Question I saw online that has me thinking
Random 1000 rated player is going to play a game against Magnus Carlsen.
Magnus has only one win condition: get X queens on the board. If he checkmates random player, it's stalemate.
Random player has two win conditions: checkmate, or eliminate the possibilty of getting X queens on the board (eg, if X is 5, he wins when Magnus has either 4p, or 3p+Q).
What would X be in this scenario before you'd bet on the random player?
2 Replies
Probably 5 or 6. The difficulty being Magnus is enough better to set up the stalemate checkmate while still playing for a win.
I feel like the number would be fairly low, maybe around 3? Magnus would be trying to avoid pawn trades which would limit what he could do somewhat. The rando would be happy to trade pawns but also would be free to sac pieces for Magnus' pawns. Magnus going out of his away to protect his pawns would give the rando more freedom to get his pieces out and sac for those pawns. Maybe the point of contention would be how good the 1000 would execute that gameplan, that's kind of hard to say.
