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H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, May 28, 2019 05:30 AM UTC:

Indeed, these asymmetric variants from the musketeer.net website are very unbalanced. Sometimes as badly as playing 6 minors against 6 Rooks in FIDE.

I discovered that the generalization of 'unlike Bishops' in KingSlayer's drawishness detection is not satisfactory. I had it only kick in when both sides have a single piece (plus Pawns, possibly different 1 or 2 in number), and both these pieces are color bound. But from watching games with the Clobberers I noticed it still stumbles in completely hopeless draws with a huge 'naive' advantage. E.g. there was a game where it had Bede and Fad on the same shade, plus an extra passer, versus a Half Duck. All the opponent's Pawns were on the safe shade, ('passively' blocking his own, i.e. without the possibility to offer trades or a majority to create new passers), and the enemy King was blocking the passer on a safe square. All the Half Duck had to do to block all progress was neutralizing any King attacks on its Pawns. Which it could easily do sitting on the safe shade, though its F and D moves. A single Bishop on the safe color (which can also protect from a safe distance) would also have done.

So I guess any situation where you have only to like-shaded color-bounds plus Pawns should be classified as drawish when the opponent has a piece with significant diagonal power (so it can keep a Pawn protected against King attack) that is not bound to the same shade as the attacker. Under some conditions a Ferz would even do (e.g. a Pawn and the Ferz mutually protect each other, and block two opponent Pawns, while the King blocks the third (which is a passer). Tempo moves can be done with King or Ferz, depending on which of the two is far away from the attacking King. No way Bede + Fad + 3 Pawns would be able to beat Ferz + Pawn. While the naive advantage would be about +9 (Bede, Fad being worth 4-4.5, Ferz 1.5 Pawn)! Of course there is no Ferz in CwDA, but there are pieces with F moves. (They are of course worth a bit more, but then you are still at +7 instead of +9.) A or D moves could sometimes do too, when two connected Pawns and the piece cyclically  protect each other (although with D moves you can then only block two Pawns, rather than three).

So end-games with same-shade color bounds can also very drawish even with many Pawns, even when not just Pawns ahead but also in pieces. I guess these must be heavily discounted in order to play well with or against the Clobberers. Having a Knight as defending piece would probably not do very well, though, due to its color alternation. So it would depend on what pieces exactly the opponent has.


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