Author: Peter Hegger
Date: 13:10:47 07/28/99
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On July 28, 1999 at 12:27:56, Bruce Moreland wrote: > >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 Skeptical that it actually happened, or skeptical that such an algorithm could be duplicated? Peter
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