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Subject: A [pretty easy] test position and my blind program

Author: Scott Gasch

Date: 14:23:03 01/19/01


Hi all,

Here's a pretty simple test position.  This comes from the WAC suite... my
engine does fairly well on this suite as a whole but seems blind to this
solution.

[D]8/7p/5k2/5p2/p1p2P2/Pr1pPK2/1P1R3P/8 b - -

The solution is Rxb2 -- black's connected passers are unstoppable after the
recapture.

My program refuses to find this solution... even at 9 ply it misses it.  The
strange thing is that from the other side after Rxb2 it sees that white is toast
very quickly... score dropping to -500 or so after about 1 second.

My question is, of course, how this move is missed.  I've tried kicking up the
value of connected passers and passed pawns in general.  I've tried adding a
special rule to eval about connected passers on the 7th, on move, with control
of a queening square.  I've tried cutting back my futility margin in qsearch and
always extending a full ply for checks (It usually extends only 3/4 ply for
checks after the iteration depth).  And still it does not find Rxb2.

Even stranger is if I run a static eval with the two connected passers rolling
towards the queening square after the rook exchange the eval puts black ahead!
I can't seem to figure this out... either my pruning is too aggressive or there
is some other bug in the engine...?

I hope someone out there can give me a little advice.  Thanks!

Scott



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