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Subject: Re: Mate Test Suite

Author: David Rasmussen

Date: 16:49:56 09/17/02

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On September 17, 2002 at 19:08:09, Dann Corbit wrote:

>On September 17, 2002 at 19:02:24, David Rasmussen wrote:
>[snip]
>>All of these alternative mates are not solutions, that is the point. I don't
>>think any program will have problems finding _some_ mate in these positions. The
>>hard thing is to find the right (shortest) mate in these last positions, with
>>normal playing techniques (null move etc.) .
>
>I disagree.  Once a program has found a mate that is proven, the value of the
>solution is +1 from a game theoretic standpoint.  The lenght to the mate is
>irrelevant, unless the program has neglected some checkmate rule.  As far as
>getting the shortest possible checkmate, that is a job for a dedicated mate
>finder.
>

That is a valid opinion (which I happen to agree with), but that is not the
point. I chose those positions specifically because they seem to highlight some
of the problems of some search-techniques, such as null-move. If one is happy
with any mate, one should disregard the positions from #931 and on.

Even though mate finding is often not important in itself, I think it is
fascinating that some of the good programs manages to find these mates so
quickly, in normal playing mode, not a special mate search mode.

/David



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