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Subject: Re: Cabablilities of a SEE

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 14:20:20 10/04/01

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On October 04, 2001 at 14:59:39, Paul wrote:

>On October 04, 2001 at 14:19:03, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On October 04, 2001 at 10:55:32, Paul wrote:
>>
>>>On October 04, 2001 at 10:41:30, Tim Foden wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 04, 2001 at 10:11:36, Paul wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On October 04, 2001 at 07:03:14, Tim Foden wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Hi All,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I decided that I would add a 2nd SEE to GLC to check whether GLC's SEE was
>>>>>>working.  I actually ported GCP's Sjeng SEE (that was posted to the forum a
>>>>>>while ago).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Both SEE routines now agree in most curcumstances, but one's like the following
>>>>>>have cropped up (where they disagree):
>>>>>>
>>>>>>[D]5rk1/1pp2R1p/p1pb4/6q1/3P1p2/2P4r/PP1BQ1P1/5RKN w - - 2 0
>>>>>>
>>>>>>This can be evaluated in 2 ways...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>(1) BxP (+1000) BxB (-3500) R1xB (+3500) QxR (-5500) RxQ (+10000) RxR (-5500)
>>>>>>.........+1000.......-2500........+1000.......-4500........+5500...........0
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> value = 0
>>>>>>
>>>>>>(2) BxP (+1000) BxB (-3500) R7xB (+3500) RxR (-5500) RxR (+5500) QxR (-5500)
>>>>>>.........+1000.......-2500........+1000.......-4500.......+1000.......-4500
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> value = -2500
>>>>>>
>>>>>>So... on to the questions:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>a) Does anyone's SEE do anything intelligent in these cases?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>b) Is one of these right, and the other wrong?  If so, which one?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>c) Do we actually care, as long as the SEE works in the majority of cases?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Cheers, Tim.
>>>>>
>>>>>I haven't studied SEE yet, but shouldn't (2) also result in a value = 0, since
>>>>>you don't have to take the pawn being white? I mean, you start with a value of
>>>>>0, right?
>>>>
>>>>Yes, you start with a value of 0.  In this particular case I think that (1)
>>>>above is best.  But should a SEE routine care?  I mean... maybe this kind of
>>>>thing doesn't occur often enough to worry about.  I'm not sure about this, so
>>>>I'm asking questions to see if anyone else has a better idea.
>>>>
>>>>Cheers, Tim.
>>>
>>>No, I guess I didn't make myself clear ... I meant: why do you say value=-2500
>>>in case (2) and not value=0? I thought that SEE worked in such a way that you:
>>>
>>>(a) play out all the captures for both sides to the end, and then
>>>(b) work your way back to the front to see where each should stop capturing to
>>>    max its own result.
>>>
>>>Now if you do that for white in case (2), shouldn't (b) result in white not
>>>capturing anything and so value=0?
>>>
>>>Hope you can point out where I go totally wrong. :)
>>>
>>>Groetjes,
>>>Paul
>>
>>
>>The point here is that you are asking, in the program "does taking this pawn
>>win, lose, or break even?"  If the answer is "lose" then you don't make the
>>capture at all.  If the answer is win, you always make it.  If the answer is
>>break even  you can do what you want.  You are correct that taking the pawn is
>>not forced here.  My SEE works as he explained.  It assumes that you _must_
>>take the pawn, and tells you whether you win, lose or break even.  You use that
>>do decide whether to _actually_ take it or not.
>
>I understand, but this is all new to me so please bear with me.
>
>Now suppose the capture on f4 is beneficial for white, so you capture with white
>and do a recursive call to Quiescence(). You generate a new list of capturing
>moves, and while iterating through this list at a certain moment you're going to
>be faced with captures to & SEE calculations for the f4 square.
>
>But you've just done that calculation 1 ply up and that said it was good for
>white, so this time it has to be bad for black. Consequently you don't even have
>to do any SEE calculations for f4 captures at this ply, and can discard any
>captures to f4 immediately?
>
>Does this mean that once you've done a capture on a square, you can ignore all
>captures to that square one ply deeper?
>
>Paul


No.  We are just using the SEE score to order the possible captures at any
ply in the q-search.  If SEE says a capture loses material, I don't even
consider the capture in Crafty's q-search, for example.



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