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Subject: Re: Finally! Tablebases homepage found:

Author: Roy Eassa

Date: 10:28:06 01/18/02

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Albert,

I understand just what you are saying.  However, my understanding was that the
problem in Chess Tiger was essentially a bug in that program such that it will
not use many of the other, actually necessary (non-trivial) 5-man TBs correctly
if these "obvious-win" ones are not also present.  Once it starts looking into
TBs in a given variation, it is not able to leave TBs and use normal
calculations any more in that variation.  Thus, when there's a variation in
which it CAN achieve an endgame where it's ahead by vast amounts of material
(say by promotions), it won't even play the entire variation, which may evolve
from a closely contested position, due to this bug.  Thus it may fail to win
certain winnable endgames.  This in fact occurred twice, as I recall, in its
recent match against Gandalf.


On January 17, 2002 at 19:50:03, Albert Silver wrote:

>On January 17, 2002 at 17:23:11, Roy Eassa wrote:
>
>>On January 17, 2002 at 17:18:24, Albert Silver wrote:
>>
>>>On January 17, 2002 at 14:21:36, Roy Eassa wrote:
>>>
>>>>But I have a question: if the complete 3-4-5 set requires 11 CD-ROMs of 650 MB
>>>>apiece, how can it fit on only 9 CDs of 700 MB apiece?
>>>>
>>>>Even if the last of the 11 CDs is only 1% full (i.e., 10.01 CDs-worth of 650 MB
>>>>apiece), that would still be more than 9 CDs of 700 MB.
>>>>
>>>>Is this really the full set?
>>>
>>>A fair question. No, there are a few that were deliberately removed in order to
>>>save space as they had absolutely no practical value. Truly. For example:
>>>
>>>King + 3 queens vs. King
>>>King + 3 rooks vs. King
>>>King + 2 queens + 1 rook vs. King
>>>
>>>This reduced the number of files from a maximum of 290 files to 240 files.
>>
>>
>>I was under the impression that Chess Tiger was weaker using a subset (even a
>>very common-sense subset) of the 5-man TBs than not using any 5-man TBs at all.
>>I guess one could download the missing TBs if one knew exactly which ones they
>>were, just to be on the safe (and complete) side.
>
>I understand your concern, and remember perfectly what you are referring to,
>however I'll add the following points:
>
>- The TBs that might have caused problems were from a 3 CD set and truly
>incomplete. It was missing many piece combinations however unlikely. This is a 9
>CD set where the only missing combinations are ones in which Tiger (or any
>engine) would find a mate in a fraction of a second.
>
>- If Tiger were to reach one of the postions mentioned at any point of its
>calculations, it shouldn't play any weaker. After all, it would be effectively
>up some 20-30 pawns in its eval.
>
>- Tiger has undergone significant testing on the machines at Convekta in order
>to test the sets as well as some other functions used in Chess Assistant and no
>problems of any kind have shown up in this time. The engine-related functions I
>speak of are use of the TBs by Tiger, and use of the TBs by the GUI to
>complement an engine that doesn't support them internally.
>
>Personally, I wouldn't fill up more than a Gb of space on my HD to put in KQQQ
>vs. K type combinations.
>
>                                        Albert
>
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>  -Roy.



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