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Subject: Re: Which Tablebases to download?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 09:15:59 06/01/00

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On June 01, 2000 at 09:38:55, Aaron Tay wrote:

>On May 31, 2000 at 10:40:38, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>>Okay . Thank you for explaining, however one for question please.
>>>
>>>If in a krpkp situation, would a Kqrkr TB be sufficent? Would it be then
>>>considered a unknown if I don't have say KqnKr? In other words unpromotion is
>>>usually rare and mostly unnecessay..
>>
>>It is "usually" rare and unnecessary.  But _not_ always.  I have seen cases
>>where =R was necessary (in real games) to avoid a stalemate.
>
>yes. There are some. So in the above situation alone, would the program queen?
>

If it had two choices, one is to play a move that loses, or two is to play =Q
and draw, it would draw.  IN fact, it would probably underpromote, since the =R
would be better than 0.00 or losing.  More common would be to promote or not to
promote?  And if all you have is =Q and that draws, and by not promoting you
keep a mate-in-N score alive, then it simply won't promote.  (note that the
current crafty won't screw up here, but it took special-case code to handle it
properly).


Just remember how stupid a program _really_ is.  If it can see mate over here,
and no mate over there, it will stay "over here" even if "over here" makes no
progress of any kind.




>
>>it has special code for handling this case.  Others will eventually do the
>>same.  However, you can buy 40 gigs of disk for 200 bucks, so having all the
>>databases is not unrealistic.
>
>yes. But for some of us, this is just a hobby..even 200 bucks is too much..In
>the future I suppose even 6 pieces TBS will be the norm..But currently, i
>suspect most "non-professional testers" use only 4 piece TBs + selected 5 pieces
>
>>yep...  they will refuse to promote until (maybe) they have to avoid a draw
>>by 50 move rule.
>
>Sigh, the pitfalls of a incomplete TB set..



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