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Subject: Re: Try very easy mate.

Author: John Merlino

Date: 15:05:31 11/04/03

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On November 04, 2003 at 14:39:50, Dieter Buerssner wrote:

>On November 04, 2003 at 11:06:27, leonid wrote:
>
>>Try the next position that have good branching factor and, probably, will be
>>easy to solve by selective, or by brute force search.
>
>Hmmm. I used my chess engine (Yace), which in your terminoligy, you would
>probably call selective. It still should be reliable (never announce a mate in
>x, when there is no mate in x but perhaps only a mate in x+1/2/... Of course it
>might announce mate in x, when mate in x-1/2/... is possible). I did neither get
>a good branching factor, nor an easy solution ....
>
>> 1qkrr3/Rn2q3/PRPBqQ2/nqpbqB2/NQ2Nb2/1Q2Qq2/1Q2Qq2/1K2Qq2 w - -
>
>... actually got no solution at all in 30 minutes on my P4 2.53 GHz with 100 MB
>hash and using about 50% of the CPU (another analysis, that I did not want to
>stop is running at the same time with more hash).
>
>Perhaps, it might be easy by selective search, when extending more aggressively
>(many checks in a row are possible). BTW. It took 17 seconds to finish the depth
>1 search. I guess many engines will evene need longer (but did not try any).
>Branching factor from depth 1 to 2 was indeed good (17 s, then 21 s). ply 3:
>1:02, 4: 14:20. Hardly one could consider it good ...
>
>I don't complain at all, but personally (and probably I am not the only one
>here), I find more "natural" chess positions for mate problems more interesting.
>Of course, it was my choice, to test your position anyway (I was curios).
>Especially, I would find those problems most interesting, where a mate comes
>rather surprisingly after a rather balanced score. Seeing several iterations in
>a row with rather high score from almost the beginning seems less interesting
>for normal playing engines. Sure, when we have 12 Qs on the board already, a
>rather high score may not mean much.
>
>You are probably aware, that the position cannot be reached in a chess games.
>
>My favorite mate problem (already discussed here several times) is:
>
>6r1/2rp1kpp/2qQp3/p3Pp1P/1pP2P2/1P2KP2/P5R1/6R1 w - -
>
>Regards,
>Dieter

Chessmaster 9000 had a very difficult time with this one, and with a 10-minute
search using both selective and brute force (on a P4-2.4) was unable to announce
a mate. I was able to show that there is no mate in 9, but that's it.

Also, MY favorite mate problem is this position (also mentioned many times
before):

[D]4r1k1/qp1r1p2/2pb1Bp1/p6p/2PP1n1R/1P3P2/P4P2/2Q2K1R w

Qxf4! is a Mate in 10, while the supposed solution of Rxh5 is "only" a Mate in
11.

jm



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