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Advances in Computer Games

ACG 2011: Advances in Computer Games pp 244–257Cite as

Position Criticality in Chess Endgames

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 7168))

Abstract

Some 50,000 Win Studies in Chess challenge White to find an effectively unique route to a win. Judging the impact of less than absolute uniqueness requires both technical analysis and artistic judgment. Here, for the first time, an algorithm is defined to help analyse uniqueness in endgame positions objectively. The key idea is to examine how critical certain positions are to White in achieving the win. The algorithm uses sub-n-man endgame tables (EGTs) for both Chess and relevant, adjacent variants of Chess. It challenges authors of EGT generators to generalise them to create EGTs for these chess variants. It has already proved efficient and effective in an implementation for Starchess, itself a variant of chess. The approach also addresses a number of similar questions arising in endgame theory, games, and compositions.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading, UK

    Guy McC. Haworth

  2. Budapest, Hungary

    Á. Rusz

Authors
  1. Guy McC. Haworth
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  2. Á. Rusz
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tilburg Institute of Cognition and Communication, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    H. Jaap van den Herik  & Aske Plaat  & 

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Haworth, G.M., Rusz, Á. (2012). Position Criticality in Chess Endgames. In: van den Herik, H.J., Plaat, A. (eds) Advances in Computer Games. ACG 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7168. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31866-5_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31866-5_21

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31865-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31866-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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