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Subject: Re: Tablebase statistics

Author: Mike Hood

Date: 14:49:07 04/07/02

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On April 07, 2002 at 15:23:23, Sergei Smith wrote:

>On April 07, 2002 at 14:18:30, Mike Hood wrote:
>
>
>>Another factor is that tablebases aren't just used when the endgame position is
>>on the board. The 5-piece table bases are often used when there are 10 or more
>>pieces on the board, if the program's search tree sees a path that exchanges
>>pieces.
>
>Thanks for the explanation, but this blows me off my base : )
>If the position is not in the tablebase how could it be called by the Chessbase
>GUI ?
>Probably you mean : If the engine sees a way to reduce the number of pieces by
>quick exchanges, it would be inclined to resort to a particular database.
>Or did I get you wrong ?

You got it right. What I mean is that there might be a position with 6 or more
pieces where the winning side sees that exchanges can be forced in order to
enter a 5-piece tablebase position.

Let me give you a very simple example:

[D] 6rk/2N5/8/8/8/8/1K5P/Q7 w - - 0 1

There are six pieces, so (if you only have 5-piece tablebases) it isn't a direct
tablebase lookup. Let us suppose White plays Qa8. If Black replies with RxQ it's
a simple tablebase lookup (KNP-KR) with the result Mate in 25. If Black replies
Kh7 or Kg7 White plays QxR, and it's a tablebase lookup (KQNP-K) with the result
Mate in 21. That means, by playing Qa8 White forces an exchange to enter a won
tablebase position, and the program playing White knows it because it has
already had a peak at the two relevant tablebases.





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