Author: Peter Hegger
Date: 08:18:19 07/28/99
The following is an excerpt from "How computers play chess" by Levy and Newborn. "In 1959 a Canadian program was demonstrated at the University of Toronto. It was written by Frank Anderson, an International master and Bob Cody, and it ran on an IBM 605 computer. The program dealt only with simple pawn endings (the most complex was king and two pawns versus king and pawn).The programmers devised a unique strategy that reportedly enabled their program to play these endings perfectly. Their first version could cope with more than 180,000 positions, a figure that was increased in later versions of the program. When the program was demonstrated at the Canadian Conference of Scientists it played against more than 50 different opponents, each of whom was allowed to choose his own starting position, given the small number of pawns. In each case the program apparently played perfectly. Unfortunately, the strategy that enabled the endings to programmed successfully was never documented, and Anderson even confessed to me in the early 1970's that he couldn't explain why they worked!" Has anyone else ever looked into how this program worked? If a program could handle KPPKP perfectly on a 1959 vintage computer then imagine how it would perform on todays machines. Maybe 5 or 6 piece (or more) EGTB's would be not be necessary if the program had the ability to figure all these positions out perfectly. Regards Peter
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