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Aberg variation of Capablanca's Chess. Different setup and castling rules. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

H.G.Muller wrote on Thu, Apr 24, 2008 10:24 AM EDT:

It seems to me that the example you sketch is exactly what the piece-value
system cannot solve and is not intended to solve. You want to have an
estimate of how much material it wil cost the opponent to solve a certain
mobility or King-safety advantage. Those are questions about the
corresponding positional evaluation, not about piece values.

Mind you, I am not saying that these positional values are not important.
They can be worth many Pawns. But a system of piece values cannot be any
good unless it is also able to (statistically) predict the outcome of a
game from a given position if these positional terms are negligibly small,
or exactly cancel for the two sides. This is why I only use symmetric
positions, without blocked Pawns (to avoid positions where the differences
needed to create the material imbalance could include trapped pieces).

First you have to know piece values, to be able to handle quiet positions
without extreme positional characteristics. Once you have those, you are
in a position to quantitatively express the equivalent material value of
positional characteristics like King safety and piece trapping.