Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 00:45:11 11/06/98
Go up one level in this thread
On November 05, 1998 at 18:31:21, Roberto Waldteufel wrote: >Be careful with this. In the vast majority of cases this is true: a lone minor >piece cannot deliver mate to a bare king on an open board even with the >opponent's cooperation, but give the opponent even as much as a single pawn and >a mate becomes possible because the pawn can block the king's last escape >square, eg BK h8, BP h7, WK g6 and now either a White knight on f7 or a White >bishop on any of a1,b2.....g7 would be mate. If you prematurely categorise the >position as "at least a draw for the pawn" you could miss such a mate in the >search. I think that regardless of what anyone is doing here, you can't cut off when you reach a position like this, as if you'd achieved an exact value. You have to keep searching, because of rare positions like this, but also because of vastly more common cases where there's still a question of whether the position is drawn or won for the side with the pawn. Maybe it would gain a little bit to cut off and assume a draw in some of these cases, but the cases where it would be safest are the cases covered by 4-man tables, which everyone who is serious will have soon. bruce
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.