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Subject: Re: Can One Use Hash Statistics To Estimate The Size Of Chess?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:16:39 05/09/01

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On May 09, 2001 at 07:24:35, Graham Laight wrote:

>Just a thought - I don't know whether it's going to be useful or not.
>
>Suppose you switch off the opening books, and play the opening to the middlegame
>from the engine.
>
>What I would like to know is whether there is a correlation between the depth of
>search and the proportion of node positions which have already been seen.
>
>Would the hash hit statistics be able to show this?



They could show it but they would be wrong.  We currently has raw positions,
and we _know_ we are wrong in doing so since we don't hash the move path to
reach the position, so that we overlook draws by repetition and 50-moves that
we just accept as an error term.

If you factor in move path information, I think the transposition hit rate
would be pretty constant no matter how deep you search, compared to what we
see today due to faulty hashing.




>
>If this can be discovered, I suspect that we're going to find that the deeper we
>search, the higher the proportion of nodes we generate will have already been
>seen.
>
>In terms of estimating the size of chess, what would be REALLY interesting would
>be to see the shape of the following graph: proportion of repeated positions
>plotted against depth of search.

See above.  With today's programs, this might look good.  But it would be
both wrong and misleading and if we _could_ (say) search to a depth of 300-400
plies, we would _all_ be hashing correctly or we would be drawing won games
right and left.



>
>If the graph turns out to be a straight line (a normal correlation), then chess
>is smaller than we all think. If the graph turns out to be logarithmic, then
>chess is very big, and it's going to be difficult to solve.

It is _very_ big.



>
>Does anyone out there know what the shape of the graph of hash hits against
>search depth is?
>
>-g


Depends on whether you mean "todays incorrect hashing scheme" or "a real hashing
scheme".




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