Asri-unix.142 net.chess utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!mclure Wed Nov 25 14:46:07 1981 BELLE and endgame problems Here are two endgame problems I gave to Ken Thompson, co-author of world computer champion BELLE, at the recent ACM tournament. I was interested to see if BELLE could make any headway with them. It solved both easily! The first took 2 1/2 minutes to pick the right move for the right reason. The second took 22 seconds. BELLE required a 16 ply search for the first and a 24 ply search for the second. I was amazed at its processing speed. Also, transposition tables help a lot in these sorts of endgames. I believe the first is a famous Reti problem. -- ** -- WK -- ** -- ** White to draw ** -- ** -- ** -- ** BP 1 Kc8 Kc6 2 Kb8 Kb5 3 Kb7 Ka5 4 Kc6 h5 -- ** -- BK -- ** -- ** 5 Kd5 h4 6 Ke4 h3 7 Kf3 h2 8 g2 h1Q 9 Kh1 WP -- ** -- ** -- ** -- -- ** -- ** -- ** -- ** ** -- ** -- ** -- ** -- -- ** -- ** -- ** -- ** ** -- ** -- ** -- ** -- -- ** -- ** -- BK -- ** White to win ** -- ** -- ** -- ** -- 1 Kc2 Ke7 2 Kb3 Kd6 3 Kb4 Kc6 4 Kc4 Kd6 -- ** -- ** -- ** -- ** 5 Kb5 Kc7 6 Kc5 Kd7 7 Kb6 Kc8 8 Kc6 Kd8 ** -- ** -- ** -- ** -- 9 c4 Kc8 10 c5 Kd8 11 Kb7 Kd7 12 c6 Kd6 -- ** -- ** -- ** -- ** 13 c7 Kd5 14 c8 ** -- WP -- ** -- ** -- -- ** -- ** -- ** -- ** ** -- ** WK ** -- ** -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.