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Aberg variation of Capablanca's Chess. Different setup and castling rules. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Hans Aberg wrote on Sun, Apr 27, 2008 10:23 AM UTC:
Me:
| So in general, one P ahead does not win, but in special circumstances 
| it can be,  ...
H.G.Muller:
| This is already not true. In general, one Pawn ahead does win in a Pawn ending. KPK
| is an exception (or at least some positions in it are).

My statement referred to this particular ending. For other endings, I indicated it depends on the playing strength, noting that a GM would make sure to win whenever possible, but a weaker player may prefer more material. It is classification for developing playing strategies, not the theoretically best one.

| But is is still completely unclear to me how this has any bearing on piece values.

Change the values radically, and see what happens...

| KPK is a solved end-game (i.e. tablebases exist), so the concept of piece value is
| completely useless there. In solved end-games it only matters if the position is
| won, ...

It is true of all chess positions, not only end-game.

| ...and having KPK in a won position is better than having KQK in a drawn position.

So here one the point-system would be useless, if one faces the possibility of having to choose between those two cases. But the point system will say that KQ will win over KP unless there are some special circumstances, not that it will win in a certain percentage if players of the same strength are making some random changes in their play.

| I don't see how you could draw a conclusion from that that a Pawn has a higher value
| than a Queen.

I have no idea what this refers to.

| Piece values is a heuristic to be used in unsolved positions, to determine who has
| likely the better winning chances.

Only that the 'winning chances' does not refer to a percentage of won games of equal strength players making random variations, which is what you are testing. It refers to something else, which can be hard to capture giving its development history.