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Subject: Re: What does your program play in this position?

Author: Will Singleton

Date: 15:47:09 02/05/99

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On February 05, 1999 at 17:33:30, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On February 05, 1999 at 14:56:34, John Merlino wrote:
>
>>On February 05, 1999 at 11:57:56, Djordje Vidanovic wrote:
>>
>>>A couple of days ago I reported on the successful performance of two French
>>>programs, Chess Wizard and Zchess, in the Aubervilliers rapid chess tournament.
>>>As this particular position may have been overlooked, and as I believe that it
>>>is worth analysing with different chess software, I'll try to bring it up again.
>>>
>>>White: GM Sekatchev, Black: Zchess 1.2:
>>>
>>>1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. d3 Bg7 6. h3 Qb6 7. Nc3 Qb4 8. O-O
>>>Bxc3 9. a3 Qa5 10. bxc3 Qxc3 11. Rb1 Qa5 12. Bb2 f6 13. e5 f5 14. e6 Nf6 15. Qc1
>>>b6 16. Re1 O-O 17. Qh6 c4 18. dxc4 Bxe6 19. Rxe6 Rf7 20. Ng5 * 1-0
>>>
>>>
>>>on move 8, Black (Zchess 1.2) played 8...Bxc3.  Of the tested programs, the only
>>>one not yielding to the temptation was Zarkov 5 playing 8...Nf6, not bothering
>>>to capture the Knight, which is, of course, a good move.  Other programs, among
>>>them Crafty 16.0, according to Zchess's author Franck Zibi, tend to play the
>>>same bad move, 8...Bxc3.  More info, with comments by Franck 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6
>>>3. Bb5 g6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. d3 Bg7 6. h3 Qb6 7. Nc3 Qb4 8. O-OBxc3 9. a3 Qa5 10.
>>>bxc3 Qxc3 11. Rb1 Qa5 12. Bb2 f6 13. e5 f5 14. e6 Nf6 15. Qc1b6 16. Re1 O-O 17.
>>>Qh6 c4 18. dxc4 Bxe6 19. Rxe6 Rf7 20. Ng5 *Zibi, can be found at
>>>http://www.forum64.com/. Some tested programs are (AMD K6-2/300):
>>>
>>>ZChess 1.2 Bxc3 ?? 11 +0.80
>>>WChess 2000 Bxc3 ?? 11 +0.88
>>>Crafty 16.0 Bxc3 ?? 12 +0.13
>>>Chess Genius 6  Bxc3 ?? 8  -0.06
>>>Fritz 5.0 Bxc3 ?? 11 -0.25
>>>Zarkov 5 Nf6 ! :-)  6 -0.19
>>>
>>>What does your program play in this position?  Bob, you said that you could not
>>>reproduce 8...Bxc3.  Could you retry it on your Quad? Others?
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>Djordje
>>
>>Chessmaster 6000 never gives Bxc3 any serious thought, and almost immediately
>>prefers Be6. After thinking for about 3 minutes, it still prefers Be6:
>>
>>8... Be6 9.a3 Qa5 10.Bd2 Nf6.... with a .54 advantage for white.
>>
>>jm
>
>
>Be6 looks ugly from a chess point of view.  Either Bd7 or Nf6 or moving the
>epawn seem more logical to me...


I agree Be6 looks odd, but both Chessmaster and my program like it. :)

Results for Amateur v0.9i, running on a g3/266:
(times and nodes are cumulative)

ply   score     time     nodes      n/s    pv

  2     -37     0.01      1509    90540
  3     -50     0.07      4354    37320  Bxc3 a3 Qa5 Pxc3 Qxc3
  4     -83     0.23     16429    42840  Bxc3 Pxc3 Qxc3 Bd2 Qb2
  5     -57     1.04     71033    66540  Bxc3 a3 Qa5
  6     -78     2.47    172122    61800  Be6 a3 Qa5 Ne2 Nf6 Bf4
  7     -71    10.13    661798    64740  Nh6 a3 Qa5 Bd2 Kg8 Bxh6 Bxh6 Qe2
  8     -73    38.01   2458844    64620  Nf6 a3 Qb6 Na4 Qa5 c3 Be6 Bf4
  9     -57   177.58  12590469    70740  Be6 Ne2 Nf6 Nf4 Bd7 c3 Qb5 a4 Qb6
 10     -78   431.32  27596159    63900  Be6 a3 Qb6 Ng5 Bd7 Na4 Qa5 c3 Nf6 Bf4

The output shows only the results at the end of a ply, not the changes
within a ply.  So you don't see the reason it changed from Bxc3 in ply 6,
which was a -90 or so (100 = 1 pawn).  But it took less than 3 seconds to
discard Bxc3.

The larger than normal node count is because it kept switching the best
move.  And the scores are from Black's perspective.

Hiarcs 6-Mac and MacChess 4.0 both liked Bxc3.  So this result of
mine is probably an anomaly.

Will






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