Author: KarinsDad
Date: 21:00:41 04/03/00
It occurs to me that the example that Jeremiah gave us in that thread could still result in a loss for the KNP side of KNNPKNP. For example (and I did not check this with tablebases, I am making an illustration here and hopefully, I set it up correctly): [D]8/n1PK3p/k6N/8/6N1/8/8/8 w - - Now, even though this may result in a mate for white after c8(Q)+, it may take more than 50 moves to do it. However, the idea is that the knight at h6 could blockade the pawn until about move 40 or so, then it could come attack the king, then when the pawn is pushed, it could go back and blockade again for a moment. The 50 move counter would be reset since the pawn was pushed and then the knight could come back to attack the king again. Now, this probably does not work for this particular example. I just put it here to illustrate the idea. But it seems to me that the BEST play would take into account the 50 move rule COMBINED WITH the shortest mate, even if that takes longer due to reseting the 50 move rule counter. If there are examples of this occuring within the tablebases (and I do not know that for a fact since I do not have them), it would appear that the tablebases are in reality a good tool, but a partially flawed tool (since it would be extremely difficult for a program to determine that it is time to attack the king with the knight, and oops, it is time to head back and blockade the pawn again). KarinsDad :)
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