Author: Albert Silver
Date: 04:49:25 01/16/02
Go up one level in this thread
On January 16, 2002 at 07:41:28, Graham Laight wrote:
>It has occurred to me that it is wrong to evaluate a position in terms of
>relative pawns (the "de facto" standard - whereby an evaluation of 2 means that
>you're approximately the equivalent of 2 pawns ahead).
>
>This means that many aspects of evaluation have to be squeezed into a dimension
>which is not appropriate at all.
>
>A better way would be to evaluate "winning probability". If a position was a
>draw, the value would be 0.50 (or 50%). If the player should win 3 out of 4
>times, the eval should be 75%. If the player must win from here, then the
>evaluation should be 100%.
>
>It seems strange when you think about it that all programmers have chosen to
>adopt the traditional "pawn equivalence" standard.
>
>-g
Not so strange considering that chess is a game of absolutes, whether we know
them or not. A positions is either a win (with best play), a draw, or a loss.
How are you going to estimate how many times a player _should_ win? -->
Hmmm... Normally, I'd say John is going to win this, but having seen him drink 5
beers during lunch shortly before the game, I'd say he only has a 60% chance....
:-)
Albert
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