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Subject: Re: Mobility in Chess Evaluation Function at terminal-nodes

Author: Tord Romstad

Date: 07:05:07 12/29/05

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On December 29, 2005 at 05:51:48, Uri Blass wrote:

>On December 29, 2005 at 05:25:55, Tord Romstad wrote:
>
>>For each piece on the board (except pawns and kings), I look at all
>>squares this piece attacks, and divides them into three classes:
>>
>>a) Empty squares and squares occupied by enemy pawns or pieces.
>>b) Squares occupied by friendly pieces
>>c) Squares occupied by friendly pawns
>>
>>I then compute the mobility bonus for the piece by a table lookup:
>>
>>mobility[side] +=
>>  BishopMobilityBonus[(squares of type a) - (squares of type c)];
>>
>>In other words, I use a negative mobility increment for attacking
>>squares occupied by friendly pawns.
>
>Did you do some tests that supported the theory that this negative mobility help
>relative to no negative mobility?

Not any very systematic testing.  I tried several different mobility schemes
(I don't remember the details), and kept the first one which seemed to be
a clear improvement.  It is certainly possible that it could be improved
further.

>I never thought to do negative mobility like that and I doubt if it is good.
>Intuition does not tell me that it is going to help.

My intuition is different.  When a piece is blocked by a friendly pawn, it
is usually more serious than when it is blocked by a friendly piece.  Pawns
are more difficult to move, especially without introducing weaknesses.

Consider the following two positions:

[D]6k1/5ppp/4p3/3pP3/3P4/6B1/5PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1
[D]6k1/5ppp/4p3/3pN3/3P4/6B1/5PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1

I think it makes sense to give the bishop a bigger mobility bonus
in the second position than in the first.

Tord



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