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Subject: Re: Handling of KNN-kp positions.

Author: Bernhard Bauer

Date: 23:52:29 02/10/98

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On February 10, 1998 at 12:09:49, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>Cool bug.  If you want to see other bugs of this type, try setting up
>positions where each side has only one minor piece, but there is a mate
>in one.
>
>For instance something like
>
>5Bbk/8/7K/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1
>

Crafty gives:

   White(1): Bg7#
              time used:   0.18

   Crafty offers a draw.

So after mating Crafty offers a draw.

>When I tried this a few years ago I found that several programs called
>this a draw.  Maybe they still do.
>

Looks like you are right.

>Regarding 5-piece endgame databases, I have a whole bunch of them, but I
>don't actually use very many on ICC, since the Alpha doesn't have enough
>disk.
>
>One of the ones I put on the Alpha, almost as a lark, was KP vs KNN, and
>it has come in handy twice, which was twice more than I expected.
>

I think it's a good idea to do things in a proper way. Crippling down a
program for speed reasons may be a bad idea and may give the customers
a bad feeling. It would be better to insert a line of code like:
XXX will not handle this position properly due to speed reasons. STOP.

Here are 2 positions from V. Albillo's home page that cause difficulties
to crafty.

8/1k1K4/8/8/1pN5/1N6/8/8 w - - bm Nc5+; id "VA19: 6mate";
8/8/8/5K2/7k/7p/7N/7N w - - bm Nf2; id "VA20: 9mate";

Now I know why.

Regards
Bernhard
>bruce



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