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Subject: Re: Unnecessary Underpromotions

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 13:20:33 05/22/03

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On May 22, 2003 at 15:56:05, Robin Smith wrote:

>On May 22, 2003 at 08:41:56, Ulrich Tuerke wrote:
>
>>On May 22, 2003 at 06:08:47, José Carlos wrote:
>>
>>>On May 22, 2003 at 01:01:38, Robin Smith wrote:
>>>
>>>>Often programs will underpromote a pawn in situations where they think capturing
>>>>the (under)promoted piece is still the best reply. Can anyone give an example
>>>>from an actual game where this underspromotion cost the computer a 1/2 point?
>>>>
>>>>Robin
>>>
>>>  I can't recall any game with this problem, but it's really easy to fix. I
>>>simply order the promotions so that promoting to queen gets searched first.
>>
>>Isn't everybody doing this anyway ?
>>Uli
>
>A quick look at some SSDF games will convince you that everybody ISN'T doing
>this. Or at least if they are, it doesn't solve the problem. Many SSDF games,
>including games of some top commercial programs, contain unnecessary
>underpromotions.
>
>The reason I asked is I got a draw against Tiger on an iPaq because it
>underpromoted to a bishop of the same color as the bishop Tiger already had!
>Instead of capturing this mostly redundant bishop, a different move allowed me
>to draw the game. If Tiger had promoted to a queen the capture would have been
>forced and I would have lost.
>
>Robin

I can add that I am surprised by the fact that commercial programs do not do it
correctly.

At the level of movei when I expect a big improvement by other factors it may
make sense not to invest time on this but I thought that the commercial
programmers will care about this problem.

Uri



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