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H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Apr 19, 2009 07:26 AM UTC:
Yes, it seems I have to go 'back to basics', and first make sure that the
program handles the pieces well. I was running the test where the Guanaco
did so poorly with programmed-in values that had the Guanaco worth slightly
less than a Knight (240 vs 259 in the peculiar micro-Max internal units
that have B=296). So the problem you mention could not have occurred.

I did not program the Guanaco as a piece that has to be centralized,
however. Fairy-Max knows two kind of pieces, those that are lightly) drawn
to the center (Kings, Knights and Bishops), and those that move neutrally
over the board (which works better for Rooks and Queens). I programmed the
Guanaco as belonging to the latter group, because I figurered that its rider
moves woud make it behave like a Rook, while the Llama was obviously short
range and not very valuable, so the center was the obvious place for that.
But perhaps the Guanaco has to be centralized to perform well. This can
matter a lot: for the Lion (FWADN) I initially figured that it was too
valuable to centralize it (it would only be chased), but giving the program
a drive to centralize upped its value by nearly half a Pawn.

So the first thing I will do now (last night's tests were spoiled by
auto-updates...) is to test a symmetric position with Guanaco-for-Knight
substitution, between two differently configured versions of Fairy-Max, one
that centralizes the Guanaco, the other that doesn't. (And perhaps repeat
it with Guanaco-for-Bishop substtutions, or GG for BN.) This should tell me
if a Guanaco gets you more when it is centralized.

After that I will do a a Guanaco vs Llama test, between idenical engines
that handle the Guanaco in the way that proved best. In this test I will
configure the Guanaco only very slightly above the Llama in value. We know
the Guanaco must be better. This should result in an initial empirical
Guanaco-Llama difference. The test should then be repeated with this value
programmed in, for confirmation.

One question: would the end-game you show not be equally won when black
had a Llama rather than a Guanaco? That it is won might be due more to
thefact that black has an extra Pawn, while white has two very awkward
Pawns (one backward, one isolated) than to the Guanaco being so powerful.

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