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Subject: Re: Most useful 6-men TB's

Author: martin fierz

Date: 18:09:42 10/14/02

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On October 14, 2002 at 21:02:53, Dieter Buerssner wrote:

>On October 14, 2002 at 20:45:31, martin fierz wrote:
>
>>i don't think any 6-man endgame without pawns is important! as you say, most of
>>them are rather trivial. i can't think of any of them which would be really
>>interesting -
>
>I believe, when you study the TBs, you will find many "interesting" positions.
>This should mean: they are not trivial. The ones I looked up are far to
>difficult to be really interesting for me.
>
>>in all the years i have played chess i have never had a single
>>game which ended in such an endgame! however, RP-RP and QP-QP and and things
>>like NPP-R or BPP-R can show up from time to time.
>
>I remember one game of my engine, where a pieceless 6-men EGTB could have been
>helpful. I believe it was KRBKBN, but I am not sure. (If anybody should be
>really interested, I will probably be able to find that game) I am sure, that
>that TB was not available from Hyatt's ftp. Also, I am sure, that my engine lost
>that game :-( I could look up online the positions from Ken Thompson's "TB-site"
>(http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/ken/chesseg.html).
>
>Indeed,  the game was theoretically lost, when reaching the material
>constellation. The win however was not trivial at all. Later in the game, there
>was the possibility of draw (only because of the 50 moves rule, without this
>rule, all positions in the game at that phase would have been lost).

hi dieter,

you are probably right that things like KR+minor - K+2minors may have some
interesting positions. i would have thought that since K+minor - K+rook is a
draw (in all "normal" cases), the additional minor pieces help the weaker side
and make most of these endgames very drawish - but perhaps that is a bit
superficial :-)
my assessment "not interesting" was aimed more toward the probability of these
things ever turning up, compared to 6-piece endgames with pawns.

aloha
  martin

>Regards,
>Dieter



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