Single Comment

Well, this is all speculation, so a bit pointless to argue about it. Fairy-Max is a weak engine, and in the mean time engines have emerged that beat it in Spartan Chess more than 95%. Fairy-Max would never discover what is the best opening line, as it has no memory of what it played in previous games, and its first few moves are drastically randomized, so it sometimes playes very poor moves (like 1.h2h4 in Mad Queen).

But that is not enough to neutralize the white advantage. In self-play Fairy-Max clearly favors white with about 53%. Apparently this is a very robust advantage, that is not really dependent on accurate play, provided black plays equally inaccurately. This is remarkable in itself. But there is no reason to assume that this would be completely different in an asymmetric game.

It could be that strategic insight on how to best build and attack Hoplite strictures could swing the advantage in either way, and that computers never would discover such things unless they are programmed in their evaluation. (Which requires them to become known first.) This is why I would like to see Spartan Chess be played seriously by Humans, for some time. But it is not easy to arrange that, and for now we will have to settle by having it played by 7 independently developed engines.