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Subject: Re: Move Ordering

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 14:52:07 12/26/02

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On December 26, 2002 at 17:08:37, Dieter Buerssner wrote:

>On December 25, 2002 at 22:32:18, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>Yes, but try it with best first ordering, which you can do after searching
>>the thing to 22 plies and finding the win.  Just search to 22 plies again with
>>all the hash moves kept, but the scores cleared.  No solution.
>
>This experiment would not prove the point (In the PV line, all black moves must
>be searched - also the very bad ones, that are easily refuted). This will (with
>fail-soft search) give many high scores in the HT. At the next depth, you can
>take advantage of those scores (which are even there with perfect move
>ordering). Some transpositions will be seen, that now can be forced in another
>line, but still the depth of the bad lines before can be more than enough (the
>new line is longer from the beginning). If you don't allow cutoffs (this is how
>I interprete "scores cleared" - how else should I interprete it), you have a
>different program, that does not take advantage of all this information. Note,
>that the later point is independent of the move ordering argument.


I simply mean "clear the table scores".  I have a flag that says "worthless"
in addition to EXACT, UPPER and LOWER.  If the WORTHLESS flag is set, I can
use the hash move, but not the score, ever.



>
>I will try the experiment anyway at some time, but after looking fast over the
>code, I have seen, that for my engine it is not just a
>"change-few-lines-in-one-minute" experiment.
>
>Some small point about the "bad design, if it depends on move ordering". Some
>comments were given. Another subtle point is again the HTs. For many programs (I
>think including Crafty), the decision about extension/pruning will depend on the
>last move made. One example would be recapture. When you hit the HTs for a
>cutoff, most probably the last move in this line was different, then at the
>time, when you stored the position into the HTs. So, at this time, it is very
>possible, that you would search the different ancestors of this node with other
>search depth, than at the time it was stored. The consequences are, that this
>can introduce another "luck factor" .
>
>I believe, for most (if not all) rather good programs, pruning/extensions
>decisions depend on the window bounds (also in qsearch). It is quite obvious,
>that with different move ordering, you will hit positions with different bounds.
>
>You are certainly well aware of the fact, that similar things happen because of
>repetition detection and 50 moves rules.
>
>BTW. My "random move ordering" experiment for Fine 70 was done by disabling
>detection of repetition.
>
>Regards,
>Dieter



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