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Subject: Re: Mate in 30

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 17:37:30 06/13/03

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On June 13, 2003 at 04:25:52, Uri Blass wrote:

>On June 12, 2003 at 19:30:17, Lyn Harper wrote:
>
>>   [D]7k/1p6/1P2p3/1P2P3/4P1p1/6P1/8/K7  w
>>
>>  The only program I've had that will announce a mate in this position is
>>  Ruffian, on an Athlon 2400. In these type of positions big hash tables come
>>  into play, since only kings can move. Also note the black king can't get into
>>  white half of the board, although the white king can get through.
>>    I jacked up the hash to 200mb.
>>It's an exercise in related squares, from "How to Play the Chess Endings",
>>  by Eugene Znosko-Borovsky.
>>    Ruffian announced mate in 30,then went off the mate claim, only to come back
>>and stick to it at depth 60. That's quite a full width depth for a program. The
>>selective depth was 63.
>>   As I remember, it took 8mins to announce the mate.
>>Future versions of Ruffian might not be free.
>
>
>I think that most programmers do not care about it because finding the mate has
>no practical value.
>
>I think that I have ideas that are productive for games but counter productive
>for finding these mates.

What if this is a game and your engine is playing the side that can win?
I think it becomes more important.

Chest can solve this quickly.  Why not add a mate solving mode to chess engines
when the board is sparse or when the best attack is unclear.




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