Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: 2 pawns vs 1

Author: Peter Kappler

Date: 01:32:57 08/01/01

Go up one level in this thread


On July 31, 2001 at 08:41:17, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On July 31, 2001 at 02:19:14, Mark Young wrote:
>
>>On July 31, 2001 at 01:05:53, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>>
>>>[D] 8/4ppbk/p5pp/3pP3/3B4/5P1P/PP3P2/6K1 b - - 0 1
>>>
>>>My thing got smashed by Ulf Andersson in this position.  It wants to play ... g5
>>>and sticks with it for a long time on a P3/550, like something over a minute,
>>>and it didn't have near enough time to avoid getting creamed.
>>>
>>>I'm pretty sure that ... g5 is dead lost.  I'm less sure about ... h5 or ... e6.
>>>
>>>A recent Yace switches away in about 12 seconds on one processor of my quad Xeon
>>>450, and Crafty 18.10 takes 22 seconds to shift away.  I'm surprised about
>>>Crafty since I'd thought that it should do better given its knowledge of
>>>majorities.
>>>
>>>Anyone have any other insights?  If you would like to tell how fast another
>>>program shifts away from ... g5, please include hardware.
>>>
>>>bruce
>>
>>Fritz 6, ChessTiger 14, GambitTiger 2.0 were the best I tested. All programs
>>changed away from g5 in about 1 sec. Hardware: PIII 1000 Mhz 512K Ram.
>
>
>On my machinek, I get e6 in about 6 seconds.  I think the problem here is that
>black ends up with a protected passed pawn and in a piece-less ending, a
>protected passed pawn is generally better than a simple distant majority.
>The opponent can win the isolated passer while the protected passer sticks.
>My evaluation here is -.44 (good for black) after e6.  Whether it will win
>that or not is a guess.  Ulf is very strong of course...  I've played him
>several games as well...


Ulf was White in this game.

I think the outside majority is the real story here, and Black is struggling to
draw, or perhaps just losing.  I certainly can't see Black playing for a win.

Here's a cute line that illustrates the power of that majority:

1...e6 2 b4 Bf8 3 Bc5 Kg8 4 Bd6! Bxd6 5 exd6 Kf8 6 a4 Ke8 7 b5 axb5 8 a5 +-

Certainly not a forced line, but amusing.

-Peter



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.