Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 13:37:52 04/08/99
Go up one level in this thread
On April 08, 1999 at 13:44:11, Roberto Waldteufel wrote:
>By a threat for the other side, I mean that, if it were in fact the other side's
>turn to play, he would have a capture. Therefore threats by side to move would
>mean that the side to move has one or more legal captures available, which is
>precisely the condition I started out with to trigger an extension. The
>enhancement was to extend if *either side* has pending captures.
OK, I thought at first it was asymetric.
>The whole
>qseearch is easier than in chess precisely because of the obligation to capture
>whenever possible - it is not really a qsearch in the sense we use that term for
>chess
It is the same than in chess from my point of view. QSearch is: "don't stop
while something is happening". The difference is how you judge that something is
happening... Even in chess you can think of different ways to implement a
QSearch, isn't it?
>- rather it is an extension of the full width search. The only cases that
>escape this technique are so called "pitch" moves, where neither side has a
>capture, but the side to move deliberately offers a sacrifice of a piece (which
>must be accepted because of the obligation to capture whenever possible) in such
>a position that the material scrificed can either be regained with interest or
>an overwhelming positional superiority can be established by means of the
>sacrifice.
>
>If you ever turn your hand to another game, I can highly recommend checkers. It
>has far more depth and subtlety than I ever thought possible with such a limited
>set of moves compared to chess. The late Dr Marion Tinsley, thought by many to
>be the best (human) player of all time, was also quite a strong chess player in
>his youth. He compared the two games nicely thus: "Chess is like looking out
>over a limitless ocean, whereas checkers is like looking down a bottomless
>well".
I understand...
Christophe
>I understand from that quote that in checkers, because of the lower
>branching factor, you can look further ahead, but still sooner or later you must
>reach a horizon where a (possibly erroneous) positional evaluation must be made,
>just as happens in chess and other games. In my experience it is often more
>difficult to describe accurately what constitutes a positional advantage in
>checkers than it is in chess, although that might be because I am not very
>experienced at checkers, whereas I have played, studied and programmed
>competitive chess for many years.
>
>Best wishes,
>Roberto
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