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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!sbcs!bnl44!bnl!stern
From: stern@bnl.UUCP (eric)
Newsgroups: net.chess
Subject: Re: Strange move by chess(6)
Message-ID: <137@bnl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Jul-85 00:25:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: bnl.137
Posted: Thu Jul 18 00:25:53 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 17:13:13 EDT
References: <1627@qubix.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Brookhaven National Lab. Upton, N.Y.
Lines: 52

> Was playing /usr/games/chess and found the computer making a move I
> cannot explain (White == Q-Bick, Black = Vax 4.2BSD):
> 
>  1.  p-k4	P-K4
>  2.  b-b4	N-QB3
>  3.  p-q3	B-B4
>  4.  n-qb3	N-KB3
>  5.  b-kn5	O-O
>  6.  n-q5	P-QR4		<-- Why ?? (perhaps just "?" :-)

The chess program has a command that lets you know what it
thinks it is doing (sort of).  If you say "test", it will print
out a list of all moves and their values in its evaluation
algorithm.  I haven't figured out what it all means, but
the first five columns are summed to get a total "positional"
evaluation.  Moves are listed in decreasing order in this
positional evaluation.  Another column is set negative if a
computer's piece can be taken.  I don't fully understand
what the actual value of this column does.

The chess program also has a bunch of other undocumented
features that I wonder if anybody knows about.  I reproduce
here the help file I set up for our system.

Typing an empty line prints the board. White pieces are lower case and
Black pieces are upper case.  Moves are entered in descriptive notation,
such as p-k4, n-kb3 pxp, q-r5+ or in algebraic notation like
e2e4, g1f3, e4d5.  Other commands available:

score	Gives a list of moves so far.
first	As the first move, lets you play black
alg	Switch to algebraic notation
clock	Give the time each player has used so far
save	Save the game in the file chess.out
restore	Restore the game from the file chess.out
remove	Take back one move
hint	The machine tells you what it thinks your best move is
setup	Sets up the board with a position entered from the keyboard.
	Pieces are entered starting with row 8, and moving across
	files from A-H.  Black pieces are uppercase (K,Q,R,B,N,P), and
	white pieces are lowercase letters (k,q,r,b,n,p).  Entering
	a piece inserts in on the current square and moves the current
	square over one in the entering order given above.  Each
	row is entered on one line.  Typing a space moves over to
	the next square, typing a digit moves over that number of
	squares.  Typing return, moves to the next row.  All eight
	rows must be entered.


						Eric G. Stern
						stern@bnl.arpa
						...!philabs!sbcs!bnl!stern