Author: Peter McKenzie
Date: 19:05:57 09/01/01
After the recent discussion about the Nolot positions, and spurred on by Bruce Morland's superb web pages on the subject, I decided to test LambChop 10.98 with the positions. The last time I'd tested these positions (about 8 months ago), Chop had gotten 0/11 at 1/2 hour per position on my old P133. There had been previous versions that solved 1/11 under the same conditions, but probably changes to the search (ie. less extensions) made it worse on this type of test set. Anyway, the new 1ghz PIII is quite alot faster than the old P133 and the software has improved significantly so I was optimistic about solving some this time! I decided on 1 hour per position, quite a convenient time for an overnight run. To cut a long story short, LambChop solved 2/11 at 1hr/position. The solved positions were numbers 1 (in 196 seconds) and 11 (in 37 minutes). Some comments: Positon 1: Deemed the easiest by Chop which finds Nxh6 in just over 3 minutes compared to about 6 hours for DT-2. After an hour though, Chop's score is still slightly in Black's favour (-0.6). Chop's pv is: Nxh6 c3 Nf5 cxb2 Qg4 g6 Re2 Qd7 Nh4 Nf4 Qxf4 Nd5 Qd2 I haven't played thru. this but apparently Kh2 is better than Re2. Position 2: I would really like Chop to find this one, as I think its kind of obvious. Unfortunately Chop goes for some drawing variation starting with Bf6. I will study this one some more, I suspect singular extensions are useful here, which would be why both DT-2 and Ferret find it fast. With its current search, I can't see Chop finding it within a few hours. Position 3: Chop likes Bxg5 (+0.4), and after an hour its pv starts with Bxg5 Bxg5 h3, which is the same line mentioned by Hsu. Position 4: Chop likes Be2 here which seems reasonable, showing about half a pawn advantage to white. I could see this one being solved with a bit more time, because the score for Nxe6 isn't too much lower. Position 5: Nf3, +0.7. Not sure what to make of this one, e5 looks quite deep. Oops, running out of time here. Might post some more comments later. Peter
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