Author: Richard Pijl
Date: 15:24:33 05/31/05
I've been using the arasan testsuites quite a lot as they contain a nice mix of different type of positions. Today I was looking at a position that was always solved by the Baron in 30 seconds, but not anymore by the latest test version. I'm talking about the position with id Arasan.81: [D]1B4k1/5p2/K5p1/7p/P4P2/5P2/8/6n1 b - - Bestmove is said to be f5, to block the bishop from stopping the black pawn on h5 from queening. This seems to be confirmed by many engines with about a draw score. But now, after an initial drawish score, the Baron shows a show of minus 1 pawn in a second, quickly decreasing to - 3 pawns for f5, later switching to Nxf3 with a similar score. Somehow f5 doesn't seem to be that good. Just to be sure I also checked with Ruffian, and also Ruffian shows a declining score for 1..f5, although it needs a little more time to see that. One line seems to be 1..f5 2.Ba7 Nxf3 (or 2..Ne2 3.Bf2) 3.Bf2 h4 4.Bxh4 and the a-pawn queens as the king and knight are too far away, e.g 4..Nxh4 5.a5 (5..Nf3 6.Kb6!) Ng2 6.Kb5 Nxf4 7.a6 Nd5 8.a7 Nc7 9.Kc6 Na8 10.Kb7 Is there anyone that has a drawing(winning?) line for black after 1..f5? bye, Richard.
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