Author: Uri Blass
Date: 02:41:48 01/20/01
The competition should not be on playing chess but on being faster. The target should not be to win games but to calculate the sum of the evaluation functions of all the possible positions 7 plies forward(it means that the programs do not need to use the alpha beta but to do a full search of all the possible positions). A possible evaluation may be for example the following material +mobility evaluation: material evaluation:pawn 100,knight 300,bishop 325,rook 500,queen 900 mobility evaluation: bishops and knights get evaluation for controlling squares by the following rules(there is no logic behind the rules): Bishops or kings: 1 -2 3 4 3 2 1 2 2 3 4 5 4 5 3 2 3 3 3 4 5 3 2 6 9 1 2 4 6 3 2 1 0 2 4 3 2 1 3 4 6 4 2 1 3 4 5 6 1 1 1 1 0 4 3 2 0 2 0 3 2 4 2 1 Knights,Rooks or queens: 1 -2 12 12 13 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 1 2 1 0 1 -2 12 12 13 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 1 2 1 0 The first line in the bishops or king matrix (1 2 3 4 3 2 1 2) means that every white bishop get positional bonus of 0.01 pawn for controlling a8,0.02 pawn for controlling b8...0.01 pawn for controlling g8 and 0.02 pawn for controlling h8. For the black pieces it is the same when we talk about controlling a1-h1 instead of a8-h8. The kings also get the same bonus for controlling the same squares. The target of the programmer is to do a 7 plies full search from the initial position and to calculate the sum of the evaluations of all the legal positions. Hash tables may help because the program can use them not to search positions after 1.e3 e6 2.d3 when it searched positions after 1.d3 e6 2.e3 and to remember the number 2 for 1.d3 e6 2.e3(this position can be achieved in exactly 2 ways after 3 plies). It is possible to use a random position for the competition in order to prevent programmers to tune for the initial position. The winner will be the program that is the fastest in calculate the sum of the evaluations of all the legal positions. I think that it may be possible to learn from the winning program about ways to improve the speed of chess programs. It may be also possible to learn about better way for writing an evaluation function or better ways of representing the board. The competition can be in 2 categories: 1)C category (the programmer has to use only C for his(her) program) 2)General category when the programmer can use everything for his(her) program. A lot of people develop free chess programs when they earn practically nothing for it so the only question is if there are people who want to participate in this kind of competition. Uri
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