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Subject: Re: The Pawn Game revisited...

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 04:26:07 09/21/03

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On September 21, 2003 at 01:00:37, Paul Byrne wrote:

>I read the thread on the pawn game last night...
>http://www.talkchess.com/forums/1/message.html?316441
>
>...and added it as a variant to Guildenstern (which is pretty basic
>as chess engines go, but is set up to handle rules variations like
>this -- first version took about 10 minutes).  The first version
>called it a win when a pawn hit the 7th rank; changing this to
>getting a passed pawn more advanced than the opponent's most advanced
>pawn (passed or not) caused a speedup of about 100x in solving the
>couple of test positions I was using.
>
>Anyways, to give you an idea how solvable this game is or isn't,
>I left it running on this position last night:
>
>[D]8/1pppppp1/8/p6p/P6P/8/1PPPPPP1/8 w - - 0 3
>
>with this result:
>
>mv=g4 e=12 d=1 n=14 t=0.000
>mv=f4 e=0 d=2 n=104 t=0.000
>mv=f4 e=12 d=3 n=371 t=0.002
>mv=f4 e=0 d=4 n=870 t=0.002
>mv=f4 e=12 d=5 n=2859 t=0.006
>mv=f4 e=-7 d=6 n=7296 t=0.013
>mv=f4 e=12 d=7 n=17061 t=0.028
>mv=f3 e=-4 d=8 n=56297 t=0.128
>mv=f4 e=19 d=9 n=152838 t=0.351
>mv=f4 e=-7 d=10 n=253530 t=0.586
>mv=e4 e=19 d=11 n=718726 t=1.473
>mv=e4 e=-2 d=12 n=1169031 t=2.114
>mv=e4 e=19 d=13 n=1875217 t=3.137
>mv=e4 e=-2 d=14 n=3304028 t=5.235
>mv=e4 e=16 d=15 n=6028707 t=9.264
>mv=e4 e=0 d=16 n=14889769 t=22.461
>mv=e4 e=28 d=17 n=116308613 t=168.791
>mv=e4 e=0 d=18 n=277650527 t=400.234
>mv=e4 e=27 d=19 n=493734227 t=706.427
>mv=e4 e=0 d=20 n=830582334 t=1181.929
>mv=e4 e=14 d=21 n=1572079524 t=2209.587
>mv=e4 e=0 d=22 n=-989389009 t=4577.107
>mv=e4 e=32 d=23 n=1675198974 t=8170.032
>mv=e4 e=273 d=24 n=1318190910 t=13610.508
>mv=e4 e=9969 d=25 n=-1677339015 t=26967.618
>
>So about 7.5 hours to solve this.
>
>I'm sure a program set up especially to solve this would be noticably
>faster (no need for code for castling, promotion, non-pawn moves, etc, etc)
>and running on a faster machine than my 1.2 GHz athlon would gain a ply or
>two.
>
>Adding a better eval function would likely aid move ordering some, accounting
>for the symmetry of the initial position would help, etc.  There are plenty
>of ways to improve on my basic program.
>
>I have to suspect the game is solvable -- perhaps not quickly, but not in a
>totally unreasonable about of time.
>
>-paul

I believe that extensions also make help you.

single reply extension when there is only one move that is not losing has
chances to save you some plies.

I think that calculating this condition is not hard and you only need to see
that every move except one allow the opponent a capture that leads to
unstoppable passed pawn that is more advanced than the opponent pawns.

Uri



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