Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Crafty endgame position

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 12:23:12 04/08/02

Go up one level in this thread


On April 08, 2002 at 13:35:44, Rafael Andrist wrote:

>On April 08, 2002 at 13:11:56, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On April 07, 2002 at 10:41:27, Michael Fuhrmann wrote:
>>
>>>[D] 1b6/8/8/7p/6k1/6P1/8/6K1 w - - 0 1
>>>
>>>Crafty, without tablebases, scores this as about -4.5 for white. Shouldn't the
>>>score be 0.0?
>>
>>
>>Here is what is wrong, after a lot of analysis.
>>
>>1.  static eval here is 0.00 as it should be.
>>
>>However, the search reaches a position where there are two things that
>>can happen.  It is possible for black to zugzwang white into playing g4,
>>which lets black capture hxg4 and leaves this in a won endgame for black.
>>Unfortunately, if black plays hxg4 then white is stalemated, but the evaluation
>>doesn't understand this.  It therefore concludes, by pushing this to the end
>>of any PV, that black can force white to play g4 and get out of the drawn
>>rook pawn ending.  It doesn't realize that for black to do this, white will
>>be stalemated after black plays hxg4 and so the draw is still there...
>>
>>There isn't an easy way to fix this, and it simply shows the weakness of the
>>current search methodology...
>>
>>
>>
>>Here is the problematic position:
>>
>>       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>>    8  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
>>       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>>    7  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
>>       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>>    6  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
>>       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>>    5  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | *P|
>>       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>>    4  |   |   |   |   |   |   | P |   |
>>       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>>    3  |   |   |   |   | *B|   |   | *K|
>>       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>>    2  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
>>       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>>    1  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | K |
>>       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>>         a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h
>>
>>
>>
>>White was just forced to play g4 (the pawn was on g3) since white can't move
>>his king.  If black plays Kxg4 then Crafty knows this is a draw.  But at the
>>last move in the normal search, then black can play hxg4 and the search won't
>>realize it is a stalemate since the q-search is called next.  As the search
>>goes deeper, black moves the bishop to let the white king go to g1, then you
>>check and the king has to go back to h1 which burns one ply.  You repeat until
>>the king goes to h1 and hxg4 is done in the q-search which doesn't (in Crafty,
>>anyway) detect stalemate...
>>
>>cute position...
>
>With bitboards as you use, a stalemate detection in eval for a lone king
>wouldn't be difficult.
>
>regards
>Rafael B. Andrist


I'm working on it right now in fact...  for the case where the side on move
has a lone king on the edge of the board...  It will at least fix this
particular class of positions...



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.