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Subject: Re: Extirpate v0.9b.. has anyone heard of this engine?

Author: Andrea Griffini

Date: 04:53:30 06/19/03

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On June 19, 2003 at 00:18:30, Peter Skinner wrote:

>the programmer says it doesn't use tablebases, yet
>kibitzes mate in 40 scores... I find that odd.

It wouldn't be hard to actually code a quick mating
algorithm for special positions (i.e. R+K/K) even if
having it being optimal may be is a bit harder.
Claiming a mate in 40 doesn't mean there can't be
a mate in less... but just that the program knows
how to mate in 40, and for that a special algorithm
is enough.

Also actually computing a mate using reverse analysis
is not that hard for simple cases, but I don't think
this is as useful as a precomputed table because
during the search it's important to know *immediately*
that the position is say a mate in 20.
Also "building" on the fly the complete mating table for
simple cases in RAM should require just a few seconds...
I wonder if this can be classified as using tablebases
or not. I was thinking to add reverse analysis for
just K+pawns endings... even if enumerating the winning
positions is probably harder than for checkmates.

Andrea



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