Author: Pete R.
Date: 18:29:14 08/03/99
Currently in the Kasparov vs. The World correspondence game there are a number of endgames that involve races between passed pawns on either side of the board. While the programs have been quite useful so far, they aren't too swift in the transition to the endgame when passed pawns are the issue. Where a human player would push his passed pawn at every opportunity, the programs tend to diddle around moving pieces, until the pawn is almost promoted, when they suddenly realize that one side is winning. For example in the following position, 8/1p1kp2Q/2np4/1p2bpB1/8/3q3P/5PP1/5RK1 w - - I ran Fritz 5.32, Hiarcs 7.32, and Crafty 16.12 for many hours, enough to get to 18 ply for Fritz and Crafty. All of them recommend the move g4 for white (Crafty switches to g4 at 15+ ply), which gets buried by b4!. For example, 27. g4 b4 28. Qxf5 Qxf5 29. gxf5 b3 30. Rb1 b2 31. Kf1 Na5 and by now they will realize that white is losing. There are a number of possible endgames coming up involving a race between white's passed h pawn and black's passed b pawn, and the programs have a real hard time with it. What's going on here?
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