Author: Vine Smith
Date: 03:39:31 05/28/02
Go up one level in this thread
[snip] >It has been proven a few times that 6-man TBs don't make an engine "smarter", it >just makes them play a prettier endgame. The 3/4/5's are really the only TBs >you NEED to have. I don't see how such a thing could ever be "proven". First, there's the obvious fact that as the number of men in the tablebases increases, the engine's game must improve, since if it had access to 32-man tablebases, I think it might play very well indeed. Second, I fail to see why 5 should be some magic number for the maximum number of men in the tablebases that are "needed" -- why not 4 or 7 or any other number? Just because the 6-man tablebases are not yet complete does not render them any less necessary than 3-4-5. Finally, if you consider the item posted at Chessbase a month or two ago about KRN vs. KNN endings, which featured a 230-or-so move winning procedure, it becomes clear that some of these endings absolutely require the tablebases for correct play, because the lines are completely concrete, and cannot be analyzed in terms of ideas or concepts, so that no algorithm for pushing the king to the edge, or limiting the knights' mobility could solve it. Regards, Vine
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