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Subject: Re: Two knights endgame

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 06:21:29 04/01/00

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On April 01, 2000 at 09:15:13, Amir Ban wrote:

>On April 01, 2000 at 08:18:51, Frederic Friedel wrote:
>
>>Amazingly it never occurred to anyone -- Thompson, Stiller, Nalimov -- to run
>>through the ending K+N+N vs K. Everyone assumed it was simply a draw in every
>>case. Well, fire up your Nalimov tablebase generator and prepare for a shock! In
>>over 10% of all legal positions the attacking side can forced a mate in 31 to 48
>>moves. It is difficult to do anything systematically with the tablebase after it
>>has been generated (except play against them), but as far as I can tell the
>>attacking side can force a win if the defending king is on one of the squares
>>a1, b1 or a2 and the attacking king and at least one knight is within the square
>>a1-d1-d4-a4. Naturally this can be reflected in all four corners of the board.
>>Some  of the mates are wonderfully intricate and involve forcing the king to
>>move to a4 (or d1) and back again to a1. John Nunn is studying the ending and
>>will provide a better statistical evaluation soon.
>
>Incredible ! Unbelievable !! Fantastic !!!
>
>This has nothing to do with today's date, does it ?
>
>Amir

I think that has a lot to do with it... so I'll score one for Fred. ;-)

If it's really true, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Dave



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