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Subject: Re: to the author of SEE engine

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 08:03:45 10/16/03

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On October 16, 2003 at 10:52:19, martin fierz wrote:

>On October 16, 2003 at 10:27:41, José Carlos wrote:
>
>>On October 16, 2003 at 10:05:23, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On October 16, 2003 at 09:56:59, Tord Romstad wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 16, 2003 at 08:35:54, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Nalimov tablebases are not very important for endgames and they are not going to
>>>>>change results in most of the endgames.
>>>>
>>>>This depends to a great extent on the engine, I think.  The experiments I have
>>>>seen which conclude that tablebases have no measurable effect on playing
>>>>strength
>>>>have always been conducted with strong engines like Yace and Crafty, which
>>>>probably play excellent endgames even without tablebases.  I expect that a
>>>>program
>>>>with little or badly tuned endgame knowledge will profit much more from
>>>>tablebases.
>>>>
>>>>Tord
>>>
>>>Most of the mistakes in endgames are in positions when tablebaes cannot help.
>>>
>>>Maybe they can help if the program does not know to win KQ vs K but better
>>>evaluation can solve this problem and more problems so I do not think that
>>>tablebases is the right thing to add.
>>>
>>>Uri
>>>
>>>Uri
>>
>>  KRPKR is hard without tablebases, same for KQKR, KBBK, KBBKN, KRKN and some
>>others. The importance of tablebases is not only to play those endgames
>>perfectly, but to choose the correct variation many moves before when you see
>>those positions in the search and your eval is not enough.
>>  On the other hand, in Anubis I have chosen not to implement tablebases but
>>good eval. IMO, a good eval is better because it's more general so you can
>>evaluate endgames with many pawns, it's faster and you don't depend upon
>>external files (this is important when you release your engine as freeware and
>>other people don't have tablebases).
>>  Averno plays endgames badly without tablebases, probably worth 50 ELO or more
>>(haven't checked it).
>>
>>  José C.
>
>
>in my last 50 tournament games i didn't have a single one of these endgames you
>mention. i can't imgaine that tablebases make a 50 elo difference. KBBK is
>practically trivial, even without tablebases!
>
>cheers
>  martin

I guess that KBBK can be solved only by piece square table program but I did not
test it.

KQKR is also easy for computers without tablebases when you have the right
knowledge.

Uri



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