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Subject: Re: transition to endgame

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 16:00:47 04/02/04

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On April 02, 2004 at 18:47:34, Eric Oldre wrote:

>Hi everyone,
>I've been working on my new chess engine for a few weeks now and am pretty happy
>with the progress i've made so far. I'm even going to try entering it into
>Olivier Deville's ChessWar tournament next week. I've set the lofty goal for
>myself of not taking last place. I give myself a 50/50 shot of reaching it.
>
>I've been playing it against some engines here at home and noticed a trend in
>it's play. It seems to do OK in the middle game, but about the time it get down
>to having some pawns and 2 minors/rooks it's game starts to fall apart.
>
>At this point t is usually about even or sometimes up in material (not against
>any "elite" engines of course, and i don't see any major weaknesses in it's
>position, but the opponent either chips away at it's pawns, or gets a promotion.
>or just mates it. The point is that i don't see any one specific thing that it
>isn't catching.
>
>One thing is that i don't have any special endgame evaluation changes. I plan on
>making it so that it starts to value the king in the center instead of behind
>it's pawns. but i don't think that alone will make the difference.
>
>So my question is: what suggestions do you have for ways could i improve it's
>play during the endgame, or would i call it the "middle-endgame" at that point?

If the board is sparse, centralize your king.  He'll help a lot.  He attacks 8
squares, just like a knight, after all.

Give a bonus for the forward pawn squares.
Give a bonus for passed pawns.
Give a bigger bonus for unstoppable passed pawns.




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