H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Apr 22, 2020 09:50 AM EDT:
It was not my intention to upset anyone, but in this era of fake news it is important to unambiguously suppress erroneous information at the source. All too easily it will spread as an oil stain over the internet, and become 'common knowledge' that no one doubts because they see it everywhere. That Zillions piece values are no good should be common knowledge. (Or is it, really? Or do only authors of ZRF games know that, and would the average reader be intimidated that a computer did say it, so that it must be true?) So yes, a disclaimer like "these values are based on pure guessing / mobility calculation / play testing in five hundred games" would be very useful.
And I don't agree with the statement that any method for determining piece-value "sucks". If, after trading a Rook for two Knights in an otherwise equal position, both sides would still score about 50% in 1000 games, I would say that this is very strong evidence that a Rook is exactly twice as valuable as two Knights. (And thus N = 2.5, if R=5 served as a standard.)
Interesting point about the Metamachy/Zanzibar Pawn speed. The measurements I referred to were with FIDE Pawns. But beware that this willcould have a huge effect on piece values. Bishops will be no good at all for stopping multiple passers, which would just jump over the diagonals controlled by a Bishop. Not even a Bishop pair will be able gain an isolated Metamachy passer, as it cannot attack both squares in front of it, as well as attack the Pawn itself at the same time. Which a Rook can still easily do, by attacking the passer from the same file.
It was not my intention to upset anyone, but in this era of fake news it is important to unambiguously suppress erroneous information at the source. All too easily it will spread as an oil stain over the internet, and become 'common knowledge' that no one doubts because they see it everywhere. That Zillions piece values are no good should be common knowledge. (Or is it, really? Or do only authors of ZRF games know that, and would the average reader be intimidated that a computer did say it, so that it must be true?) So yes, a disclaimer like "these values are based on pure guessing / mobility calculation / play testing in five hundred games" would be very useful.
And I don't agree with the statement that any method for determining piece-value "sucks". If, after trading a Rook for two Knights in an otherwise equal position, both sides would still score about 50% in 1000 games, I would say that this is very strong evidence that a Rook is exactly twice as valuable as two Knights. (And thus N = 2.5, if R=5 served as a standard.)
Interesting point about the Metamachy/Zanzibar Pawn speed. The measurements I referred to were with FIDE Pawns. But beware that this willcould have a huge effect on piece values. Bishops will be no good at all for stopping multiple passers, which would just jump over the diagonals controlled by a Bishop. Not even a Bishop pair will be able gain an isolated Metamachy passer, as it cannot attack both squares in front of it, as well as attack the Pawn itself at the same time. Which a Rook can still easily do, by attacking the passer from the same file.