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Subject: Re: What is the Success Rate of Killer/History Moves?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 20:55:25 05/31/00

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On May 31, 2000 at 16:29:48, Roberto Waldteufel wrote:

>On May 31, 2000 at 13:00:07, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>
>>On May 31, 2000 at 12:24:20, Roberto Waldteufel wrote:
>>
>>>On May 31, 2000 at 12:01:22, Ed Schröder wrote:
>>>
>>>>On May 31, 2000 at 04:16:44, Roberto Waldteufel wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I am experimenting with some move ordering heuristics and I would like to know
>>>>>for comparison what percentage of moves proposed and searched by the killer
>>>>>and/or history heuristic lead to cut-offs in other programs. Many thanks in
>>>>>advance for any info
>>>>>
>>>>>Roberto
>>>>
>>>>It depends. It will strongly depend on what you already have in your
>>>>program. If you (for instance) don't have "the best move from the hash
>>>>table" in your program the "killer heuristic" will give you a lot more
>>>>than if you already have the "best move from the hash table".
>>>>
>>>>But implement a 2-slot "killer heuristic" by all means. It should give
>>>>you a clear speed-up. Maybe just 5-10%, maybe a lot more. As already
>>>>said, it depends.
>>>>
>>>>Ed
>>>
>>>Hi Ed,
>>>
>>>Thank you for my response. Perhaps I should have made myself more clear - what I
>>>am doing is experimenting with a new heuristic that suggests a move to try for a
>>>quick cut-off. I wanted to know how effective it was compared to the commonly
>>>used methods for doing this. I do try the hash table move first, then the move
>>>proposed by my test heuristic if the hash move did not produce a cut-off. My
>>>heuristic generates a cut-off about 65%-75% of all the times it is invoked. It
>>>is meant to be an alternative to history/killer heuristic for closing move
>>>prediction, but I am not sure how well this figure compares to the well tried
>>>methods.
>>
>>Make sure you're also searching captures before anything else.
>>
>>-Tom
>
>
>My currant move order is:-
>
>1)Null Move
>
>2)Hash move
>
>3)My heuristic move (if legal and different from (2))
>

The next three are 'broken'.  They should all be folded together.  IE
ep captures could be the first one chosen.  And you should certainly search
e8=Q before trying Bxh6, assuming e8=q doesn't lose material.

Also castling moves are just "moves".  these could be suggested by the killer
heuristic, by the history heuristic, but I wouldn't try them in a fixed place
just because they are castling moves.




>4)Captures in MVV/LVA order
>
>5)Non-capturing pawn promotions
>
>6)En Passant captures
>
>7)Castling
>
>8)Non-capture Moves with all pieces except the king and pawns
>
>9)Non-capture king moves
>
>10)Non-capture/Non-Promoting Pawn moves
>
>The heuristic move is not available in the immediate successor to a null move,
>but is available at all other nodes except for the quiescence search and nodes
>where the side to move is in check. It is sometimes the same as the hash move
>anyway (so not tried a second time), since the move will be tried first if no
>hash move exists, and will then be the hash move (assuming a cutoff generated)
>in subsequent iterations, so that it is most useful when either there is no hash
>move in the table or the hash move fails to generate a cut-off. I should add
>that my program uses MTDF, so it revisits nodes and has a correspondingly high
>hit rate for hash moves. Also the heuristic move can be (and often is) a capture
>or promotion. I don't have killer tables, and I wondered how good my heuristic
>was compared to killer tables. Would ordinary killers produce cutoffs in more
>than 65%-75% of nodes where the hash move has not already done so?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Roberto



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