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Subject: Re: Endgame easy test position

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 15:10:19 09/18/01

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On September 18, 2001 at 18:08:32, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On September 18, 2001 at 17:17:35, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On September 18, 2001 at 16:33:08, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On September 18, 2001 at 13:24:45, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Note that I said that computers can safely evaluate +2 if they do not see a
>>>>positional advantage for the side with less pawns.
>>>>
>>>>Having a distant majority is a positional advantage.
>>>
>>>Not when hardly _any_ programs recognize it.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>I also think that Ed is right and today search solves usually the problem of
>>>>missevaluating pawn majority.
>>>
>>>I disagree.  If you enter into a series of captures, you might burn all your
>>>search on the captures and have none left to see what the majority is going to
>>>do.  So you take the first step, and then you are committed.  And every move
>>>you make sees your score drop as you begin to sense the problem.  By the time
>>>the forced trades are done, you realize you are lost, as a king and pawns ending
>>>can be searched incredibly deeply.
>>
>>Can you give a position that demonstates your point?
>>
>>Uri
>
>
>Here is a simple attempt:
>
>[D]2k5/1r6/3p1p2/n2p1p2/P2PpP2/R3P3/1BK5/8 b - -
>
>Here black has several moves to try, one which liquidates into a pawn up
>(but dead lost) ending.  Rxb2 Kxb2 Nc4+ Ka2 Nxa3 Kxa3 and white is a pawn
>down, but winning easily.
>
>Once you start with Rxb2, you are committed.  As if you try to back out and
>not play Nc4 and Nxa3, you are an exchange down.  And if you do recover the
>material, you are dead lost.  Add another such forced capture/recapture and
>you have burned 6 plies.  You won't see white winning all the black pawns
>and winning.


Note that I don't say there are not better moves for black here.  The point
was to show a move choice that commits you to a course of action that gets
worse and worse as you go deeper and deeper.




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