Draw and stalemate (1/2 - 1/2 result) analysis

[dbergan]

Hi,

I'm new to this site and would like someone's help navigating the ccrl games. What I'm looking for is a qualitative breakdown of all the 1/2 - 1/2 games the computer played. How many of them were White stalemating Black? How many were Black stalemating White? How many were draws by 3-move repetition? How many were 50-move draws?

And then I'd like to know what material each side had in these various draws... how many of the 50-move draws are king v king. How many are king + bishop v king, etc.

Does such a breakdown already exist? If not, does anyone know of any programs that could help? Is there a list of the FENs for the final game positions somewhere?

Thanks,
David

[Adam Hair]

Hi,

I'm new to this site and would like someone's help navigating the ccrl games. What I'm looking for is a qualitative breakdown of all the 1/2 - 1/2 games the computer played. How many of them were White stalemating Black? How many were Black stalemating White? How many were draws by 3-move repetition? How many were 50-move draws?

And then I'd like to know what material each side had in these various draws... how many of the 50-move draws are king v king. How many are king + bishop v king, etc.

Does such a breakdown already exist? If not, does anyone know of any programs that could help? Is there a list of the FENs for the final game positions somewhere?

Thanks,
David

Hi David,

Normally I would produce that sort of data upon request, but I am busy with a project at this time. So, I will point you to the free tools that I would use to extract that data from the CCRL databases.

1) Scid vs PC ( http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/ ) can probably answer all of your questions. You can import a PGN and search for games that match either criteria for the PGN tags or in the body of a game (such as 50 move limit, 3 move rep, or stalemate). Also, you can extract games that fulfill material criteria (such as K vs KB). There is one problem that you will have to work around. The CCRL uses the Round tag to number each game in our databases. Scid vs PC has an upper limit for how many unique Round tags it can handle, and that limit is less than the number of unique games found in the CCRL 40/40 and CCRL 40/4 databases. You will have to split up the databases into manageable chunks and edit the Round tags with a text editor (I edit all games such that the tag looks like [Round "?"]), or use a script to edit those tags.

2) Pgn Extract ( ftp://ftp.cs.kent.ac.uk/pub/djb/pgn-extract/help.html ; download http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/ ) is also a very useful program that can do much of what Scid can do and things that it can't. But Pgn Extract is a command line program (Scid vs PC is a GUI). Some people are uncomfortable with using the command line. Even so, Pgn Extract is easy to use.

3) Norm Pollock's PGN and EPD utilities ( http://www.hoflink.com/~npollock/chess.html ) is like a Siss army knife - many different utilities that are useful for extracting data. You can use Pgn Extract and a couple of Norm's EPD utilities to produce the FENs of the final positions of all games in the databases. Or produce FENs for different material counts. And many other things.

I use these programs a lot. However, there are a couple more programs that may be useful to you.

4) CQL - Chess Query Language ( http://www.rbnn.com/cql/ ) is a program that allows you to find games with more complex conditions. From the website:

CQL specifies a small but powerful set of primitives to define chess themes. CQL can find much more complex themes than any other chess program. Users have searched for themes like stalemates with multiple pins; games in which the same position recurs but with the winning side missing just one piece; Nowotny and Grimshaw themes, games with some number of captures on a single square, games with a certain number of black and white passed pawns, and many more.

I have used it a few times and it seemed to be fairly easy to learn. There are several query examples to learn by.

5) Joined ( http://download1900.mediafire.com/c1zl3 ... joined.zip ) is a program that can extract statistics from a database, such as the number of short and long castles, game lengths, and stalemates (to list a few things that it extracts).

Good luck,
Adam

[Ray]

Of course a good number of draws will simply have been adjudicated by the GUI.

[BFG]

I had a stalemate the other day due to No Legal Moves. That one's pretty rare - I didn't expect to actually see it in computer play. Wish I could remember which game it was.