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Subject: Re: Evaluation Should Be Winning Probability - Not Pawns

Author: Ricardo Gibert

Date: 10:23:14 01/16/02

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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

knowing the probability of winning is not enough (or necessary), you must also
have some type of rough distance information (this is necessary), otherwise, you
will not be able to differentiate between a quick 100% win and a slower 100%
one.

Consider this: You're pushing an obvious idea, that occurs to practically
everyone that writes a program. Now why don't programs use it? Hmmm.



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