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Subject: Re: You'll never know...

Author: Martin Schubert

Date: 13:59:15 05/13/01

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On May 13, 2001 at 12:08:52, Uri Blass wrote:

>On May 13, 2001 at 10:07:27, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On May 13, 2001 at 03:50:15, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
>>
>>>...when it could happen to you.
>>>
>>>On ICC my program reached the following position:
>>>
>>>[D]2k2r2/2P3R1/1P6/P7/8/1K6/8/8 w - - 0 56
>>>
>>>Convinced it was winning, it now played a6??
>>>after which black draws easily.
>>>
>>>I remember having seen this theme before in problems,
>>>but not in a real game. Ouch!
>>>
>>>Most other programs don't seem to have a clue about
>>>this position either, though :)
>>>
>>>--
>>>GCP
>>
>>It's a null-move killer because it is based on zugzwang problems.  White is
>>up material + whatever bonuses it gets for three connected passers, which is
>>quite a bit normally.  Which means that any null move done will think white is
>>simply winning.
>
>Yace is a null mover and it has no problem to see that moves like Kb4 are better
>than a6.
>
>You do not need to see that a6 is a draw in order to avoid it and you only need
>to see that other moves are better.
>
>  The sequence of checks to reach the draw is also quite long
>>which aggravates things...
>
>The main problem of a lot of chess programs is their evaluation,
>
>They can see a lot of checks and after the checks capturing the rook and believe
>that white is a rook and 3 pawns up because they do not see the stalemate.
>
>Programs evaluate the position as more than +9 for white and it is ridicilous(I
>guess that the +9 is evaluation of stalemate positions).
>Yace is more inteligent and evaluates a6  only as +5 for white and it is enough
>for it to avoid a6.
>
>It will be interesting to see if Crafty can avoid the mistake if you add the
>following if in your evaluation function:
>
>If the side to move has only a king then if the side to move is in stalemate
>then return 0.
>
>The side to move has only a king is only a private case and you may add more
>cases but the price is being slower in other positions.
>
>Uri

Are you sure that some programs have a stalemate evaluation different from 0?
Stalemate is draw, so why evaluate it different from 0?

Martin



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