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Ideal Values and Practical Values (part 3). More on the value of Chess pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Michael Nelson wrote on Thu, Jul 10, 2003 03:26 PM UTC:

Robert,

I think you are on the right track.  I think the Bishop needs a reduction
due to colorboundness, and 10% would make it equal to the Knight. The
Amazon seems a little high. Perhaps this is because the Amazon's awesome
forking power is a bit harder to use--for example, forking the enemy King
and defended Queen is terrific if you fork with a Knight, but useless if
you fork with an Amazon.

I think that it is neccessary to take the forwardness of mobility and
forking power into account--indisputably, a piece that moves forward as a
Bishop and backwards as a Rook (fBbR) is stronger than the opposite case
(fRbB).

Nevertheless, your numbers aren't bad at all as is.  They seem to have
decent predictive value for 'normal' pieces ( a 'normal' piece moves
the same way as it captures, and its move pattern is unchanged by a
rotation of 90 degrees of any multiple). Various types of divergent pieces
will need corrections--I would assume that a WcR (moves as Wazir, captures
as Rook) is stonger than a WmR (capatures as Wazir, moves as Rook) and
that both are a bit weaker than the average of the Wazir value and the
Rook value.