Author: Jeff Anderson
Date: 21:53:22 03/04/99
A new article in Chess Life by Larry Kaufman called "The Evaluation of Material Imbalances" is very interesting, and should be read by every computer chess enthusiast. Using a large database of master games, Kaufman undertook to fine the real value of the different chess pieces, and various combinations of chess pieces. It would be interesting to incorporate what he says into the evaluation of a chess program. One could easily do it with ExChess or Gromit, where the evaluation is very easily editable. One of them most interesting things that Kaufman proposes, is that the 2 bishops is worth half a pawn! I would be very interested to see what would happen if Mr. Hyatt made the bishop worth half a pawn in Crafty's evaluation. Kaufman gives this as the basic table of values for pieces: pawn = 1 2 bishop bonus = .5 pawns B = 3.25 pawns N = 3.25 pawns R = 5 pawns Q = 9.75 pawns The article talks about other subjects such as the value of the exchange, 3 or 4 pawns for a piece, two rooks vs a queen, and pieces vs. the queen. He even suggests that a rook pawn is only worth .85 of other kinds of pawns. Further research into such subjects with large databases would be very interesting too. I remember when KK said that one should avoid trading queens because white's winning probability goes down 1% after doing so, and as I recall it stirred up quite a controversy. I would very much like to hear other's comments or thought's on the article. Jeff
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