Author: Stefan Meyer-Kahlen
Date: 12:37:29 10/11/98
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On October 11, 1998 at 13:55:36, Bruce Moreland wrote: > >On October 11, 1998 at 10:41:49, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>I've answered this a dozen times. I score this as draw, *period*. When I lose >>a game because of this, or draw a won game because of this, I might make the >>change. As it is, it is accurate to call KB vs KB a draw in 99.99999999999999 >>percent of the games... that's accurate enough. To pick up that last >>quadrillionth of one percent would wreck the rest as I certainly don't want to >>trade into (say) a KNN vs KN when I was in a KNNPP vs KNPP. That's the purpose >>for this evaluation... to avoid trading into draws when you have winning chances >>in the game... > >You could safely return 0.00 in the tip nodes. Returning 0.00 in an interior >node is not strictly correct. > >Admittedly, you'd search a lot of dumb nodes in low material minor piece >situations, unless you had the KB vs KN table (or whatever), in which case you >could probe this and safely return the exact value. > >None of this is a big deal, until you get a user who wants to explore the >frontier cases just to see what will happen, then you get a post like, "Crafty >can't find this mate, hahaha". > >bruce There might be another point: In Jakarta we (Bruce and I) were watching a game between two programs in which an endgame K+minor vs. K+minor and no pawns on either side occured. One program refused to move and claimed a draw, sorry, but I can't remember any more details. There was some discussion what to do, but finally the game was declared a draw, because both programmers were happy with that. After that we were discussing if that's according to the chess rules, which means if the game should have been won by the other side or not. Please note that the game is of course a draw morally, but just let's stick to the rules. We asked some guys what they would have done and almost everybody said, yeah, that's a draw. But one programmer, a long member of the computer chess society said (I know his name, but I won't tell you): "According to the rules the game is lost for the side who refused to move and I would definitly claim a win in this situation!" So, what would you do? What is according to the rules? What is right? Imagine: A plays B in the last round of the WCCC. The winner is champion, a draw means B wins it. Now B refuses to play in the above described situation. If you are A, would you claim the win? If you do not but you could have done so because the rules are on your side, are you a hero or an idiot? Please think carefully and really try to imagine that it's you who is in this situation! Maybe this is a good question for the next opinion poll :-) Stefan
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