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Subject: Re: Magical holy null-move

Author: Ulrich Tuerke

Date: 04:02:41 02/04/00

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On February 04, 2000 at 06:18:04, Frederic Friedel wrote:

>On February 04, 2000 at 05:33:53, Georg Langrath wrote:
>
>>About this position. Fritz 5.32 can't find this mate in three. Fritz 6 can find
>>it in time mode, but not in analyze mode. In my opinion that is an ugly bug.
>>
>>Then somebody says that it is a null-move problem. Then no more with that. When
>>it is a null-move problem is seems as it is acceptable in the world of
>>chesscomputers and no more to add. In my opinion it is still very ugly that a
>>modern chesscomputer can't find a mate in three.
>>
>>I think that it is done before, but can somebody explain this mystical null-move
>>so also an amateur understands? I think it is some kind of holy magic power that
>>you must not heckle.
>
>Null move is a pruning technique based on the assumption that in certain parts
>of the search you can ignore moves that threaten nothing. This gives you great
>speed-ups because the program doesn't spend inordinate amounts of time checking
>really silly lines. But it does lead to blindness in some zugzwang positions.
>99% of these are studies or artificial problem positions. I can't remember
>encountering a fatal zugzwang in a normal tournament game (though I'm sure CCC
>forum members will immediately supply examples).
>
>In order to solve positions like the one you gave you must switch off
>"Selectivity" (click the engine or press F3 to do so). That effectively switches
>off the null-move pruning. Remember to switch it back on afterwards. Here is the
>log of the search with selectivity=0. The mate is found in 00:00:00 after a
>four-ply search (six-ply extensions).
>

Frederic, I should strongly suggest the program itself to switch off null move
as soon as either side has only one minor piece or less.

Regards, Uli
>

>New position
>[D]3n4/8/pppN4/k7/2P5/1K6/P7/8 w - - 0 1
>
>Analysis by Fritz 6:
>
>1.c5
>  µ  (-1.34)   depth: 1/3   00:00:00
>1.c5
>  µ  (-1.34)   depth: 1/3   00:00:00
>1.a3
>  µ  (-1.09)   depth: 1/3   00:00:00
>1.a3
>  ³  (-0.66)   depth: 1/3   00:00:00
>1.a3 c5
>  ³  (-0.66)   depth: 2/4   00:00:00
>1.c5
>  ³  (-0.59)   depth: 2/5   00:00:00
>1.c5 b5
>  ³  (-0.41)   depth: 2/5   00:00:00
>1.c5 b5 2.a3
>  ³  (-0.44)   depth: 3/5   00:00:00
>1.c5!
>  +-  (3.19)   depth: 4/6   00:00:00
>1.c5! b5 2.a3 Ne6
>  +-  (#3)     depth: 4/6   00:00:00
>
>(Friedel, Hamburg 04.02.2000)



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