Any More Strategical Ideas for a Test Suite?

[Graham Banks]

How about one based on en passant decisions?

[swami]

How about one based on en passant decisions?

Already taken.

see the first post in this thread.

[swami]

What about a test about exception to rules??

Hi Fermin,

Why should there be test with moves that are illegal? I think all stable engines make legal moves.

I did not refer to legal move rules, but to typical evaluation rules like place always knight in the center, castle soon, bishop pair is always good, ... and so on.... There are always exception where typical rules of thumb are not always adecuate.....

Oh I get it. That would not be hard to find. Thanks.

In some positions one of the principles needed to be violated, principles/rules are not to be followed blindly in certain situations.

[swami]

make a test suit for the opening.

Good idea. I hope the engine wouldn't make a move on reflex due to the opening book, when solving the position.

* When to castle and when NOT to castle

Many engines rely on their book to castle at the right time, once out of book before castling they tend to castle at all costs

That's a good idea, Richard. I had initially included this in "King activity". Now I can see that it deserves its own.

[swami]

STS [v 10.0] will be simplification.

It's different to "Offer of simplification".

In this case, it's actually trading/exchanging the pieces when you're materially or vastly positionally superior.

Or

You want to trade bad/average pieces for opponent's good pieces when you've an opportunity.

It's one of the best, IMO.

[Aaron Becker]

A special case of simplification that might deserve some special attention is simplification to a pawn endgame. It's very easy to exchange into an ending that's completely lost, but looks fine inside a reasonable search horizon.

[swami]

A special case of simplification that might deserve some special attention is simplification to a pawn endgame. It's very easy to exchange into an ending that's completely lost, but looks fine inside a reasonable search horizon.

Yep, that's also a good idea. Have seen quite a number of positions recently.

Few more ideas:

Avoid moves with the "avoid" tag in test suite script.

Avoid exchange
Avoid pawn push
Avoid enpassant
Avoid Passive defense - instead take the risk/counter attack
Avoid pushing up the king side pawn in certain cases.
Avoid repositioning the good and developed piece
Avoid Positional Sacrifice especially when it's proven not to work

and etc

[Marc MP]

Hi Swami,

This would be extremely difficult to do: but long term compensation for exchange sacrifice like in this game: http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... t=kasparov

[swami]

Hi Swami,

This would be extremely difficult to do: but long term compensation for exchange sacrifice like in this game: http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... t=kasparov

Hi Marc,

Thanks, this falls under the category "Positional sacrifice" which I had already listed it in.

I don't think that it was very difficult but yeah I'd guess it might take more time to fetch ~200 positions for a start.

I think I'll work on that on few weeks vacation time that I'll get in middle of month of June.

[swami]

Some more Ideas:

Exchanging to increase control over a colour complex
Exchaning the specific minor piece to gain control over important squares/files/diagonals which could later prove to be crucial in securing an advantage.

The Unopposed Bishop
The bishop of one color complex that can't be challenged by the opponent's pieces because he doesn't have Bishop of the same color complex. Such a bishop is slightly superior to the other Bishop in the camp.

Exchanging to open lines
Exchanging in order to open lines and generate play.

Retaining the piece for defensive purposes

Retaining the piece for attacking purposes

Inducement - to gain move advantage

Taming the Bishop pair
Forcing the trade of one of the bishop to reduce the power of "double Bishop advantage", or blocking the scope of one of the Bishops so that it will not have control over the diagonal.

Best regards,
Swami