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Subject: Re: Making a Program More Aggressive

Author: Dan Honeycutt

Date: 09:08:43 08/15/04

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On August 15, 2004 at 11:31:11, Stuart Cracraft wrote:

>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


I use Ed Schröder's approach:

http://members.home.nl/matador/chess840.htm

It seems to do a good job but it's costly - probably because my implementation
is not too good.

Dan H.



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