Any Examples of The King's Tactical Abilities?

[Steve Maughan]

While "The King" (by Johann De Koning) isn't the strongest engine by modern standards, it has always been excellent at tactics, and specifically mating tactics. Does anyone know of a collection of positions that highlight The King's tactical abilities? Has anyone done a in-depth analysis of it's tactical prowess? Thanks!

— Steve

[Werewolf]

What version of the King are you talking about and on what hardware? I've done quite a few studies of dedicated machines and the TASC R30 and ChessMachine (both using The King 2.5) were top of the list, no doubt helped by their hardware relative to other machines of the day.

[JVMerlino]

Here are a few relevant threads that I found. I'm sure you can find more if you look for posts by me that include the word "King".
viewtopic.php?p=960130
viewtopic.php?p=947370
viewtopic.php?p=938887
viewtopic.php?t=81023
viewtopic.php?p=921922
viewtopic.php?t=78104
viewtopic.php?p=882858
6r1/p1pq1p1p/1p1p1Qnk/3PrR2/2n1P1PP/P1P5/4R3/6K1 w - - 0 1 King announces Mate in 11 instantly, needing to search only 16,390 nodes

[Steve Maughan]

What version of the King are you talking about and on what hardware? I've done quite a few studies of dedicated machines and the TASC R30 and ChessMachine (both using The King 2.5) were top of the list, no doubt helped by their hardware relative to other machines of the day.

I’m interested in any version. From the very early days The King has been great at tactics. Any analysis appreciated.

— Steve

[Steve Maughan]

Here are a few relevant threads that I found. I'm sure you can find more if you look for posts by me that include the word "King".
viewtopic.php?p=960130
viewtopic.php?p=947370
viewtopic.php?p=938887
viewtopic.php?t=81023
viewtopic.php?p=921922
viewtopic.php?t=78104
viewtopic.php?p=882858
6r1/p1pq1p1p/1p1p1Qnk/3PrR2/2n1P1PP/P1P5/4R3/6K1 w - - 0 1 King announces Mate in 11 instantly, needing to search only 16,390 nodes

Thanks! Much appreciated!

— Steve

[Werewolf]

[d]8/6B1/3p4/3P2pk/5q1p/N2Q3b/3n2P1/6K1 b - - 0 1

Mephisto Almeria - Deep Thought
The supercomputer found 1...Bg2! at tournament time controls. The TASC R40 finds it in 20 minutes.

[Werewolf]

In a blitz game with my Vancouver 68000, after the opening moves:

[White "Carl Bicknell"]
[Black "Vancouver 68000"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3 e6 4. d4 cxd4 5. cxd4 d5 6. e5 Bb4+ 7. Nc3 Nge7 8. Bd3 O-O

[d]r1bq1rk1/pp2nppp/2n1p3/3pP3/1b1P4/2NB1N2/PP3PPP/R1BQK2R w KQ - 0 9
9. Bxh7+!

ChessMaster 5000 = 1 min 22. This was on a DOSBOX+Win 95 platform with CM5000 hitting about 30,000nps.
Natively installed, The Chessmaster 9000, running much faster, found this in 42 seconds.
The Mephisto London 68040 132MHz machine took 2 hours to find this.
TASC R30 took 38 minutes.
HIARCS 14.1 on Revelation II took 1 min 39 sec

[Werewolf]

From Capablanca's notes to one of his games:

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Nf3 Ngf6 6. Nxf6+ Nxf6 7. Ne5 Bd6 8. Qf3 c6 9. c3 O-O 10. Bg5 Be7 11. Bd3 Bd7 12. Qh3 h6

[d]r2q1rk1/pp1bbpp1/2p1pn1p/4N1B1/3P4/2PB3Q/PP3PPP/R3K2R w KQ - 0 13
13. Bxh6 !


Mephisto RISC II = not in 15 min.
Mephisto London 68030 = 35 min 55 seconds
London 68040 132 MHz = 8 min
ChessMachine 32MHz (v2.54) 2min 19 sec
MChess 8 Pentium 166Mhz approx 21 mins after looking at 38 million nodes.
Rebel Century 4 (400,000nps) instant.
Pentium III 933MHz Fritz 6 = 2 min 59 sec

[Werewolf]

And one more:

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. d4 Nc6

[d]r1bqkb1r/pppppppp/1nn5/4P3/2PP4/8/PP3PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 5


5. d5!
TASC R40 = 12 seconds.
London 68040 132 MHz = 4 seconds!
London 68030 33MHz = 15 seconds
Vancouver 68030 TM (note 36MHz, 2MB RAM which is more than normal 68030) = 14 sec
Vancouver 68020 = 43 sec
Vancouver 68000 = 1min 18
These Vancouver timings strongly suggest there is no efficiency upgrade from 68020 to 68030, but a 1.81 upgrade from 68000 to 68020. The reason the 68030 is faster is because it uses less power at the same frequency as the 68020 and therefore can be clocked much higher. Therefore the 33MHz Vancouver 68030 is about 5x faster than the 12 MHz 68000.
TASC R30 = 16 sec
RISC II 1MB = 3min 33 sec
Kasparov SPARC 20MHz = 52 sec

[Tibono]

Hi Steve,
in a chess computers competition I recently ran, I have been impressed by The King Performance announcement 'mate in 13', level Normal 5 (average 15secs/move) after 5 seconds and 270 Knodes:

[d]6k1/qp4pb/2p4p/p1n5/2P1N3/P2rQP1P/1P4P1/1K2R3 w - - 0 29

The engine is The King v2.61; CPU: ARM Cortex M7 @300Mhz.

I checked using several modern engines on my PC (Intel Core i5), many are way slower.
As you suspect, The King is very efficient at mating tactics.
Warm regards,
Tibono