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Subject: Re: Question about see

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 17:42:21 10/05/01

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On October 05, 2001 at 19:15:19, Paul wrote:

>On October 05, 2001 at 14:59:28, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On October 05, 2001 at 12:33:06, José Carlos wrote:
>>
>>>  Due to recent posts about SEE, I've decided to implement it. I have a doubt.
>>>In this position:
>>>
>>>[D]6rk/3n4/6p1/8/8/3B4/P2R4/7K w - - 0 1
>>>
>>>  white has only a capture: Bxg6. If I understood right, SEE looks only for
>>>captures in one square, so it will try: Bxg6 Rxg6 and I'm losing a bishop for a
>>>pawn. So SEE will tell me Bxg6 loses, and I'll discard a move that actually
>>>gives me a pawn for free. Is this correct?
>>>
>>>  José C.
>>
>>
>>That is correct.  But notice this is only "discarded" somewhere in the
>>q-search (in my case.)  I _never_ throw moves out in the normal search.
>>This will be searched near the end, because it looks like it loses a
>>piece for a pawn.  But it _will_ be searched.  The q-search will be wrong.
>>But then it is possible that your RxN can't be played either because your
>>rook might be pinned.  That gets too complicated for this kind of simple/static
>>analysis...
>>
>>The q-search is _full_ of errors, because it is by definition not exhaustive
>>at all.  Which means it overlooks pins. forks, skewers, etc already.  What's
>>one more small error tree in that forest?  :)
>
>Bob, could you explain what you mean by 'it overlooks pins'?
>
>Groetjes,
>Paul


Sure... the typical SEE code (at least that implemented in Crafty, and what I
did in Cray Blitz) looks at one specific target square for exchanges.  It
doesn't pay any attention to absolute or regular pins (ie if a piece is
pinned on my king by your rook, I can _still_ use that piece in the sequence
of captures.  It is less accurate, but the errors in the q-search are so
large, this is "noise" basically.

In the example given at the start of this thread, we have a discovered attack
that SEE misses as well.  BxP, and when the opponent plays something takes
bishop, he has a piece hanging to the discovered attack exposed when we moved
the bishop to take the pawn.

Other things include overloaded pieces.  The point is that _all_ that is
considered is "which pieces bear on the target square, whether they are
pinned, overloaded, or anything else?"




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