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Subject: Endgame Test Position

Author: Peter McKenzie

Date: 20:53:30 12/01/01


I am working on an endgame test suite, and finding it surprisingly difficult to
get good test positions.  It is interesting that many of the positions found in
chess books either have a dual solution, or (less common) the solution has a
mistake.

Take the following position for example:

[D]8/3n1pkp/6p1/1P1N4/3K2P1/7P/8/8 w - -

Chigorin - Marshall, Karlsbad 1907

Chigorin played the thematic 1.g5!, which clearly wins as it prevents any black
counter-play.

But I think that most computers will initially prefer 1.b6, and it is unclear if
this is winning or not.  I think tablebases could be quite useful here, so
perhaps someone could run crafty/yace/fritz/tiger etc on it for a decent amount
of time.

One possible attempted defence is 1.b6 f5 2.gf gf 3.b7, it might be worth
starting a search from there.

cheers,
Peter



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