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Subject: Re: Cats vs Dogs, Knights vs Bishops, the verdict

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:48:52 06/02/00

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On June 02, 2000 at 05:41:58, Laurence Chen wrote:

>On June 01, 2000 at 12:12:02, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On May 31, 2000 at 18:47:30, Laurence Chen wrote:
>>
>>>On May 31, 2000 at 17:29:41, Marc van Hal wrote:
>>>
>>>>On May 31, 2000 at 10:59:45, Ulrich Tuerke wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On May 31, 2000 at 10:47:40, Georg v. Zimmermann wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On May 31, 2000 at 09:32:44, Ulrich Tuerke wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On May 31, 2000 at 09:00:46, Georg v. Zimmermann wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Lets assume you know beforehand what move your program will choose, in every
>>>>>>>>position. This does not have to be the best move.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>You now extend on that move. Will that make your program stronger ?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>If yes, lets assume your program likes to move with its knights a lot. Will you
>>>>>>>>make it stronger by extending on knight moves ?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I think that the opposite is true. Your program will extend uninteresting moves
>>>>>>>on cost of the remaining moves. The reached search depth will suffer
>>>>>>>correspondingly (assuming that you have some time limit for the search).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I'm not sure if i got you right ?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Why "uninteresting" ? If thats the move its going to choose anyway, it sure
>>>>>>wasn't uninteresting ! If half of its moves were knight-moves, then that does
>>>>>>mean that it considers knight-moves "interesting".
>>>>>
>>>>>You said that it is not necessarily the best move; thus it might be
>>>>>uninteresting.
>>>>>Well, anyway you consider to extend the 1st root move compared to the other root
>>>>>moves. What will you do when you get a new best move ? Will you replace a move
>>>>>searched to n+1 plys by a move searched to n plys ? I doubt that this is
>>>>>reasonable. A way out is to extend the search for the new best after replacing
>>>>>the old best immediately by an extra ply too. However, the extended search may
>>>>>fail low. How to handle this ?
>>>>>Besides the question of your suggestion will improve play (i doubt it), I see a
>>>>>lot of problems to make it work consistently in order to get a stable search.
>>>>>
>>>>>Uli
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Regards, Uli
>>>>
>>>>I think it is a good idea for a positional program and in position openings
>>>>lines
>>>>Something I told before was that actualy the pawns and the knights are the soul
>>>>of chess instead of only the pawns
>>>>This espacialy counts in all closed positions.
>>>>I sugested to build something like the f12 function of Fritz3 to give the right
>>>>valeu for the squares of the knights like for White d4 In Fritz5.16 Frans did
>>>>give a higher valeu for this square cause from out here it can became tactical
>>>>on f5 and can go too e6,e4 d5,e5 d6,e6(Kasparov's octopus position) and c4 and
>>>>in some ocasions f5
>>>>For Black the squares d5 ,e5 in  d4,e4 and d3 and e3 and c5 and in some
>>>>ocasiansf4
>>>>( so basicaly all knight moves torwards the centre  f4 and f5 are indirect moves
>>>>torward the centre and most important try to keep the square strong with pawns
>>>>like in a kingsindian a5 is played to saveguard the knights position
>>>>If you keep this all in mind yes it will improve your program.
>>>>I actualy notice Junior6 likes to play with it's knights in a good way also with
>>>>saveguarding it's position and so on
>>>>But then again most likely my version of Junior6 is now the stongest of the
>>>>world with all the analyzes and games I played with it.
>>>I've got newsflash for you !!! Knights DON'T benefit from closed positions.
>>>Bishops benefit the most from closed positions !!! You've got it backwards.
>>>Laurence
>>
>>
>>How?  If you have a closed position and two bishops, one is bad.  Knights can
>>hop from hole to hole in a blocked/closed position.  Bishops get trapped behind
>>friendly pawns and can't do anything but act like "tall pawns".
>If there's a stonewall then the knights are as bad as the bishops... Hence, I
>cannot see your point of saying that knights can hop from hole to hole if
>there's no hole to hop.  There's such a thing as a bad knight as well as a bad
>bishop.  A closed position without any possibility of becoming open is bad for
>both knights and bishops.  A closed position with possibility of becoming open
>can benefit the bishops if the knights are not able to gain any outposts.  Not
>all outposts are good for a knight.  What good is to have a knight outpost on a
>Queenside when the action is on the kingside? Chess is dynamic, not static, to
>say that knights are better than bishops in so called closed positions is not
>always true.
>Laurence


Nothing is "always true".  But in general, if the pawns are locked, knights
are better.  That is all I ever see anyone see, because everybody knows that
there are exceptions to any rule.  As far as your stonewall, if you have two
bishops, and I have two knights, how are you going to keep my knights out of
the holes in the stonewall formation?  Most common formation is c3/d4/e4/f4
for white, d5,e6,f5 for black.  I see plenty of useful squares for knights to
play with.  The bishops have a real problem until some pawn breaks can be
made to open up diagonals somewhere.



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