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Subject: Re: Null Move and The Washington Post

Author: Omid David Tabibi

Date: 05:36:48 09/22/04

Go up one level in this thread


On September 22, 2004 at 07:53:37, Andrew Platt wrote:

>Actually, more accurately a problem with null move and a position that appeared
>in this week's Washington Post Chess column:
>
>[D] 3K4/8/2ppp3/2pkp3/2ppp3/8/4P3/3Q4 w - - 0 1


Falcon 2.5.2.11 on AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+, 1999MHz, 1024MB:
depth     time    nodes   nps  score  variation
 7/19     0.02       8k  531k   3.63  1.d8e7 d4d3 2.e2e3 c4c3 3.d1g4 c5c4
                                      4.g4e6 d5c5 5.e6d6 c5b6 6.d6e5
 8/19     0.03      10k  337k   3.93  1.d8e7++
 8/19     0.03      11k  346k   4.53  1.d8e7++
 8/21     0.03      13k  421k   5.37  1.d8e7 c4c3 2.d1b3 c5c4 3.b3b8 d5c5
                                      4.b8d6 c5b5 5.d6e5 c6c5 6.e7e6
 9/18     0.03      14k  465k   5.67  1.d8e7++
 9/21     0.03      18k  591k   6.27  1.d8e7++
 9/21     0.05      19k  408k   8.07  1.d8e7++
 9/22     0.05      21k  449k   9.62  1.d8e7 c4c3 2.d1b3 c5c4 3.b3a3 e4e3
                                      4.a3d6 d5e4 5.e7e6 e4f4 6.d6e5 f4g4
                                      7.e5d4 g4h5 8.d4e3
 9/22     0.05      23k  492k     #4  1.d1a1++
 9/22     0.05      24k  513k     #4  1.d1a1 c4c3 2.a1a2 c5c4 3.a2a5 c6c5
                                      4.a5a8


>
>The main thing to do is to wait for black to commit suicide, something that null
>moves are very bad at doing! The solution is to make an active waiting move that
>will position the Queen directly later:
>
>1. Qa1 d3 2. Qc3 e3 3. exd3 cxd3 4.Qxd3#
>
>However, Schola does not want to get this mate. I can run it as long as I like
>and it still goes for the longer mate:
>
>1. Kd7 d3 2. e3 c3 3. Qb3+ c4 4. Qb4 c2 5. Qxd6#
>
>If I disable null move it finds this very quickly. I suspect that there's a bug
>in the search somewhere though I can't find it and the traces look sane. The
>main problem is that the null move for Qa1 always cuts off so it retains Kd7
>which is the first move it considers.
>
>Has anyone else had problems with positions like these and null moves? BTW, I
>have verified null move implemented but that doesn't help either. That does make
>a small difference if I jump the position to 1. Qa1: It then finds the fastest
>mate which the regular null move still doesn't do. I've also disabled some other
>things like the hash table which sometimes get in the way for me but that didn't
>change anything.
>
>Andy.



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