CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Central Archive at the University of Reading Chess endgames: 6-man data and strategy M.S. Bourzutschky, J.A. Tamplin, and G.McC. Haworth
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[email protected]; http:// http://www.jaet.org/jat/ Abstract While Nalimov’s endgame tables for Western Chess are the most used today, their Depth-to-Mate metric is not the most efficient or effective in use. The authors have developed and used new programs to create tables to alternative metrics and recommend better strategies for endgame play. Key words: chess: conversion, data, depth, endgame, goal, move count, statistics, strategy 1 Introduction Chess endgames tables (EGTs) to the ‘DTM’ Depth to Mate metric are the most commonly used, thanks to codes and production work by Nalimov [10,7]. DTM data is of interest in itself, even if conversion, i.e., change of force, is more often adopted as an interim objective in human play. However, more effective endgame strategies using different metrics can be adopted, particularly by computers [3,4]. A further practical disadvantage of the DTM metric is that, as maxDTM increases, the EGTs take longer to generate and are less compressible. 1 2 Here, we focus on metrics DTC, DTZ and DTZ50 ; the first two were effectively used by Thompson [19], Stiller [14], and Wirth [20]. New programs by Tamplin [15] and Bourzutschky [2] have already enabled a complete suite of 3-to-5-man DTC/Z/Z50 EGTs to be produced [18]. This note is an update, focusing solely on Tamplin’s continuing work, assisted by Bourzutschky, with the latter code on 6-man, pawnless endgames for which DTC ≡ DTZ and DTC50 ≡ DTZ50.