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Subject: Re: What do programmers think about a chess algorithm??

Author: Heiner Marxen

Date: 07:23:12 12/13/02

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On December 13, 2002 at 06:03:36, Sune Fischer wrote:

>On December 12, 2002 at 23:49:59, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On December 12, 2002 at 17:17:04, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>
>><snipped>
>>>>[D]k7/P2ppp2/K7/8/8/8/7P/8 w - - 0 1
>>>>
>>>>I can see mate in 5 without calculating all the tree
>>>>
>>>>1.h4,2.h5 3.h6,4.h7,5.h8R#
>>>>
>>>>a stupid computer program(and I believe that all of the available programs are)
>>>>need to calculate a lot of lines(1.h4 f5,1.h4 f6,....)
>>>
>>>You have to calculate the square root of the nodes of the tree.  Not the full
>>>tree.
>>
>>No
>>
>>In this case there is a simple plan 1.h4 2.h5 3.h6 4.h7 5.h8Q#
>>
>>It is easy to see that black can do nothing against it without calculating.
>>
>>I need only to look at class of positions and not on specific positions.
>>
>>Here is the proof of the mate in 5.
>>
>>1.h4 black has 3 pawns at f,g,h files but the pawns did not go after f5,g5,h5
>>2.h5 black has 3 pawns at f,g,h files but the pawns did not go after f4,g4,h4
>>3.h6 black has 3 pawns at f,g,h files but the pawns did not go after f3,g3,h3
>>4.h7 black has 3 pawns at f,g,h files but the pawns did not go after f2,g2,h2
>>5.h8R#
>>
>>I do not know of computers that calculates in that way but it is theoretically
>>possible to do it.
>
>I think you are using some knowledge here, that white is not mated in steps
>1.-4. If I'm not mistaken you have to prove that 1.h4 f5 does not end the game.
>
>Thus you have to examine that none of black's moves will mate white or stall
>mate black. This requires explicit search of each move and would give you a
>square root tree search.
>
>>If chest can do it then it can be faster but I have not simple idea how to
>>detect patterns like this pattern.
>
>They do simple algebra on pawn races. But that is because the programmer assumes
>the knowledge that we need to promote to win. It is not always true, you can
>mate with a pawn.

I can assure you, that the programmer of Chest is well aware of the fact
that a pawn may deliver direct checks without a prior promotion ;-)

Chest has a special "theory" for the case that the attacker has left just
pawns and the king.  It calculates a minimum number of moves the attacker
has to perform in order to deliver a check.  Trying to find an even
shorter mate is guaranteed to fail.

For the defender side Chest assumes a very simple strategy: the king will
move between two squares.  As long as we can show that that will remain
to be a legal move, the defender cannot possibly be mated.

No moves are executed, no trees are examined, Chest just examines where
the remaining pawns may be pushed to, and whether that may disturb the
primitive strategy of the defender, by calculating distances between
the pawns possible target  squares and the defender king.

In some positions this helps Chest to reach much larger depths.

Cheers,
Heiner

>Perhaps it is possible to prove some lemma that will make things easier.
>
>-S.



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