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Subject: Re: question about bonus for reducing distance between the kings in craf

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 13:28:17 05/30/03

Go up one level in this thread


On May 30, 2003 at 11:02:05, Tim Foden wrote:

>On May 30, 2003 at 10:46:41, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On May 29, 2003 at 07:33:59, Omid David Tabibi wrote:
>>
>>>On May 29, 2003 at 00:17:14, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On May 28, 2003 at 14:59:57, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I am too lazy to look at the source code of crafty to try to find what
>>>>>formula is used by crafty for reducing the distance between the kings in
>>>>>endgames like KQ vs KR to help it to win without tablebases.
>>>>>
>>>>>what is the formula that is used.
>>>>>I decided to try something in movei and first tests suggest that it is slightly
>>>>>productive but I want also to know what crafty does.
>>>>>
>>>>>Uri
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Distance is easy:
>>>>max(abs(rankwhiteking-rankblackking),abs(filewhiteking-fileblacking)
>>>>
>>>>#define FileDistance(a,b) abs(File(a) - File(b))
>>>>#define RankDistance(a,b) abs(Rank(a) - Rank(b))
>>>>#define Distance(a,b) Max(FileDistance(a,b),RankDistance(a,b))
>>>>
>>>>I use the three #defines above...
>>>
>>>In Image Processing, assuming that a and b are two pixels,
>>>Max(FileDistance(a,b),RankDistance(a,b)) is called "chess distance" :)
>>
>>
>>In graph theory it is often called "taxicab distance" since taxis have to
>>follow streets rather than "as the crow flies".  :)
>
>I thought taxi distance would be (FileDistance(a,b) + RankDistance(a,b)),
>not Max(FileDistance(a,b), RankDistance(a,b)).
>
>Cheers, Tim.


You might be right, now that I think about it.  The "Distance" macro I
use is obviously correct, since for any pair of squares a,b, the number
of moves to reach from a to b is the max of the rank/file distances as
given.




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