Not at all. If the opponent has more than two brain cells to rub
together he will win. One such winning position with the unlucky loser
trapped in a corner looks like this.
_____________
| k | * * | * * | * *|
| * *| B | * * | * * |
| * *| K | * * | B |

It should be obvious what the last move for each side was.

Ok thing has been Corrected. Now when someone has 2 Bishops game will
not stop there and you will be allowed to finish the game. And incase
computer is unable to bring Mate you have to Resign to end the game.

Naturally getting 2 extra Bishops is worth getting a win.

Bye
Sanny

Play Chess at: http://www.GetClub.com/Chess.html

If it is the computer with the extra material then it has to offer a
draw because it doesn't know how to win. But it cannot claim a draw
against a human opponent with that same extra material just because it
doesn't know how to win. You could always add tablebases to sort this
out onces and for all.

Ok thing has been Corrected. Now when someone has 2 Bishops game will
not stop there and you will be allowed to finish the game. And incase
computer is unable to bring Mate you have to Resign to end the game.

Naturally getting 2 extra Bishops is worth getting a win.

Bye
Sanny

Play Chess at: http://www.GetClub.com/Chess.html

Sanny wrote:
Is there anything it does correctly?
It seems to always get the correct position set up
at the beginning, and oddly enough, it also seems
to play legal moves -- except the final one which we
are not supposed to "see", where it moves its King
into check.

Ok thing has been Corrected. Now when someone has 2 Bishops game will
not stop there and you will be allowed to finish the game. And incase
computer is unable to bring Mate you have to Resign to end the game.


This is your idea of a "correction"? If the computer is unable to
"bring Mate", then it should offer a draw, or resign itself. [or, of
course, accept a draw offer or a draw CLAIM based on the 50-move rule].

Why should the human have to resign?

--
Kenneth Sloan
Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213
University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473
Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://KennethRSloan.com/

On May 2, 4:28 am, Sanny wrote:

I remember once GetClub had 2 bishop and it was unable to give the
Mate and Help Bot had to resign. Then Help Bot Complained this game is
draw and I had to Resign to finish the game.

So now when Opponent has 2 Bishops Left I declared it a draw.

Now, you are saying It is a Win?

Sanny, it is a draw by the fifty-moves rule or by
the threefold repetition of position rule if neither
side makes headway-- as in *that game*.


If I give it a Win in your case then why not give it a win for
GetClubs case.

I don't want you to "give me" a win; I was cheated
out of the opportunity to finish the game according
to the rules of chess. Had it not wrongly declared
the game over, I would very quickly have won. Note
that my King was already in the center, the enemy
King already trapped to one side-- this means I
need not worry over the fifty-moves draw rule at all
(as I would if we started from the worst-case
position).


Same situation both player has to be given same set of rules.

No illegal interventions?



If having 2 Bishops is draw when GetClub have them, then same is true
for the Opponent.

No. It is a win, no matter who has the two
Bishops. But you can't butt in and declare the
game won (or drawn); a game is between two
players. "No progress" will eventually result in
a draw, in accordance with the rules of chess.



Moreove when the Game is Drawn your Rating is not affected. So in such
case atleast you do not loose any point.

What about my record? The display indicates
that I have "lost" or "drawn" many, many games
which in fact were wins or draws for me. And I
don't believe you about the no-effect on ratings
part. I expect I could refute that claim easily, if
it really mattered (which it doesn't).


The rules (i.e. "laws") of chess are very complex,
and THAT is certainly no fault of Sanny's. I just
wish he would at least *try* to accommodate the
actual rules, and not always "err" in the direction
of bogus wins or draws for his program. It reminds
me of the bogus claims that the GetClub program
is better than Rybka, that it has been "improved"
after each failure, and so forth. It all smacks of
rank dishonesty; perhaps Sanny is trying to earn
his way into the Evans ratpack? Or maybe this
is all a bizarre experiment in psychology-- how
will people react to this or that lunacy... .


-- help bot

On May 2, 5:09 am, Martin Brown
wrote:

Your choices are to add a few choice heuristics to the endgame
evaluation function when the number of pieces is 4 or less and/or to
implement basic tablebases for the classic 3 & 4 piece endgames.

These would be roughly (in both KBBk and KBNk) to:

Make the winning sides king bolder and take the opposition with the
enemy king.
Restrict the mobility of the enemy king to 2 or 3 moves where
possible.
Restrict the region of the board available to the enemy king.
Winning side scores for forcing enemy king to edge of board, bonus for
corners.
Avoid stalemates (stating the obvious)


For human players, the last heuristic -- that of
studiously avoiding stalemate -- might be moved
to the head of the pack, once the enemy King
is driven against the side of the board. :D


-- help bot

On 3 May, 06:48, Sanny wrote:
Not at all. If the opponent has more than two brain cells to rub
together he will win. One such winning position with the unlucky loser
trapped in a corner looks like this.
_____________
| k | * * | * * | * *|
| * *| B | * * | * * |
| * *| K | * * | B |

It should be obvious what the last move for each side was.

Ok thing has been Corrected. Now when someone has 2 Bishops game will
not stop there and you will be allowed to finish the game. And incase
computer is unable to bring Mate you have to Resign to end the game.

Unless the computer can force the theoretical win then it should offer
a draw (which would arise under the 50 move rule if the Getclub
opponent hasn't gnawed off his own arm in boredom by that stage).

You could provide a compromise kludge that will offend chess purists.
That is to implement a weak (and incorrect) version of the 3
repetitions rule such that if the program finds that moves N, N+2 and N
+4 are identical for either side and the opponents move N=N+2 then it
declares the position a draw by repetition. Strong players should not
have much difficulty triggering that rule to claim their draw when
they are down on material in a theoretically won position which
Getclub is far too weak to exploit.

Naturally getting 2 extra Bishops is worth getting a win.

You have to make the program able to obtain the win too. Tablebases
might be the easiest way here.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On 3 May, 20:25, help bot wrote:
On May 2, 5:09
wrote:

Your choices are to add a few choice heuristics to the endgame
evaluation function when the number of pieces is 4 or less and/or to
implement basic tablebases for the classic 3 & 4 piece endgames.

These would be roughly (in bothKBBkandKBNk) to:

Make the winning sides king bolder and take the opposition with the
enemy king.
Restrict the mobility of the enemy king to 2 or 3 moves where
possible.
Restrict the region of the board available to the enemy king.
Winning side scores for forcing enemy king to edge of board, bonus for
corners.
Avoid stalemates (stating the obvious)

* For human players, the last heuristic -- that of
studiously avoiding stalemate -- might be moved
to the head of the pack, once the enemy King
is driven against the side of the board. *:D

Indeed. Although I would hope no computer would ever need it.

I tweaked my toy eval to test this idea for KBBk and a suitable weight
for king distance and piece centre weighting together with an 8 ply
search is just about adequate. That is these simple heuristics to
restrict mobility to 3 then 2 squares in a corner will get you to
within a mate in 4. It worked OK with a 5 ply search for the test
cases I have to hand. I haven't tried it for KBNk.

Regards,
Martin Brown

You have to make the program able to obtain the win too. Tablebases
might be the easiest way here.

Tablebases are 1 MB- 10 MB size So download time of Applet will
increase a lot. So thats not possible for Applet.

Bye
Sanny

Play Chess at: http://www.GetClub.com/Chess.html

Sanny wrote:
You have to make the program able to obtain the win too. Tablebases
might be the easiest way here.

Tablebases are 1 MB- 10 MB size So download time of Applet will
increase a lot. So thats not possible for Applet.

No need to download it all only a tiny subset is relevant. Turn it round
and have the applet ask an online database for the right move.

But the simple heuristics I have already described will get you to
within a 5 or 6 ply search for KBBK and/or KBNK. Then the engine can see
its way to the mate rather than claiming a victory that it doesn't know
how to obtain. These are very simple endgame patterns.

It seems you can't or won't improve Getclub to play proper legal chess
including the draw rules for 50 moves and 3 fold repetition - also the
notation is still infuriating when captures and checks are not shown in
the game annotation.

Regards,
Martin Brown
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On Fri, 2 May 2008 01:28:20 -0700 (PDT), Sanny
wrote:

I remember once GetClub had 2 bishop and it was unable to give the
Mate and Help Bot had to resign. Then Help Bot Complained this game is
draw and I had to Resign to finish the game.

So now when Opponent has 2 Bishops Left I declared it a draw.

Now, you are saying It is a Win?

If I give it a Win in your case then why not give it a win for
GetClubs case.

Same situation both player has to be given same set of rules.

If having 2 Bishops is draw when GetClub have them, then same is true
for the Opponent.

Moreove when the Game is Drawn your Rating is not affected. So in such
case atleast you do not loose any point.

Bye
Sanny

Play Chess at: http://www.GetClub.com/Chess.html


I have to make the observation that it indeed strange that Sanny has
been here for over a year, claiming how his program has improved, but
hasn't quite gotten the details down (as in if the computer thinks
it's a draw, it should offer one, and should accept one from a human
player if it thinks it cannot win).

Or how Elo works (draws ain't no change generally)

All the while, the main content of the r.g.c newsgroup has dwindled
under the Sanny spam. Still trying to brute force it (in Java no
less).


C'mon Sam, Ray, Antonio, everybody.