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Subject: Re: A question for Dr. Hyatt and others about missing TBs

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 06:32:48 12/29/99

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On December 28, 1999 at 12:42:31, Randall Shane wrote:

>On December 26, 1999 at 12:39:59, Len Eisner wrote:
>
>> <snip>
>>
>>It would be helpful if Chessbase could address this limitation programmatically
>>in Fritz 6 and the other commercial engines in the same way that Bob Hyatt did
>>it in Crafty.  Right now, if I want to study the KPP vs. KP ending, I use the
>>Crafty engine because it is the only one that will promote the pawn without the
>>KQP vs. KP tablebase.
>
>Dr. Hyatt,
>  How does Crafty handle missing tablebases to avoid the problem above?
>
>Thanks!


It is actually not hard, although it is also not optimal.  If the initial
position at the root is a mate-in-N tablebase position, but after trying each
legal root move, no mate-in-(N-1) positions were found, it must mean that a
promotion move drops into a non-tablebase position.  What I do is simply turn
tablebase probes off, and do a normal search.  This is guaranteed to prefer the
promotion if it is safe and if it doesn't stalemate the opponent, which neatly
solves the problem.



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