Author: Dan Honeycutt
Date: 20:13:18 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? > >Thanks, >Eric Oldre Hi Eric. From one new engine author to another - if you have worked a "few weeks" and are about ready to test your engine in a tournament your progress is great. I worked a "few weeks" before my engine could place the pieces on their starting squares. (my progress may have been a little better as i elected to set the board up from a FEN string. So once i could put them on the starting squares i could also easily set them up in any other position). My evaluation is skimpy but i put some effort into basic pawn structure. you can hash the work, the hit rate on the pawn hash is high so it's not so important that your code be super efficient. Tactics rule in the middle game but pawns rule in the end. if you put some work into your pawn evaluation i think it will help with the problems you describe. Good Luck Dan H.
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