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> In my empirical piece-value determinations I never noticed any significant discrepancy with the orthodox values.


Odd, I seem to remember reading about your Joker engine testing material values for FIDE and getting a Rook value that was unexpectedly low.

I also seem to recall the same engine testing the Bishop-Knight compound and finding its value unexpectedly high compared to the Queen and Rook-Knight (closer than the values of their component pieces).  And I do not recall anyone offering a predictive theory capable of explaining that.

Betza also performed computer tests and human playtests on the value of the Commoner (nonroyal King), and was convinced that the computer value was wrong.  I recall that you disagree with him on this point, but that Wikipedia article I linked a couple of posts back cites two sources that seem to at least vaguely support his conclusions (end-game fighting power of the king placed higher than knight or bishop).

Have your formulas for short-range leaper values been verified by anything other than your own chess engine?  It's certainly impressive, and it's plausible, but if it's based entirely on one source, then it's hard to tell how far we should trust it.  Perhaps more importantly, symmetrical short-range leapers are a rather special subclass of pieces; I would be hard-pressed to name a single CV whose pieces all fit into that class.



Incidentally, did you ever finish that new chess engine you were working on that you said you wanted to complete before running more complicated tests?  Spartacus, I think.