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Subject: Re: Square-of-the-pawn

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 10:07:17 01/13/98

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On January 13, 1998 at 12:57:43, Stuart Cracraft wrote:

>Years ago I remember reading something where Dan and Kathe Spracklen
>(remember them?) said that the addition of the square-of-the-pawn
>rule-of-thumb to their program increased is strength significantly.
>(I think they said a whole USCF class!)

I had heard this as well.  I don't agree, but there are two possible
explanations:

1) It matters more for programs on very slow hardware, possible
especially against humans.

2) They were wrong then as well as now.

I don't care which, but I think they are clearly wrong now.

If you add or subtract this knowledge you will notice little difference.
 I think I have it in my program now, but I had it out of my program for
like 6 months and nothing bad happened that I noticed.  You might lose a
game now and then, but that's not a whole class.

You sure won't go from 2400 to 2600 if you add this.

There are a few bits of chess programming lore that nobody questions,
and this is one of them.

bruce



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