Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 09:27:56 07/28/99
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On July 28, 1999 at 11:18:19, Peter Hegger wrote: >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. I am skeptical. bruce
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