Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 12:44:44 01/19/05
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On January 19, 2005 at 11:49:13, Ricardo Gibert wrote: >This idea is half baked, but bear with me. > >What if we were to define the partial solving of chess as showing that White has >at least a draw. In other words, instead of trying to show it to be 1 of 3 >possibilities (i.e. win, draw, loss), try to reduce the possibilties to just 2 >of 3 possibilities (e.g. win, draw). > >Now how could we modify a perhaps material only search of the beginning position >to show this? > >What if were to score repetitions, stalemate & draw by insufficiency of material >the same way as a checkmate given by White. Then it is just barely possible that >a 25 ply or so search of the beginning position would return a "mate" score >indicating White has at least a draw in chess. Failing that, perhaps one of the >960 FRC start positions can be shown to be at least a draw for White. > >If the above modification is flawed, perhaps someone can think of different >modification that would do the trick. The point is that my lowering our sights, >we just might possibly come up with a partial solution to chess or FRC today. A >long shot for sure, but maybe worth a try. > >BTW, a draw by insufficiency of material can be loosened somewhat by requiring >only that Black have insufficient material to mate though I would be surprised >if this change would prove useful. That's an awful lot of captures to squeeze in >within the search horizon of todays programs. It will happen during a search but >it would probably not really be consequent. the problem is that the total search space is very large. If you take 2/3 of a very large space, you _still_ have a very large space. Your approach will make the "proof" easier, obviously, but far from "easy".
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