There are a few more factors other than the position and side to move to consider in order to accurately predict who will win and who will lose. I will discuss those here.
Time
When It's Important To Consider
White is up a queen, but it is still in the middlegame. White's clock is at 30 seconds, while black's clock is at 3 minutes. Who is more likely to win? White will likely blunder or allows black to make a comeback due to his limited time, and the position will be equal. But then, black will probably win due to a time advantage.
There are all sorts of variation to this, such as an endgame where the advantage is smaller, black is the one winning, or the winning side has forced mate in over 20 moves but has about a second left to play.
How Stockfish Should Use This Factor
Stockfish should not come up with a prediction based on a logical scenario like I just did above. A logical scenario is likely but not always true. Instead, it should determine who is more likely to blunder, and factor that into how big the advantage is.
Player's Strength
When It's Important To Consider
Anytime a lower-rated player has an advantage over a higher-rated one, the higher-rated one can still make a comeback. If the players are of similar ratings, the comeback will likely be predictable to the winning player. But if one player is higher-rated, they can spot subtler comebacks. It all depends on the rating gap. Another thing is how big the advantage is, but Stockfish can already predict the odds of a comeback based on the size of the advantage.
Additionally, if the position is drawn, the higher-rated player has a better chance of winning.
How Stockfish Should Use This Factor
It's just how I explained it. Stockfish uses a player and their opponent's ratings to determine the likeliness of a comeback when one winning or one finding a brilliancy the other doesn't when the position is drawn.
Don't Forget
Rating shouldn't be used as a definite. A 400 can beat an 1100 (I did). However, it is usually a pretty accurate estimate.
The Problem
I'm sure you've noticed it: Stockfish is also used to analyze games, where these two factors being considered makes the analysis inaccurate, since people analyze their games based solely on the position. But there's a simple solution: there can be a checkbox to toggle it on and off.
That's it for today. I hope you guys enjoyed, and if you did, give it a like please. If you didn't, tell me why in the comments.
