Author: José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba
Date: 15:07:46 03/18/99
Go up one level in this thread
On March 18, 1999 at 16:54:12, Dann Corbit wrote: >On March 17, 1999 at 06:55:58, Steffen Jakob wrote: > >>I also dont understand ECE #9. It doesn't matter what black plays. He is lost... >>ECE doesn't seem to be very usefull for automatic endgame testing. Any comments? > >You are right. That is a typical test suite bust. Here is the C.A.P. data: > >8/2P5/1K6/3r4/8/8/8/k7 b - -; acd 61; acn 17901; ce -32717; pv Rd6+ Kb5 Rd5+; bm >Kb2; pm Rd6+; id ECE.0009; This is the famous Saavedra position. Black is lost, and I do not think anybody intended this position to be a test, I think this is a very interesting and revealing position and for that reason it is famous. There is a way to make it a test position, place white's pawn in c6 instead of c7 and make it white's turn. It should be then: 8/8/1KP5/3r4/8/8/8/k7 w - -; bm c7 (sorry if it is wrong, I typed the epd string). It is interesting not only that a program finds 1. c7, but also the score and the PV. By the way, the Saavedra solution would be 1. c7 Rd6+ 2. Kb5 Rd5+ 3. Kb4 Rd4+ 4. Kb3 Rd3+ 5. Kc2 Rd4 6. c8=R Ra4 7. Kb3 It seems that 1... Rd6+ is not the move that delays mate the most, but for practical purposes it is better than Kb2. Well, who knows, the ending KQ vs KR can be difficult to win against a computer with tablebases, but at Saavedra's time there were no tablebases.
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.