🚀 go-pugleaf

Ryan Moats writes:

>1. GNUchess (at least the version I got from MIT, I don't
>remember which version # it is) evaluates nights as only 5 points less
>than a bishop in quiessent state.  Since a pawn is nominally 100 points,
>this leads to GNUchess giving up the 2B's just to double its opponent's
>pawns.  Now, IMHO the doubled pawns are dynamic and can be undoubled
>with proper play, leading to positions where GNUchess is simply down
>the B pair with no compensation.  By modifying the value of a knight to
>be 300 (lowering it by 1/2 pawn), GNUchess is much more protective of
>the 2 B's, and plays slightly stronger.  In a G/15 match between the
>modified GNUchess and the unmodified GNUchess, the modified version
>went +7 -2 =12.

     I have noticed this propensity for surrendering the two bishops
     to double pawns in GNUchess' play, but we have not made any mods
     to the program here yet...  Maybe we'll try your suggestion (though
     it could lead to other anomalies in undervaluing knights in closed
     positions...).

>3. A minor quip:  has somebody out there fiqured out how to use
>shorthand algebriac (ie. e4 c5 nf3, rather than e2e4 c7c5, g1f3)?

     Sure -- but use capital letters for the pieces (i.e., e4 e5 Nf3
     Nf6 Ne5 ...).  The most annoying thing here is that when one
     promotes a pawn one must use a *lower-case* letter for the piece
     (i.e., d8q instead of d8Q, or b8n instead of b8N).


--
~~~~ Eugene Wallingford             ~~~~   AI/KBS Laboratory         ~~~~
~~~~ wallingf@pleiades.cps.msu.edu  ~~~~   Michigan State University ~~~~