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Subject: Re: How do the best free programs with source code evaluate pawn structure?

Author: Ferdinand S. Mosca

Date: 14:42:05 03/21/03

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On March 21, 2003 at 13:38:53, William H Rogers wrote:

>In one of my first attempts in programming I used to assign more weight to a
>pawn that was being captured on the last 3 ranks, ie. a white pawn sitting on
>the sixth rank was given a value of 2 points instead of only 1. More points were
>given as it approached the end of the file.

Will the pawn approach the end of the file, (what file?, a and b files) will
those files are being approached normally?, it is approached on captures and en
passant, if the action is taken away from the center. Well maybe it is the rank
of the promotion squares (rank 1 and rank 8) that you have meant.

The effect of this idea might be, if the opponent pawn is still in the 5th rank
and we have the chance to capture it, we will delay the capture till it reaches
farther ranks. We will capture it only when it is promoted because we will get
more points. Is it not Dangerous?

Normal evaluation still holds, give more bonus to pawns that reach those
critical ranks (6th/3rd, 7th/2nd, 8th/1st).

>My thoughts at the time were if a pawn was withing one square of being promoted
>to a queen then it was worth giving up a knight, bishop or even a Rook to insure
>that it got promoted. Have not implemented that logic into my newest programs as
>of yet.

Thoughts are dangerous in chess programming, those thoughts should be put to
test to get corrected and improved. To humans, what you are saying here now is
just fine, but if you implement it on your program, and put to test, you will
see so many things, it is not that easy as what we normally think.

Regards,
Dinan

>Bill



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