If you play the worst possible moves, are you guaranteed to lose?

*Determined by an engine (like Stockfish), the legal move with the greatest centipawn loss, would you certainly lose or draw that game (and assuming the other player doesn't resign)?  Just curious.

Probably, but is it fair to ask engines like Stockfish to find the worst possible move when they really are not geared to do that job?

NotMeAgain2 wrote:

*Determined by an engine (like Stockfish), the legal move with the greatest centipawn loss, would you certainly lose or draw that game (and assuming the other player doesn't resign)?  Just curious.

Yes, there is no question that the absolute worst moves will lead to a quick loss. However, engines are not set to rank and show you the evaluation of every possible move. I suppose you could do that.

That actually wouldn't help. The problem is engines still min-max. You would have to reconfigure it to max-min.

In other words, engine evaluation is based on the assumption that you continue by playing the best possible moves. You would have to reconfigure the engine so that it not only plays the worst moves, but calculates with worst moves in mind rather than best moves.

notmtwain and xman720 have both said what I would have said had I been capable of saying it so well. 

So what if there are two of these reverse engines playing each other.  It would be a draw, or losing/winning 50:50?

I understand engines are written to be based on finding the best possible moves, and on the premise the opponent will be looking to play the best moves too, but it would surely be possible to create an engine working in reverse, if we wanted to.

If both engines played the worst possible moves the it would lead to a draw, as checkmate is the best move.

The trick is to force your opponent into a position where the only legal moves are checkmate.

Then, and only then, you are guaranteed to lose.

Interesting lol.  You could easily reprogram stockfish to spit out the wrost movies.  It is open source.  My guess is it would be a draw, if both computers were playing the worst moves of course.  No side would want to checkmate.  Anyone could beat the computer if they knew how to checkmate.  They probably would not have to worry about a stalemate much because the engine would try to avoind it lol.

the position does exist but it is easily avoidable

The trick then is to avoid the unavoidable.

Does anyone want to play an unrated game with me, trying to lose?  We could probably learn something from it.

That would actually be a hilarious trainer engine. Always playing the worst possible move and helping you checkmate it.

Here is an example if max-min instead of min-max.

The worst way to respond to e4 is the move h4. However, a proper max min engine would respond e5 because it would anticipate the scholar's mate you can perform and try to get checkmated as quickly as possible. That is an example of why max-min is fundamentally different than lowest evaluation.

I was to see a human play stockfish at this try to lose game and be forced to checkmate.

The worst engine would probably play g4 and f3 as first moves

You can technially lose. A gm vs a bot trying to lose just forced it to play checkmate

its g4 as white then f5 as black

if you play the worst moves every time, you'd lose.

Not if the opponent forfeits or times out.

but worstfish doesn't do that so...