Author: Stuart Cracraft
Date: 08:31:11 08/15/04
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On August 15, 2004 at 10:42:46, Dan Honeycutt wrote: >On August 15, 2004 at 10:25:43, Stuart Cracraft wrote: > >>So what makes a program more aggressive? >> >>Better king safety? >> >>Points for control or occupation of square near the enemy king? >> >>I've tried obvious things and never been satisfied with the >>aggression-level. > >Asymmetrical king safety. Program needs to not mind moving a piece which >shelters it's own king to a position that menaces the enemy king. > >Dan H. My current king safety is very limited but doesn't involve any hardwiring of friendly pieces to my king. They are free to roam. At the same time, I've noticed no aggressive tendancy. It plays passively and reaction-only to what the opponent with few exceptions. On the other hand, it really fights for the center, develops quickly and castles on a timely basis. But once the middlegame hits, nothing much happens except wood-shuffling. I do have a tropism factor to get queens, rooks, and knights to minimize the distance to the enemy king. Perhaps something is wrong with them. I don't use attack tables in evaluation since my program has none. I'll have to revamp the whole program some day to add them incrementally but haven't found a good paradigm yet Even bitboard. I liked the thing that Atkin/Slate did with incremental updates in their makemove/unmakemove. So basically "middlegame" malaise is my program's problem. I need to tighten the tropism to just the few squares around the enemy king and heighten the bonus. There is already a substantial bonus for loosening pawns protecting the king but I need to get some heavy firepower over there, sans attack tables, using tropism to get something real happening. I wish there were some test suites that gauged early midle-game aggression. Not checkmate/mate type things but simply threats against the castled king. Stuart
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