Author: blass uri
Date: 04:59:50 08/11/99
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On August 11, 1999 at 05:30:47, David Blackman wrote: >On August 10, 1999 at 19:56:10, Marc Plum wrote: > >>A while back I ran some multiple engine tournaments within the Nimzo99 >>interface. One thing that I noticed was that some programs would make >>meaningless underpromotions. That is, in a position where a promoted pawn would >>be immediately exchanged anyway, the computer might promote to a bishop or rook >>rather than a queen. I had occasionally encountered the same thing in my own >>games with computers; I also found a small number of computer games like this >>when doing a database search for underpromotions. I don't have any statistics >>to present; I'm just noting that this happens not infrequently. >> >>When a human player does this, he is probably just being whimsical, or it could >>be a psychological ploy. I wonder, though, why a computer would do it. Is it >>just a random thing? Does the computer reason that losing a bishop is less bad >>than losing a queen, even though the resulting position is the same? Or do >>computers like messing with people's minds too? >> >>Marc Plum > >If two different promotions transpose to the same position in all critical lines >(eg. the piece must be taken immediately either way) then most programs will >choose randomly. > >This reminds me, a few years back IM Guy West was playing against my program >Desperado over the board. He reached a postion where he could promote to either >Rook or Queen and either way would work out the same. With a big smile he >promoted to a Rook. Desperado handled it ok, but lost anyway. > >There are supposed to be a couple of competitive programs (but not commercial >ones i think) that can't handle underpromotion. There is a commercial program that does not consider underpromotions(Junior) It has no problem to continue if the opponent underpromotes but it does not consider underpromotions in the search Uri
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