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Subject: Re: Simple position - no understanding for many chess programs

Author: James T. Walker

Date: 13:36:39 02/13/02

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On February 13, 2002 at 15:38:58, Kurt Utzinger wrote:

>Black to move. The position is a draw, even if White could manage to win both
>Black pawns. But quite a lot of [top] programs do not at all understand this and
>show completely wrong evaluations.
>
>A good example where a 1500-ELO-player does better than the so called
>2700-ELO-silicon-monsters!!
>Kurt
>
>[D] 8/8/5k1p/6pP/6K1/8/8/3B4 b - - 0 1

I believe that playing the position properly (saving the draw) is more important
than the eval shown by the program.  I think some programmers don't care if the
score shows that the program thinks it's ahead because it has a bishop for a
pawn.  I think it's more important that it gets a draw when the game is
technically a draw.  I also see many cases where one program will show a score
of +56.25 where others will show only +10.15.  Does it really matter?  I also
believe that chess programs do not understand _a_n_y_ positions.  They simply do
what they are told and hopefully in most cases it is the right thing to do.  The
score is simply a means to arrive at what is hopefully the best move.  Every day
I see two progams playing on auto232 where they both think they are ahead and
even when they both think they are behind.  They still play better than any 1500
player I know.



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