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H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, May 22, 2008 08:07 AM UTC:
'I cannot speak for Reinhard Scharnagl at all, though.'

This is exactly the problem. 'base value' for Pawns is a very
ill-defined concept, as it is the smallest of all piece base values, while
the positional terms regarding to Pawns are usually the largest of all
positional terms. And the whole issue of pawn-structure evaluation in
Joker is so complex that I am not even sure if the average of positional
terms (over all pawns and over a typical game) is positive or negative.
Pawns get penalties for being doubled, or having no Pawns next or behind
them on neigboring files. They get points for advancing, but they get
penalties for creating squares that no longer can be defended by any Pawn.
My guess is that in general, the positional terms are slightly positive,
even for non-passers not involved in King Safety.

A statement like 'a Knight is worth exactly 3 Pawns' is only meaningful
after exactly specifying which kind of pawn. If the Scharnagl model
evaluates all non-passers exactly the same (except, perhaps, edge Pawns),
then the question still arises how to most-closely approximate that in
Joker80, which doesn't. And simply setting the Joker80 base value equal
to the single value of the Scharnagle model is very unlikely to do it. 

Good differentiation in Pawn evaluation is likely to impact play strength
much more than the relative value of Pawns and Pieces, as Pawns are traded
for other Pawns (or such trades are declined by pushing the Pawn and
locking the chains) much more often than they can be traded for Pieces.

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