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Subject: Re: Position for Endgame Tablebase programs

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 13:18:36 09/23/99

Go up one level in this thread


On September 23, 1999 at 15:14:24, blass uri wrote:

>On September 23, 1999 at 09:43:20, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On September 23, 1999 at 09:24:43, Wayne Lowrance wrote:
>>
>>>On September 22, 1999 at 22:54:07, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On September 22, 1999 at 20:25:56, Howard Exner wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On September 22, 1999 at 13:42:26, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On September 22, 1999 at 13:40:37, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On September 22, 1999 at 11:46:29, Howard Exner wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Do any of the programs with endgame tablebases solve this position?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>8/6Bp/6p1/2k1p3/4PPP1/1pb4P/8/2K5 b - - id Pos 111 - ECM98H.EPD; bm b3b2
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>It looks too difficult for non tablebase programs.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Crafty solves it, but it takes longer than I would like to see...  11 minutes.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>here is the output:  (quad xeon with all the 5 piece ending databases).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>               15->   1:46  -0.09   1. ... Kd6 2. Bf8+ Ke6 3. f5+ Kf6 4.
>>>>>>>                                    Kb1 Bd4 5. Ba3 h6 6. Bb2 h5 7. Bxd4
>>>>>>>                                    exd4 8. Kb2 hxg4 9. hxg4 d3 10. Kxb3
>>>>>>>                                    d2 11. Kc2
>>>>>>>               16     2:21  -0.17   1. ... Kd6 2. Bf8+ Ke6 3. f5+ gxf5
>>>>>>>                                    4. gxf5+ Kf6 5. Bc5 h5 6. Kb1 Kf7 7.
>>>>>>>                                    Ba3 Kf6 8. Kc1 h4 9. Bb2 Be1 10. Kd1
>>>>>>>                                    Bf2
>>>>>>>         (3)   16->   4:07  -0.17   1. ... Kd6 2. Bf8+ Ke6 3. f5+ gxf5
>>>>>>>                                    4. gxf5+ Kf6 5. Bc5 h5 6. Kb1 Kf7 7.
>>>>>>>                                    Ba3 Kf6 8. Kc1 h4 9. Bb2 Be1 10. Kd1
>>>>>>>                                    Bf2
>>>>>>>         (2)   17     6:09  -0.26   1. ... Kd6 2. Bf8+ Ke6 3. f5+ Kf6 4.
>>>>>>>                                    Ba3 Bd4 5. Kb1 Bc3 6. g5+ Kf7 7. f6
>>>>>>>                                    Bd2 8. Bc1 <HT>
>>>>>>>               17    11:26   0.00   1. ... b2+ 2. Kc2 exf4 3. Bxc3 f3 4.
>>>>>>>                                    Be1 Kd4 5. Bf2+ Kxe4 6. Ba7 Kf4 7.
>>>>>>>                                    Bf2 Ke4
>>>>>>>         (4)   17->  11:42   0.00   1. ... b2+ 2. Kc2 exf4 3. Bxc3 f3 4.
>>>>>>>                                    Be1 Kd4 5. Bf2+ Kxe4 6. Ba7 Kf4 7.
>>>>>>>                                    Bf2 Ke4
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Don't know whether it will fail high at 18 or not, however...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>depth 18 analysis:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>         (3)   18    13:55   0.31   1. ... b2+ 2. Kc2 exf4 3. Bxc3 f3 4.
>>>>>>                                    Be1 Kd4 5. Bf2+ Kxe4 6. Ba7 b1=Q+ 7.
>>>>>>                                    Kxb1 Kd3 8. h4 Ke2 9. h5 gxh5 10. gxh5
>>>>>>                                    f2 11. Bxf2 Kxf2 12. Kc2 Ke3
>>>>>
>>>>>I tried this on CM6000 and Rebel 10c but stopped after 30 minutes(this
>>>>>on an AMD 233). The 11 minutes looks impressive to me. In your final analysis
>>>>>on move number 9 rather than capturing with gxh5 the winning move is g5,
>>>>>so that the black king can capture both of white's pawns. However in an actual
>>>>>game Crafty would no doubt see that when it reached that point in the game.
>>>>>
>>>>>My guess is that we won't see to many people posting that program X
>>>>>finds this one. Hope I'm wrong in this guess.
>>>>>
>>>>>Now I'm also wondering if tablebases will help here as after the initial
>>>>>exchanges there remain two pawns each on the king's side?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>It was definitely probing tablebases during the search.  The disk was very
>>>>active due to the captures...
>>>
>>>Yes, Hiarcs was probing table bases during its search as well. Hiarcs found the
>>>solution at the 21:04 minute mark and made the move shortly there after. The
>>>Table Base print out that followed the Hiarcs search listing was:
>>>
>>>=+ (-0.26) depth 13/30 00:21:04 72203kn, tb=12
>>
>>
>>what does "tb=12" mean?  My program did over 60,000 probes.  If that means only
>>12 were done, something is not done right in Hiarcs...
>
>Hiarcs is different than crafty so you cannot say that something is wrong with
>it only because it does different number of probes.

I have seen evidence to suggest that it is done wrong.  IE I have no chance in
a game where I try to access egtb's on CD.  It is just _way_ too slow.  Yet I
hear of hiarcs users doing just this.

That implies (to me) that he is not probing very deeply in the search, only
"near" the root.  That is _not_ as good as probing deeply, when it is done
right...



>
>Maybe it does not call tablebases everywhere in the tree but only if it believe
>that calling tablebases is going to save time.

a hit _always_ saves time.  Because you do _not_ search anywhere below a hit,
you stop there, knowing the perfect score...


>
>If you are not close to the leaves of the tree then calling tablebases is
>clearly saving time because the time of search is bigger then time of probing
>but if you are close to the leaves then you lose time from calling tablebases
>and it is not clear to me if the perfect information that you get is more
>important then the time that you lose.
>
>Uri


I tried several thousand games when I first did this.  The current approach
was much better...  of course you only probe after a capture, and only after
a capture where total pieces is <= 5..  that doesn't happen a rediculous number
of times...



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