OpenChess

Hello,

i'm quite a newbie to chess and computer chess, but i noticed a strange behaviour (at least strange to my mind) with Houdini 1.5 engine.

I'm working with the Fritz12 GUI.
I've been analysing some lost position in analysis mode for a long time with 3 main lines displayed.
After a while, the computer starts showing the # (mate symbol) followed by the number of moves (something from 20 to 60) for all 3 lines.

The strange thing is that the number of moves for the mate should (i think) decrease with time (if computer find a better move for the attacking camp) but it's actually raising sometimes which i find a bit dubious. If the # (mate) symbol is displayed, how could the defender camp find a move that let him alive for a longuer sequence ?

I hope I made myself clear enought...

This test was run with a 1Gb hash on a Core2 duo comuter under Vista

Regards,

Mathieu

Maybe the move order was not the best in the mate line and
the engine had noticed this sometime later.
Kurt

Hello,

I'm not sure i'm understanding well but if the engine annonce a mate in N move line, then it hase be sure to mate in "at most" N moves, isn't it ?

Then the only way the N number should change is by lowering, if the engine finds a better "attacking" move (there should be no better defending move) but i don't see a good reason why this number should increase as i observed...

Any clue ?

Regards,

Mathieu

Q7/2k5/1p1q3p/2bB4/6R1/P4P1P/KPP3P1/4r3 b - - 0 47

The following position gives the described behaviour :

i'm displaying the engine output for the 2 first lines which are :
1 : 47..Re8
2 : 47 : Rd1

After some time, line 2 shows mate in 29 and later on, it shows mate in 32 (about 18 minutes on my machine)

Regards,

Mathieu