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Subject: Re: Value of extension for pushing passed pawn

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 11:13:52 03/11/03

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On March 10, 2003 at 17:43:30, Gerd Isenberg wrote:

>On March 10, 2003 at 17:10:43, Tom King wrote:
>
>>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?
>
>Yes, but for nodes with depth left > 0. For leave nodes i use simpler and faster
>code so i believe it pays off. The final fractional depth remainder at leave
>nodes triggers some qsearch features, to make the qsearch width dependend on the
>remaining fractional depth, eg. check moves or an optional quite hint move (if
>any) from eval.
>
>>
>>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
>
>That's the right way to do it - but there are so many screws and switches.
>I still use some testpositions and during tournament play i'll hope let the
>heuristics fit  ;-)
>
>This position was sensible to passed pawn extensions for me.
>After IsiChess lost the game againts Shredder in Maastricht after c3? i did some
>extension (passed pawn reductions but some other additional extensions) and even
>eval tuning to solve this - but don't ask me whether IsiChess is stronger now.
>
>[D] 8/k1p1r3/p2b3p/5ppq/1np5/6P1/1R1N1P1P/R4QK1 b - - ; am c3
>
>
>Regards,
>Gerd


This position seems to be less about passed pawns and more about king safety and
check
extensions.  IE after c3, Rxb4 threatens Qxa6.  Crafty says +2 here after only 4
plies and
zero seconds, for example.  I don't think the pawn on c3 means a thing here.



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