sbarber
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re:Counting space - Seirawan's Play Winning Chess - 2007/12/01 22:28
I just spent a good part of my morning figuring this out, and I think I've got it nailed.
Here's the space count algorithm Seirawan uses in Play Winning Chess:
The space count for a color equals the sum of the space counts for each piece of that color, of course.
The space count for each piece is calculated like this:
1) Identify each square the piece could legally move in the current position, including captures.
2) (This is the nonobvious part) Identify each square the piece could legally move if no other piece of its color were occupying the terminal square of the move. (Another way of looking at this is to count the squares occupied by other pieces protected by the piece being counted.)
3) Count the squares identified in # 1 and # 2 above. This is the square count for the piece.
Note that this algorithm will indeed end up with squares being counted multiple times if multiple pieces could move to or protect a given square.
While Seirawan does not actually explain his space counting algorithm clearly in PWC, he does explain some of it, and the rest I derived by working all the examples in Chapter 4 and verifying that the counts I got were the same as the counts he got.
OK, that mystery of how to calculate the space count is solved.
The mystery of why he counts space this way remains, at least for me -- seems like there are a number of alternative ways that could be used to count space.
Indeed, looking at all the other definitions of space counting I could find didn't clear any of this up. The actual definitions used are imprecise, and vary a bit. Indeed, Seirawan himself uses a different definition in PWC than he does in one of his other books Winning Chess Strategies. A quick glance at how space is defined in Winning Chess Strategies almost leads to the opposite conclusion: your space is not a measure of where you can move/protec, but rather a measure of where your opponent can't move and you can. And this from the same authors!
OK, I'm but a beginner at chess at just working on puzzling this out. Imprecisions and inconsistencies aside, I figure if an International Grand Master devotes a whole chapter to this technique in his introductory book on chess, he must think it's pretty important, and there's probably something to be learned here, so that's why I worked to understand it in detail. Now, the hard part: I have to figure out if it helps to apply this metric and how.
I asked my 9 year old son, who has played a lot more chess than I have and who has had lessons from very good teachers, about this idea of how to exactly perform space counting in chess. His reply was interesting: "Don't worry about it, Dad, it's not really important."
My current thought is that Seirawan and my son are both probably right: the idea of obtaining and using space when evaluating a planning a chess game is important. However, the precise details of how to calculate a space count probably are not. That is, it's just one rough measure, like assigning numerical ratings to each piece to calculate material advantage (force) is also a rough measure and just one of many factors to consider. A rule of thumb at best.
-Steve
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I cannot comment yet. I gotta let this sink in first 