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Subject: Re: chess programmes and the wall

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 15:03:49 04/15/99

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On April 15, 1999 at 15:12:19, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>
>On April 15, 1999 at 11:29:00, Stuart Cracraft wrote:
>
>>On April 14, 1999 at 13:09:44, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>
>>>People often talk about the ending as a place to add sophisticated knowledge,
>>>but I've never heard an example.
>>>
>>>bruce
>>
>>M Chess
>
>Right, and what is the knowledge?
>
>bruce

Maybe people are thinking of stuff like "Dvoretsky's rule of five."  (Endgame:
having this distance between rook and the opposing king is important because
then the king cannot force the rook away from pressuring something (e.g. a
passed pawn) in the position.)  Search would figure this out on its own if it
goes deep enough, but the eval term will make software see whether the rook can
hold its position earlier, which is always useful.

There are any number of these "rules of thumb", that when applied at leaf nodes
might improve a program.  As you know, this is a long way from making a program
"knowledge-based", which is a total buzzword when it comes to most of the
software out there.  Something like PARADISE is what I would consider
knowledge-based, because in it, search is not actually in the driver's seat,
something that probably can't be said for MChess, or Hiarcs, or Rebel, or CSTal
either, for that matter.  [Disclaimer: only the authors _really_ know..]

Dave



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