Author: Scott Gasch
Date: 10:47:00 12/20/01
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>> >>Commercial engines are not using any "unknown" board representations or search>>techniques. > >How do you know? By "unknown" search techniques I was replying to the question of the original poster. He specifically asked if pros were using alpha-beta or a variation thereof. As far as I know every professional engine is using a..b. >1) I think my board representation is original. I have never found it anywhere >else. It's not 100% original, but what makes it really effective is definitely >something I have never found elsewhere. My board representation is orignial too... but its a lot like 0x88. My point is that there is no magic bullet board representation. There is no "secret" board representation that gives the pros an edge. I'd argue that what board representation you use, as long as it's not totally slow/dumb, has relatively minimal impact on your engine strength. Everyone is going to roll their own board representation or put their own spin on an existing one. >2) My program as well as other commercial engines are using search techniques >that have never been published. > >>Perhaps some are using forward pruning techniques that are not >>published anywhere. The degree to which this affects their playing strength >>is debatable. > >No it's not. It makes commercial programs clearly stronger. > >>I'd be surprised if there was another technique like nullmove out >>there but it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong... > >There are plenty. > >Null move is to chess what MacDonalds is to food. Quick and easy, not too bad, >but definitely not the final say. > So you think that the strength of the pros comes from the pruning techniques they use? Meanwhile you have people like Vincent who will tell you that forward pruning is the ultimate evil. And you have people like Bob who have a ton of computer chess experience and just stick with nullmove. So this is what I mean by issue of forward pruning being debatable. Scott
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