STS (v3.0) - Knight Outposts/Centralization/Repositioning

By Swaminathan Date 2009-06-03 05:52

[quote="swami"]Chapter 3 Of the Strategic Test Suite: Knight Outposts, Centralization and Repositioning is now available for download.

* Consists of carefully selected 100 questionairres on Knight OutPosts/Centralization/Repositioning

* All of the questions in this test suite are selected by me and thoroughly verified by Dann Corbitt. Each question has been analysed by top engines for hours.

* All the answers carry similar traits:
(1) [color=darkblue]A Knight move to take control of the center or posit itself in the center.[/color] (Centralization) (2) [color=darkblue]A Knight move to step back and reposition itself to lead the different (or better) path.[/color] (Repositioning) (3) [color=darkblue]A Knight move to take control of the opponent's weak squares[/color] (Outposts)
I initially selected about 190 problems and sent them to Dann, of which 100 has passed criteria. Dann made the final selection and done all that analysis with the help of the engines.

Recommended time: Anywhere between 10 seconds - 2 minutes for each test.

Download it here: STS 3.0
http://computerchessblogger.googlepages.com/sts

Feel free to report the results from your engine/ favourite engine, suggestions are welcome.

Special Thanks to Pedro Castro, Allard Siemelink, Zach Wegner for the testing and correcting mistakes throughout the process. And Thanks to those who reported bugs and tested out the V 1.0 of the test suite called "Undermining", and v2.0 called "Open Files and Diagonals".

And Extra Special Thanks to Ulysses for creating the beautiful logo!

Test Suite Released time: 3rd of June, 2009
Swaminathan and Dann Corbit.[/quote]

By Jörg Oster Date 2009-06-03 18:15

Hi Swami,

wow, this must have been a lot of work again...
So many thanks to both of you.

Just in case you run out of ideas for continuing this series

Here are some suggestions.

1) Poisoned Pawn
This one should be a avoid move test

2) Passed Pawns
Creating or blocking a passed pawn

3) Trapping a piece
Trapping a bishop or a rook for instance, which gives one side a small or big advantage

4) Freeing a piece
The opposite of 3)
maybe the latter two combined in one suite.

Joerg

By Swaminathan Date 2009-06-04 01:20

Hi Jorg,

Thanks for the ideas, Actually I haven't run out of ideas. I have enlisted things that I could possibly get around to doing next: Yes, It required about 10-11 hours of my time manually selecting test suites, while it took Dann approx. 5.30 hours per position for testing.

Pawn structure:
This is the work in progress. Attacking the opponents pawn to make it isolated, trading pieces to make it doubled. etc

Queens and rooks to the 7th

Massing near the king for the attack
Arranging useful pieces that are necessary for king side attack launch.

Pawn storms
Or pawn chains, pawns wedge, pawn nail.

Destroying the castled king's defenses
Like creating weak squares in opponents king side pawn cover.

Limiting the mobility of pieces.

Recapturing
Which pieces to use to recapture. cxd5 or exd5 or Nxd5 etc etc

Avoiding En-passant/ doing en-passant.

Sacrificing a pawn for better activity

Square Vacancy:
Occupying the vacant squares on enemies camp in order to create more pressure in surrounding areas (What's shortest term for it? pressurizing perhaps?)

Any more ideas from others are welcome! Along with diagram as an example. etc

By Peter Martan Date 2009-06-06 13:25

Hi Swami!

From me too many thanks again for hundred more of another great position- test.
Ever thought of taking such as a base for running engine- engine matches? Would be interesting to see the correlation of an Elo- like ranking in solving- success of the test postions themselves, the Elos of matched engines in other ranking lists and Elo gathered at matches based on test postions as sort of opening book.
Any idea of or interest in something like that?
Best regards
Peter.

By Swaminathan Date 2009-06-07 05:25

Hi Peter,

First of all, Thanks for your interest!

Actually I'm planning to run 3 test suites on many engines, sum up their scores and see if it correlates to the elo. It would be an interesting stuff to try out.

We can't make comparison of engines scores to elo based on single test suite alone, there may be some differences. For example, Crafty, Pro Deo and Pharaon score better than Bright, Fruit, Glaurung and Spike, despite them being 100-200 elo lower. It just shows that Crafty, Pro Deo and Pharaon understand Knight centralization/Repoisitoning/outposts better than latter group.

But we could make comparison on engine's scores added from 3 test suites. It would make sense since that would tell us the overall understanding of the engines in general. But before making any kind of final conclusion, we'd need atleast 10 more test suites, 3 ain't enough.

Best Regards.
Swaminathan

By Horst Wandersleben Date 2009-06-08 15:31

Hello Swaminathan,

I think you forgot that you're registered in the CSS-forum with the name "Swaminathan N" according to the indian name conventions.
If you forgot your password the system will send you a new password if you ask for it on the log in side.

Greetings
Horst

By Swaminathan N Date 2009-06-09 04:21

[quote="Horst Wandersleben"]
Hello Swaminathan,

I think you forgot that you're registered in the CSS-forum with the name "Swaminathan N" according to the indian name conventions.
If you forgot your password the system will send you a new password if you ask for it on the log in side.

Greetings
Horst
[/quote]Hi Horst,

Yes, I almost forgot that I have an id here. Thanks for reminding me