Comment by HarHarVeryFunny

> The experiment could be a little better by using a more descriptive form of notation than PGN

The author seems more interested in the ability to learn chess at a decent level from such a poor input, as well as what kind of world model it might build, rather than wanting to help it to play as well as possible.

The fact that it was able to build a decent model of the board position from PGN training samples, without knowing anything about chess (or that it was even playing chess) is super impressive.

It seems simple enough to learn that, for example, "Nf3" means that an "N" is on "f3", especially since predicting well requires you to know what piece is on each square.

However, what is not so simple is to have to learn - without knowing a single thing about chess - that "Nf3" also means that:

1) One of the 8 squares that is a knights move away from f3, and had an "N" on it, now has nothing on it. There's a lot going on there!

2) If "f3" previously had a different piece on it, that piece is now gone (taken) - it should no longer also be associated with "f3"