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June 21st, 2024

Using Stockfish to identify ideal squares

This blog post explores using Stockfish to determine optimal squares for chess pieces. The program developed evaluates positions, showing potential for positional analysis despite some limitations and areas for improvement.

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Using Stockfish to identify ideal squares

This blog post by jk_182 discusses using Stockfish to identify ideal squares for chess pieces. The author describes a program they developed to determine the best squares for pieces based on evaluations and material considerations. The program was tested on various positions from chess games, showing promising results for knights, bishops, and rooks. However, the author acknowledges limitations in the program, such as unrealistic square suggestions and the need to consider pawn moves for piece activity. Future improvements could involve quantifying the strength of a piece on a square and exploring the concept of the worst-placed piece in a position. The author invites feedback on these ideas and their method for finding ideal squares. Overall, the program shows potential for aiding in positional analysis in chess.

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Link Icon 4 comments
By @imrehg - 4 months
Very interesting, especially when compared to shogi (Japanese chess), where captured pieces can be dropped in anywhere on the board. So for shogi players this "ideal square" calculation can be even more natural and more flexible as well: besides the "getting existing pieces from A to B", the "drop on B" is a lot simpler. No wonder that piece exchanges (so there is something in the hand to drop) are basic feature of the gameplay.

(Source: being a fan of shogi but very very very early in my learning journey, so experts would likely describe this differently.)

By @rhdunn - 4 months
The unrealistic squares issue could be resolved by using legal moves for the piece. You could then evaluate the best for 1 move, 2 moves, up to e.g. 4 moves. You could also eliminate moves that visit a square already reached by a previous square to avoid duplicates.

It may be interesting to apply weights to reduce the score of squares many moves away. This would need to handle advantageous positions like check or checkmate.

By @greymalik - 4 months
> This exercise involves looking at a piece and imagining which square it would be best placed on, without initially worrying about how to get it there.

Without using Stockfish, how does one do this in their head? What rubric can you use to evaluate whether one square is better than another? (I’m a very low level player, obviously,)

By @notarealllama - 4 months
Nice, long time lichess player including blitz arenas but had no idea they had articles.

Some interesting analysis here and how to approach the problem domain (pawn structure as a concern) but that first example, there is just no way to get that knight there in any reasonable way. Talking about unrealistic moves.