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Subject: Re: How to order moves

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 15:34:17 03/30/00

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On March 30, 2000 at 15:47:03, Inmann Werner wrote:

>On March 30, 2000 at 15:39:09, Peter Fendrich wrote:
>
>>On March 30, 2000 at 15:04:09, Inmann Werner wrote:
>>
>>>On March 30, 2000 at 11:07:16, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Here is mine:
>>>>
>>>>1.  hash table move.
>>>>2.  captures that don't appear to lose material using a SEE procdedure,
>>>>ordered from biggest gain to equal exchanges.
>>>>3.  2 killer moves.
>>>>4.  up to 4 history ordered moves (history heuristic)
>>>>5.  rest of the moves.
>>>
>>>question to 5)
>>>here is the rest of the non capturing moves and the "loosing capture" moves.
>>>Which of them should be searched first?
>>>
>>>IMHO the non capturing moves.
>>>
>>>Werner
>>
>>I don't think you should order them at all...
>>When the program reaches this point it will probably not find a fail high for
>>the current node and the sorting will only cost performance without giving much
>>in return.
>>//Peter
>
>Excuse, but I do not agree.
>Why should a good positional move not produce a fail high?
>And i do not sort. I only give the moves "values" at generation time. In search,
>I only look at the first 9 moves in an ordered way, the rest i pick at random.
>My question is: When I produce the "loosing captures" (together with all
>captures), I can give them a small positive or a negative value (without cost).
>
>I give them a negative value, and it works a little better than otherwise.
>
>Werner


The reason is this:  If you spend much time sorting, and (as in Crafty) 92%
of the fail highs happen on the first move searched, by the time you get thru
the captures, the killers, and the history moves, the probability of a fail
high is _very_ remote.   How much time are you willing to invest to get that
occasional quick fail high?  Hard to say what the right answer is, there...



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