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Subject: Re: Which Algorithm is considered the best ?

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 18:42:09 08/11/00

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On August 11, 2000 at 14:46:22, Christophe Theron wrote:

>On August 10, 2000 at 11:06:48, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On August 09, 2000 at 16:42:26, Andrew Williams wrote:
>>
>>>On August 09, 2000 at 16:01:49, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 09, 2000 at 05:41:22, Andrew Williams wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On August 08, 2000 at 15:56:04, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On August 06, 2000 at 16:36:15, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Show me an MTD program that uses less nodes a ply as DIEP does.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>What diep is doing is very simple in search:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  PVS (starting with -infinite)
>>>>>>>  check extensions
>>>>>>>  checks in qsearch
>>>>>>>  nullmove R=3
>>>>>>>  no other crap. no pruning. Perhaps at WMCC i prune a bit,
>>>>>>>  but that's because against computers playing is different.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  Yet i'm missing programs using less nodes a ply with MTD.
>>>>>>>  I"m missing *any* deep searching program that uses MTD actually.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Anmon, a french chess program, uses MTD(f). It is a strong program.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>If you are not pruning in the tree, then MTD(f) should be better for you. I
>>>>>>don't use MTD(f) because I use the value of alpha and beta to prune in the tree,
>>>>>>and with MTD(f) this kind of pruning makes the search really unstable (you get a
>>>>>>fail-high, and when you re-search with a higher window you get a fail-low,
>>>>>>oops).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>    Christophe
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>What you can do in these cases is to use the external bounds instead of
>>>>>alpha and beta. By "external bounds" I mean the bounds that have been
>>>>>established in the mtdf() loop which is driving the alphab-beta search.
>>>>>
>>>>>Cheers
>>>>>
>>>>>Andrew
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Thanks for the idea.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>    Christophe
>>>
>>>I'd like to claim credit for it, but I got it from a post Don Dailey made here
>>>ages ago.
>>>
>>>Andrew
>>
>>
>>I think that solves the 'lazy evaluation' problem.  But I am not sure it is a
>>cure-all for pruning based on alpha and beta...
>
>
>
>As I understand it is like using an artificial alpha and beta. They would be set
>a little bit the way you set alpha and beta for aspiration search, and they are
>not changed during the search (at least they stay unchanged for several
>re-searches).
>
>This should adds stability and the behaviour should be close to what you get
>with standard alphabeta and aspiration search.
>
>I have not tried yet, but that's how I understand it.
>
>
>
>    Christophe

They're not really "artificial" by default... these are the established score
bounds that your search has determined so far.  You can do some guessing and
make it a true "aspiration" window if you want to, but that's not required.

Dave



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