: Leela, against weaker computers, draws a lot more than Stockfish. While Leela beats Stockfish in head to head competitions, in round robins, Stockfish wins against weaker computer programs more than Leela does.<p>I believe this is because Stockfish will play very aggressively to try and create a weakness in game against a lower rated computer, while Leela will “see” that trying to create that weakness will weaken Leela’s own position. The trick to winning Chess is not to make the “perfect” move for a given position, but to play the move that is most likely to make one’s opponent make a mistake and weaken their position.<p>Now, if Maia were trained against Stockfish moves instead of human moves, I wonder if we could make a training set that results in play a little less passive than Leela’s play.<p>(I’m also curious how Maia at various rating levels would defend as Black against the Compromised defense of the Evans Gambit — that’s 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d6 exd4 7. O-O dxc3 — where Black has three pawns and white has a very strong, probably winning, attack. It’s a weak opening for Black, who shouldn’t be so greedy, but I’m studying right now how it’s played to see how White wins with a strong attack on Black’s king. I’m right now downloading maia1 — Maia at 1100 — games from openingtree.com.)