Author: James T. Walker
Date: 07:14:48 11/21/05
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On November 21, 2005 at 07:52:35, Tord Romstad wrote: >On November 21, 2005 at 04:28:47, Martin Baumung wrote: > >>Hello Uri, >> >>>How much time does your program need to find Kxb3 that is the only practical >>>chance to save the game >> >>please enlighten us on how the game can be saved after Kxb3 - especially when >>using the EGTBs. > >Uri did not claim that Kxb3 was a draw, only that it was the best *practical >chance* to win the game. Big difference. After Kxb3, white has to find a >very hard move in order to win. Many opponents will not be able to find >the right move (I almost certainly wouldn't). After all other moves than >Kxb3, the win is trivial. Even I would be able to win. > >Another, less easily noticable problem of EGTBs is the general slowdown >of the program. It is very hard to guess how many wins a program misses >because it wastes too much time probing tablebases when a slightly deeper >search would have found an easy win. > >It is just not possible to prove the usefulness of EGTBs in practical >play with a handful of positions. The only way to measure the usefulness >is to play a big number of games with and without EGTBs and compare the >results. So far, the overwhelming evidence points toward the conclusion >that EGTB use is utterly insignificant in practical play (consider, for >instance, the difference of 2 Elo points between Fruit 2.2 and Fruit 2.2.1 >on the CEGT list). > >I am not a non-believer in EGTBs, by the way (in fact, I doubt that such >"non-believers" really exist). The existence of 5-piece and 6-piece >EGTBs is a tremendous contribution to the body of chess knowledge, >and arguably one of the most exciting advances in chess theory over the >last few decades. I am just very disappointed by the immense lack of >imagination current chess programmers (myself included) display when >trying to use this new body of knowledge. > >Tord Hello Tord, It seems to me that the opposite of what Uri is trying to prove is true here. Any program with 6 man tablebases will play Kxb3 instantly with no real search needed. This saves time and plays the desired move to prolong mate to the ultimate. This I think would be desireable especially vs humans or computers without the use of tablebases. So how does this prove tabelbases are counter-productive? Jim
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