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Subject: Re: Value of extension for pushing passed pawn

Author: Tom King

Date: 14:10:43 03/10/03

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On March 10, 2003 at 17:06:10, Gerd Isenberg wrote:

>On March 10, 2003 at 14:49:30, Tom King wrote:
>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>One search extension which most programs seem to use is the passed pawn pushing
>>extension. When a move is made which is a passed pawn push to the 7th rank, we
>>extend the search by a ply.
>>
>>My programs has got away without this extension for years. Or perhaps "got away"
>>isn't right.. there have been losses which this extension might have prevented.
>>
>>Anyway, what do people think of this extension. Worth having? If so, what value
>>would you attach to it?
>>
>>Regards (and hi to all),
>>Tom
>>tom@silentshark.co.uk
>
>Hi Tom,
>
>i do some fractional extensions with passers. Not only if they push or capture
>foreward to the 6th or 7th rank, even if a opposite "guard" pawn in backward or
>knight distance (re)captures (but no push) from it's base rank (own 7th rank) to
>the "right" side, which establish an own passer on the 6th rank. I consider the
>number of advanced passers per side, supporting and defending pieces. A lot of
>code, specially at interiour nodes or near the root to look for further
>recuductions of determined extensions.
>
>Even if these extensions work fine in some testpositions, i requires a lot of
>effort to tune them for tournament play. Most often i do it by "gut feel".
>
>One thing i tried to control extensions with is to vary the amount of fractions
>to become one ply. I tried to vary it by search depth and by the relative amount
>of extensions so far.
>
>Regards,
>Gerd

Hi Gerd,

Sounds like your passed pawn extensions are very sophisticated - doesn't this
analysis slow up your search?

I'm sure you are dead right about the test positions. I gave up with testsuites
a while back, and now just use hundreds of test games to determine whether a
change is beneficial or not.

Regards,
Tom



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