Author: Ricardo Gibert
Date: 14:32:51 08/04/99
Go up one level in this thread
On August 04, 1999 at 16:30:38, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On August 04, 1999 at 14:40:31, KarinsDad wrote: > >>On August 04, 1999 at 14:09:18, Bruce Moreland wrote: >> >>> >>>On August 04, 1999 at 12:16:52, Dann Corbit wrote: >>> >>>>As a 'for instance': >>>> >>>>Suppose that on promotion, a program sees that it can promote to a knight >>>>instead of a queen, and get a king fork, taking a bishop, followed by a queen >>>>fork, taking the other bishop. In such a case, it might evaluate: >>>> -pawn+knight+bishop+bishop+two_bishop_bonus+(minor positional goo) >>>>verses >>>> -pawn+queen >>>>and get something a fraction more valuable than a queen. But down the road I >>>>would rather have the queen than a knight and remove the two bishops. >>>> >>>>How do programs deal with this? >>> >>>You are really saying you'd rather have a queen against two bishops than be a >>>knight up, right? >>> >>>bruce >> >>Actually, assuming an equal game, it is a preference of being up a queen for a >>pawn as opposed to being up a knight and two bishops for a pawn. >> >>Of course, decisions like these are always based off of the actual position, but >>here is a comment Kasparov made just the other day on Ponomariov - Al Modiakhi >>in round 1 of the championship: >> >>"Looking at Ponomariov's 7.Be3 with 8.Bb6 I have sensed chess of the very >>distant future. With my limited knowledge of the game I would consider 3 minor >>pieces in such position much better than Queen+pawn". >> >>So, there are obviously positions where having 3 minors is better than having >>the queen. >> >>KarinsDad :) > > >I think that in almost _all_ cases, three minors pieces are better than a >single queen.. and most games I have seen where this happens are wins for the >three minors. I don't like two minors and 3 pawns vs a queen however, unless >maybe if the pawns are all on the 6th rank or farther along. :) I felt pretty sure about this too, but I analyzed with Jack Peters a particular position and came away with idea that it was a lot closer than I thought and that subjective factors have a big impact. I still prefer the 3 pieces, but now I am more careful. The 3 pieces don't organize themselves very quickly, but the Q is relatively much faster in this respect. It depends very much on the position. Related to this topic is R+P+P vs B+N. You have indicated that you set this as equal. At first I thought this was a mistake, but then I thought about it and this may be right for chess playing programs, since they are not sufficiently effective in getting the rook into play. As a human, I use R+P < B+N < R+P+P. I believe this is the "normal" evaluation. R+P+P = B+N is a practical choice for computers. Of course subjective factors must be considered.
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