05-24-2004, 09:53 PM
Hi,
That is, in effect, what tablebases do. They look at all possible combinations of positions with some number of pieces. The 50 gig or so that I have consider all cases with up to 8 pieces (total for both sides and including the two kings). Now, for king knight versus king knight bishop it takes less than 1 kilobyte. For king rook bishop versus king 3 knights bishop, it takes almost 2 gigabytes. And, remember, each tablebase depends on those "under" it, i.e., when one piece is lost by either side, the tablebase for the reduced number of pieces is used.
So, if going from 5 pieces to 8 increases it by a factor of a million, consider what going from 8 to 32 (a full board) would do. Even if the calculation could be done, where would you store the results?
--Pete
That is, in effect, what tablebases do. They look at all possible combinations of positions with some number of pieces. The 50 gig or so that I have consider all cases with up to 8 pieces (total for both sides and including the two kings). Now, for king knight versus king knight bishop it takes less than 1 kilobyte. For king rook bishop versus king 3 knights bishop, it takes almost 2 gigabytes. And, remember, each tablebase depends on those "under" it, i.e., when one piece is lost by either side, the tablebase for the reduced number of pieces is used.
So, if going from 5 pieces to 8 increases it by a factor of a million, consider what going from 8 to 32 (a full board) would do. Even if the calculation could be done, where would you store the results?
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?