Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 17:04:03 05/17/00
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On May 17, 2000 at 19:20:40, Ernst A. Heinz wrote: >Hi Bob, > >>I think playing Bxa7 very quickly is a bug. Because you are right, trapping >>the bishop is easy, and breaking the trap is deep. For every game you win by >>playing Bxa7 you will lose 10. > >Calling this a "bug" is a bold conjecture IMO -- your observations >above might be true for blitz games but they certainly do not hold >for longer time controls according to my experience. > >I prefer the approach of adding as little evaluation code for >special situations as possible. The "trapped Bishop" should >certainly get punished for losing most of its mobility. And >the potential necessity to defend the piece will punish its >side further. So why do we need special code for this? > >Moreover, the alleged "trap" often turns out to be a "fata >morgana" of human players who fear it without any good reason. >Hence, you may rob your program of many potential chances >if you severly punish "trapped Bishops" statically. We might call this a "baby bad bishop" because (in real life) it will be incredibly hard to take the bishop, but it will also be incredibly hard to extricate it. So we have essentially "taken it off the board" for a long time. We will also tie up the knight defending it, but (on the other hand) I like the forward post for the knight anyway. I told you these positions were kinky. ;-)
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