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Subject: Tough Endgame for the bot, silly for you.

Author: Oliver Roese

Date: 08:20:01 04/05/02


Hi!

This position is from
http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~tony/RecentPapers/report.mac.pdf
(see also http://www.talkchess.com/forums/1/message.html?221364)

[D]5k1b/7P/2B1KP1P/8/8/p7/P7/8 w - - 0 1

The author writes:
"After more than ten hours of play the position in [figure 9] was reached and
since
neither side was making progress the game was adjudicated after white's 111th
move of Bc6-d5. "
...
"Even today I doubt if many programs can do any better."

I tested this somewhat with crafty and can confirm it .
Although this is a rather easy win for a human it is hard for an engine,
since the winning plan distracts several heuristics. In order to win, white has
to:
1) playing f7(Be8), thereby giving more room for the enemy pieces.
2) moving his king far away from the hotspot to the innocent looking pawn a3.
3) trading the "dangerous" pawn h7 against blacks pawn a3.

[D]4Bk2/5P1P/7P/8/8/pK6/Pb6/8 w - - 0 1

In this position i abandonned the search after 30 minutes (although my system is
rather slow).

Is there a program that could do better?
Would this position remain unsolved for many years?

Oliver



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