Author: Hugh Cumper
Date: 14:37:31 08/24/00
Wanting to practice some simple endings I set up R+P V R and gave Fritz the stronger side. I was surprised that it was giving me very easy draws, sometimes repeating moves or else allowing the rook exchange with an obviously drawn pawn ending. The reason was that the tablebase told it the position could not be won so it regarded all moves (that didn't blunder the rook) as equivalent. When I disabled the tablebase access it gave me a much harder time. Wouldn't it be better to use the engine to find a constructive move in a case like this, just using the tablebase to check both sides moves for outright errors? It may be that anyone who loses such a simple ending would be too weak to get into one against a computer but this is surely not true of R+B V R or B+B V N. I believe other tablebase enabled programs do the same thing, unless anyone knows different.
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