H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, May 21, 2008 08:29 PM UTC:
Is there any special reason you want to keep the Pawn value equal in all
trial versions, rather than, say, the total value of the army, or the
value of the Queen? Especially in the Scharnagl settings it makes almost
every piece rather light compared to the quick guesses used for pruning.
Note that there are so many positional modifiers on the value of a pawn
(not only determined by its own position, but also by the relation to
other friendly and enemy pawns) that I am not sure what the base value
really means. Even if I say that it represents the value of a Pawn at g2,
the evaluation points lost on deleting a pawn on g2 will depend on if
there are pawns on e- and i-file, and how far they are advanced, and on
the presence of pawns on the f- and h-file (which mighht become backward
or isolated), and of course if losing the pawn would create a passer for
the opponent.
If I were you, I would normalize all models to Q=950, but then replace
the
pawn value everywhere by 85 (I think the standard value used in Joker is
even 75). I don't think you could say then that you deviate from the
model, as the models do not really specify which type of Pawn they use as
a standard. My value refers to the g2 pawn in an opening setup. Perhaps
Reinhard's value refers to an 'average' pawn, in a typical pawn chain
occurring in the early middle game, or a Pawn on d4/e4 (which is the most
likely to be traded).
As to the B-pair: tricky question. The way you did it now would make the
first Bishop to be traded of the value the model prescribes, but would
make the second much lighter. If you would subtract half the bonus, then
on the average they would be what the model prescribes. The value is
indeed hard-wired in Joker, but if you really want, I could make it
adjustable through a 8th parameter.