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Subject: Re: What should the value of the pieces should be?

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 10:28:30 10/03/98

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On October 02, 1998 at 13:39:28, John Coffey wrote:

>I realize that the value of the pieces vary somewhat with
>position.  But how close is the old rules of queen=9 pawns, Rook = 5 pawns,
>Bishop = 3 to 3.5 pawns, knight = 3 pawns?

This comes up incredibly often.  When someone asks me what values my program
uses, I can give them some numbers that will make them go away, but the answer
they get won't help them make their own program, other than in a very basic
sense.

You really do have to take into account that aspect of varying with position,
and that will cause the values of the pieces to vary signficantly.

The root issue here is not the value of the piece on the board, it is the whole
spectrum of positional chess, and that's way too complicated an answer to reduce
to 1, 3, 3, 5, 9, infinity.

An analysis of a painting can start with a discussion of the quality of canvas
and paint that the artist used.  I am sure that the attributes of different
varieties of canvas and paint is well-known and can be discussed at length and
with a far degree of empircism.  But to my mind it is not the materials which
are at the root of the matter, but rather how they are arranged, and this
subject can't be handled with the same degree of empiricism.

bruce



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