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Subject: Re: Where can I purchase the 9 cd set of Nalimov Tablebases?

Author: Louis Fagliano

Date: 15:18:41 11/06/02

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On November 06, 2002 at 16:45:51, Michael P. Nance Sr. wrote:

>hello, i already have the nalimov tablebases(4 cd disc)(5 men),is this 9 disc
>set better than the one i have now?>>>>mike

Sure is.  The 4-CD set contains all the 3 and 4-man nalimov tablebases plus only
the most commonly encountered 5-man endings based on a statistical analysis of
what occurs most often in a large database of games.

This is by no means all of the 5-man nalimov tablebases there are.  If you want
every single possible 5-man end games that could legally occur then you need the
much larger set of discs because there is no way they'd only fit on 4 CD's.

Among some of the 5-man endings that are missing from the 4-CD set is king and
queen vs. king and rook.  This could occur from a king and pawn vs. king and
rook ending where the pawn promotes to a queen.  The king and queen vs. king and
rook is left out because it doesn't occur nearly as often as a king and pawn vs.
king and rook ending (which is on there) mainly because the losing side usually
resigns before the pawn is promoted.

But if you have only king and pawn vs. king and rook ending tablebase there
could occur a point where your engine which is using those EGTB's will refuse to
promote the pawn to a queen(!) because that EGTB is not there.  The more
sophisticated engines like Fritz or Crafty will promote the pawn anyway.  But
you might want to get the complete set because I don't know what engine your
using and whether or not it will do the rather stupid thing of not promoting a
pawn to a queen because there is no EGTB's to read.



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