Introducing myself and my chess program

[hgm]

Duly noted, It will drop material without Quiescence. What I am saying is that when it in think mode, it shouldn't just place a piece en prise without any kind of exchange happening, and it shouldn't capture a protected pawn with its Queen, unless it can capture your queen on the next move.

But this is exactly what it will do if you have no quiescence search. Its whole reasoning will be domnated then by the desire to capture a valuable piece on the last ply before the horizon, no matter if this piece is defended or not. Usually with its Queen, as this can most easily attack other pieces. And when it sees a suitable target, say a Rook, it will then try to prevent you from withdrawing it out of reach, by keeping you occupied with capturing minor material in all preceeding moves. So it will ply pieces to unsafe squares where the opponent cannot ignore them because of the threats they pose, but can simply capture them.

[Fguy64]

Duly noted, It will drop material without Quiescence. What I am saying is that when it in think mode, it shouldn't just place a piece en prise without any kind of exchange happening, and it shouldn't capture a protected pawn with its Queen, unless it can capture your queen on the next move.

But this is exactly what it will do if you have no quiescence search. Its whole reasoning will be domnated then by the desire to capture a valuable piece on the last ply before the horizon, no matter if this piece is defended or not. Usually with its Queen, as this can most easily attack other pieces. And when it sees a suitable target, say a Rook, it will then try to prevent you from withdrawing it out of reach, by keeping you occupied with capturing minor material in all preceeding moves. So it will ply pieces to unsafe squares where the opponent cannot ignore them because of the threats they pose, but can simply capture them.

I'm not sure I follow. perhaps I misunderstand quiescense. My understanding is that when your program is set to calculate to a certain depth, then quiescense will follow after that depth as long as there is a possibility for pieces to be exchanged. Is that correct?

My program is simplistic granted, , but there is a little brute force 3-ply material minimax thing it does. And in a position with a white pawn on a2 and a black queen on b3, and only the kings somewhere else, it will move the black queen every time. and it will never respond to 1.e4 with 1...b5

it won't just hang a piece without some kind of other interaction happening that will also affect the material balance. I think maybe I have not made myself clear when I talk about what it means 'hang a piece'.

regards.