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Subject: Re: Repetition/draw test

Author: blass uri

Date: 06:41:05 03/08/00

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On March 08, 2000 at 07:23:47, José Carlos wrote:

>On March 08, 2000 at 06:29:13, blass uri wrote:
>
>>On March 08, 2000 at 05:11:11, Howard Exner wrote:
>>
>>>Test your chess engine if it handles this repition theme correctly. To do this
>>>set up the position below and play the white side yourself. Do not enter the
>>>winning move Kh5 but instead play the blunder Kg5. Now let your program play the
>>>black side at say game/15. It will of course play Kd5+ which forces perpetual
>>>check. After it does that try to trick the program and reply Kg4.
>>>Now the test - does your program play the correct Qd1+ or does it blunder and
>>>mistakenly repeat the position with Qe4+, assuming that the opponent will
>>>blunder again with Kg5? Rebel Century failed this test and assumed white would
>>>play again the poor move Kg5.
>>>Why would a program do this? Do other programs fall into this trap of assuming
>>>a repetition of moves even when not forced?
>>
>>I believe that many programs falls into this trap because they evaluate second
>>repetition as a draw.
>>
>>It is usually not important against computers because computers do not do
>>tactical blunders but it may be important against humans.
>>
>>The reason that programs do it is that most of the programs were not designed in
>>the right way.
>
>  I disagree. I think that is the right way of doing things. Programs (including
>mine) test for second repetition assuming both sides played the best moves they
>found. Testing third repetition instead of second takes way longer, and you need
>two extra plies to find it.
>  You can choose testing third instead of second, it is not any difficult to
>implement, but there will be very few cases where this will help, and a lot of
>cases where this will slow down the search: more time for the test, more plies
>to find it and you cannot return the draw value in second, so you have to
>generate many more nodes.
>
>  Just my opinion, anyway.
>
>  José C.

I do not suggest to test for third repetition but only to ignore previous
positions in the test for second repetition (with the exception of cases when
there was a repetition of previous positions).

I do not think that it is going to slow down the search significantly because I
believe that most of the repetition in the search are repetitions of positions
that were not in the game.

Uri



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