Author: Dieter Buerssner
Date: 09:39:39 09/23/01
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On September 23, 2001 at 12:15:35, José Carlos wrote: >On September 23, 2001 at 11:02:09, Uri Blass wrote: > >>What is the importance of finding the fastest mate. >>There are programs that stop to search when they find one mate and I do not see >>it as important for games if they know to find a shorter mate in the next move. > > This is wrong, partially. Of course playing programs are not mate provers, but >if you stop the search in _any_ mate, you can play a check that leads to mate in >5. The next move, check again, which leads to mate in 5. Then, another move that >leads to mate in 6, and so on... You might lose on time meanwhile. Yes, this could happen. But the engines, that stops searching, when it sees the first mate, may have other built in rules, that prevent this from happening. For example, when the games goes on, it could make sure, to not stop searching before the allocated time runs out, or a shorter mate is found, than in the last move. OTOH, I see no advantage, to stop searching when a mate is seen, instead of using the allocated time (or reaching a depth, at which it can be proven that this is the shortest mate). I cannot imagine, one would lose any game by this, that not has an incredibly fast time control. Regards, Dieter
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