Old ICC wild 7

[bob]

I don't know if anyone remembers this or is interested, but the position looks like this:

[d]

This used to spark a lot of interest and was an interesting thing to try as a human. It is tricky, although white wins following a very narrow line of play. Computers used to be hopeless. I was showing someone how to play the game today for fun, and started it up on Crafty. I was quite surprised when it pretty quickly came up with Ke1 with an eval of +3.0... and it kept climbing. By depth 48, it was at +16.9.. at depth 49 it was at 21.7..

Was surprising to see what massive depth does here. BTW this on my MacBook pro...

[hgm]

The complexity of this position is similar to that of a 5-men EGT, as the Pawns cannot change file. So they only have 8 states each (2nd-7th rank, captured or promoted). So it should be possible to solve it in seconds through EGT generation.

Of course you should not engage in generating all possible end-games reachable through promotion (such as KQQQKQQQ), as you know these virtually never ly on the path to a forced win. The recommended procedure is to solve it under a restriction for white. Namely that white can only promote to Queen, is allowed at most a single Queen, and any position with black to move and a black Queen present is not a white win. Then the only successor end-game you have to solve is KQPPKPPP (where Pawns can also be missing, and black Pawns can be on 8th rank to represent a Queen that has not moved yet). This has the complexity of a 5.5-men EGT.

[peter]

4k3/5ppp/8/8/8/8/PPP5/3K4 w - - 0 1

Analysis by The Huntsman 1 bmi2:

1.Ke2 h5 2.Kf3 Kd7 3.a4 f5 4.Kg3 Kc6 5.a5 Kb7 6.b4 Ka6 7.c4 g6 8.c5 Kb5 9.Kg2 h4 10.Kh3 g5 11.Kh2 g4 12.Kg2 f4 13.Kg1 f3 14.Kf2 h3 15.Kg3 f2 16.Kxf2 h2 17.Kg2 g3 18.Kh1 Kc4 19.a6 Kxb4 20.a7 Kxc5 21.Kg2 h1D+ 22.Kxh1 g2+ 23.Kxg2 Kc6 24.a8D+ Kd6 25.Dd8+ Ke6 26.Kf3 Kf7 27.Dd7+ Kg6 28.Kg4 Kf6 29.De8 Kg7 30.Kf5 Kh7 31.Kf6 Kh6 32.Dg6#
Weiß setzt Matt: +- (#32) Tiefe: 64/68 00:01:36 13749MN

YACPDB gives Pietro Carrera 1617, yet I have Giacchino Greco and Szén József stored in my database as sources too.

1.Ke1 instead of Ke2 is a major dual with same DTM.

1.Ke1:

4k3/5ppp/8/8/8/8/PPP5/4K3 b - - 0 1

Analysis by The Huntsman 1 bmi2:

1...h5 2.Kf2 Kd7 3.a4 Kc6 4.a5 h4 5.Kg2 Kb5 6.b4 g6 7.c4+ Ka6 8.c5 Kb5 9.Kh2 g5 10.Kh3 f5 11.Kh2 g4 12.Kg2 f4 13.Kg1 f3 14.Kf2 h3 15.Kg3 f2 16.Kxf2 h2 17.Kg2 g3 18.Kh1 Kc4 19.a6 Kxb4 20.Kg2 Kxc5 21.a7 h1D+ 22.Kxh1 g2+ 23.Kxg2 Kb6 24.a8D Kc5 25.Dd8 Kb5 26.Kf3 Kc5 27.Ke4 Kb5 28.Kd4 Kc6 29.Kc4 Kb7 30.Kb5 Ka7 31.Kc6 Ka6 32.Da8#
Weiß setzt Matt: +- (#31) Tiefe: 70/63 00:53:42 463148MN

[Vinvin]

See here : forum3/viewtopic.php?p=679004#p679004

I don't know if anyone remembers this or is interested, but the position looks like this:

[d]

This used to spark a lot of interest and was an interesting thing to try as a human. It is tricky, although white wins following a very narrow line of play. Computers used to be hopeless. I was showing someone how to play the game today for fun, and started it up on Crafty. I was quite surprised when it pretty quickly came up with Ke1 with an eval of +3.0... and it kept climbing. By depth 48, it was at +16.9.. at depth 49 it was at 21.7..

Was surprising to see what massive depth does here. BTW this on my MacBook pro...

[Ajedrecista]

Hello Peter:

[...]

YACPDB gives Pietro Carrera 1617, yet I have Giacchino Greco and Szén József stored in my database as sources too.

[...]

I also found references of the position to Pietro Carrera's book Il gioco de gli scacchi (1617) in both YACPDB and Die Schwalbe databases. The book is easy to find at Google Books (example here), but I was unable to find the problem... which does not means anything. I found some problems with titles of tre pedoni (three pawns) starting at page 502, that might resemble the position of the original post, but I did not found the exact position. It must be elsewhere.

------------------------

Regarding Gioachino Greco, following the same source than this post, I found the problem but with the white king on e1 instead of d1 (B. Re alla sua casa → White: king on his square {that is, e1}). If you download the PDF (244 MB), the setup of the position starts at page 397. If you go through the HTML version, it starts from page 396. I will not post the images like the other time because there are more pages this time and I do not want to occupy much space, so I will simply copy the URLs of the pages and write the solution found in the book:

https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9569
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9570
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9571
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9572
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9573
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9574
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9575

{W : Ke1 Pa2 Pb2 Pc2 ; B : Ke8 Pf7 Pg7 Ph7} 1. a4 Kd7 2. a5 Kc6 3. c4 h5 4. b4 g5 5. Kf2 f6 6. Kf3 f5 7. Kg3 h4+ 8. Kh3 f4 9. Kg4 Kb7 10. b5 Kc7 11. c5 Kb7 12. ... {12. a6+ Ka8 13. a7 Kb7 14. c6+ Ka8 15. c7 Kb7 16. a8=Q+ Kxa8 17. c8=Q+}

I think I found some typos in the solution, so I had to correct them, but was unable to write the given solution up to move 17 because moves started to get more and more strange. It looks like the solution was written from memory with some glitches here and there.

------------------------

Regarding Szén's source, YACPDB lists Bell's Life (1840). It should be Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, at page 4 of the issue of Sunday, 31st of May, 1840:

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co. ... r=dayearly

Where the preview says:

M. SZEN'S POSITION. White.— King on his queen's square [...]

So the white king is on d1 in Szén's position.

------------------------

SUMMARY OF SOURCES:

— Unable to find in Carrera's book Il gioco de gli scacchi.
— The white king on e1 in Greco's manuscript Trattato del Nobilissimo et Militare Essercitio de Scacchi nel Quale si Contengono Molti Bellissimi Tratti et la Vera Scienza di Esso Gioco. Composto da Gioachino Greco Calabrese.
— The white king on d1 in Szén's position as published in the newspaper Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle in 1840.

Regards from Spain.

Ajedrecista.

[peter]

[...]

YACPDB gives Pietro Carrera 1617, yet I have Giacchino Greco and Szén József stored in my database as sources too.

[...]

I also found references of the position to Pietro Carrera's book Il gioco de gli scacchi (1617) in both YACPDB and Die Schwalbe databases. The book is easy to find at Google Books (example here), but I was unable to find the problem... which does not means anything. I found some problems with titles of tre pedoni (three pawns) starting at page 502, that might resemble the position of the original post, but I did not found the exact position. It must be elsewhere.

------------------------

Regarding Gioachino Greco, following the same source than this post, I found the problem but with the white king on e1 instead of d1 (B. Re alla sua casa → White: king on his square {that is, e1}). If you download the PDF (244 MB), the setup of the position starts at page 397. If you go through the HTML version, it starts from page 396. I will not post the images like the other time because there are more pages this time and I do not want to occupy much space, so I will simply copy the URLs of the pages and write the solution found in the book:

https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9569
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9570
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9571
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9572
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9573
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9574
https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digit ... 20/id/9575

{W : Ke1 Pa2 Pb2 Pc2 ; B : Ke8 Pf7 Pg7 Ph7} 1. a4 Kd7 2. a5 Kc6 3. c4 h5 4. b4 g5 5. Kf2 f6 6. Kf3 f5 7. Kg3 h4+ 8. Kh3 f4 9. Kg4 Kb7 10. b5 Kc7 11. c5 Kb7 12. ... {12. a6+ Ka8 13. a7 Kb7 14. c6+ Ka8 15. c7 Kb7 16. a8=Q+ Kxa8 17. c8=Q+}

I think I found some typos in the solution, so I had to correct them, but was unable to write the given solution up to move 17 because moves started to get more and more strange. It looks like the solution was written from memory with some glitches here and there.

------------------------

Regarding Szén's source, YACPDB lists Bell's Life (1840). It should be Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, at page 4 of the issue of Sunday, 31st of May, 1840:

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co. ... r=dayearly

Where the preview says:

M. SZEN'S POSITION. White.— King on his queen's square [...]

So the white king is on d1 in Szén's position.

------------------------

SUMMARY OF SOURCES:

— Unable to find in Carrera's book Il gioco de gli scacchi.
— The white king on e1 in Greco's manuscript Trattato del Nobilissimo et Militare Essercitio de Scacchi nel Quale si Contengono Molti Bellissimi Tratti et la Vera Scienza di Esso Gioco. Composto da Gioachino Greco Calabrese.
— The white king on d1 in Szén's position as published in the newspaper Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle in 1840.

Hello!
You're the master of research again!
Thanks a lot!

[Nordlandia]

Anyone remember wild 9, aka twokings, which had some major flaws.

[Ajedrecista]

Hello:

Anyone remember wild 9, aka twokings, which had some major flaws.

I was not aware of ICC Wild series. Here is the ICC web dedicated to Wild series just in case someone is interested:

https://www.chessclub.com/help/wild

Regards from Spain.

Ajedrecista.

[Nordlandia]

I found wild 9 quite amusing. It has two kings on the board, e1 and f1. Only one is royal and the other king is a ordinary piece unless either one is closer to a1.

It's nice to be able to use the king as a minor piece without check restrictions. Unfortunately wild 9 is poorly designed. It's a1 for either side and thus give white some edge. Cutechess gui has original and symmetrical twokings which is more fair. The downside of placing the K on f1/f8 is that the bishop pair is no more. Alternative solution is to replace queen with king. Then again the game becomes tame without the lady around.