Author: Don Dailey
Date: 05:43:30 08/19/98
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>you might need some GM analysis. IE a couple of years ago, Roman called >me one morning and said "Bob, I have played hundreds of games against >crafty over the past month or so, and I've found one major problem that >is hurting it... you apparently have too large a bonus for keeping the >bishop pair." I was surprised he even knew what this was all about, but >listened, and he went over some games and explained what was going on. I >lowered the bonus... and he played some more and said "nope, still too high" >as it will allow itself to get into a really ugly position rather than >trade a bishop for knight. I kept reducing it until finally "this is >right now... it keeps the pair when possible, but won't accept gross >positional penalties to do so." > >The number he liked was .2, or 1/5th of a pawn... and over the next month >or two I would bump it up and he would complain. I've left it there ever >since... This makes sense to me. How does your basic bishop compare to your basic knight? As I stated before, I sometimes wonder if a high bishop pair bonus is ok, as long as you have compatible positional terms? .2 might be right for your program, but maybe not for mine? It may be we have to consider what typically happens during an exchange of knight for bishop. Quite often a doubled pawn is created, sometimes this is around the enemy king, other times a majority is gained etc. The values these other terms have might be a factor. We have a pretty high bishop pair bonus and sometimes we do give up too much for it. It's all a bit of a black art isn't it? >>I also do not believe 2 bishops = 2 knights + 1 pawn but a couple >>of strong players (much stronger than me) have told me this was >>not unreasonable. >> >>- Don > >I don't believe this either. In some cases, yes... but with all pawns >on the same side, the two knights can actually be better, since they can >gang up on a single weak pawn while two bishops can't...
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