Author: Ricardo Gibert
Date: 21:49:11 09/12/00
Go up one level in this thread
On September 13, 2000 at 00:24:18, Dave Gomboc wrote: >A grandmaster who is writing a book brought the position after 19...Nc6 in >Shirov-Kasparov 1997 to my attention: > >[D]R2QK2R/1P1B1PB1/P1NPP3/8/3nppP1/1p2b1pP/p1p1n2p/r2q1rk1 - KQ My guess is the diagram did not appear, because White (or Black) to move was not indicated. There may another problem too. > >(I've also placed the complete PGN score at the bottom of the message.) > >Kasparov, when annotating this position, had the following to say: > >"The future importance of the long diagonal(a8-h1) is not yet clear, but from my >experience I can guarantee that the white king is potentially in a much worse >position than his black colleague. Any further opening of the long diagonal or >the appearance of the queen on the second rank will create a deadly threat on >g2. In fact, the pawn on h3 can be seen as a material advantage for Black, >because it is so important that you could value it has a whole piece. It not >only helps the queen to create mating threats, but in most endgames, this pawn >will also guarantee Black a winning edge because of the threats that Black can >create against the h2-pawn, when the black h-pawn is very close to the promotion >square."-GK > >I was asked to comment on how a computer program would assess this position. My >reply was that strong programs would indeed assess this kingside structure as >favourable for Black, and specifically that > >"The computer would deduct points for White's poor king safety and the colour >complex weakness: White's pawns are far from the ideal "f2-g2-h2 in front of a >king on g1", worse--Black has a solid grip on g2 and f3, and g2 is adjacent to >White's king. To compound the problem further, White doesn't even have a >light-squared bishop to try to limit the damage with. Still, depending on the >program, the penalty terms may only kick into high gear when the program can see >Black beginning to exploit these factors within its search horizon, by which >time it may well be too late for the program to do anything about it." > >My goal in bringing up this position and commentary is two-fold: > >1. The information is of high quality due to the top calibre of the players and >annotator of the game. I believe it is valuable for developers to ask how their >program assesses this position (specifically the kingside situation), reflect on >whether that assessment is correct or not, and if not, what features might be >introduced or modified in their program to cause it to give an estimate more in >line with Kasparov's assessment. > >2. I would like to verify that the comments I provided are well-founded (the >book will soon go to print, but hasn't yet, so I can still modify them if they >are not! ;) > >With regards to reason 2., while I think an interesting conversation here could >arise, I would be happy to receive email (dave@cs.ualberta.ca) if you have some >comments but would prefer not to post them on CCC for whatever reason. > >Thanks, >Dave > > >[Event "It (cat.19)"] >[Site "Linares (Spain)"] >[Date "1997.??.??"] >[White "Shirov, A "] >[Black "Kasparov, G "] >[Result "0-1"] >[ECO "B90"] >[Round "10"] > >1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bg5 h6 8. Bh4 >g5 9. Bg3 Bg7 10. Be2 h5 11. Bxg4 Bxg4 12. f3 Bd7 13. O-O Nc6 14. Bf2 e6 15. >Nce2 Ne5 16. b3 g4 17. f4 h4 18. Be3 h3 19. g3 Nc6 20. Qd3 O-O 21. Rad1 f5 22. >c4 Qa5 23. Nc3 Rae8 24. Rfe1 e5 25. Nxc6 Bxc6 26. b4 Qa3 27. b5 exf4 28. Bxf4 >axb5 29. cxb5 Qc5+ 30. Be3 Qxc3 31. bxc6 Qxc6 32. Qxd6 Qxe4 33. Qd5+ Qxd5 34. >Rxd5 Bc3 35. Re2 Re4 36. Kf2 Rfe8 37. Rd3 Bf6 38. Red2 Rxe3 0-1
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