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Subject: Re: Basic questions about alpha beta

Author: Chris Carson

Date: 12:05:52 09/28/98

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On September 28, 1998 at 13:53:31, John Coffey wrote:

>My understanding of alpha-beta is like this ...
>
>7   5   3    2 ?     <--- some responses for black
> \   |  /    \ |
>     3        ?     <--- some choices for white
>      \      /
>       \    /
>          ?       <--- current position
>
>Having looked at the first choice and all of black's responses, we conclude
>that the first move has a value of 3.   We then try to determine the
>value of the second move.  We see that one of the black responses has a
>value of 2, which is worse for white that the other choice of 3, so we
>already know that the second branch is going to be worse than the first,
>so we do not need to look at any more of the black responses, thus producing
>a savings.
>
>I have some questions ....
>
>1.  People are always talking about two values here, alpha and beta, but seems
>like we could be just dealing with one value, the value that we are comparing
>from the previous level.   As a result I get confused when people talk about
>"fail low" and "fail high."
>
>2.  If doing a deeper search, then it seems to me that I would want to pass the
>same value even deeper into the tree ....
>
>         2 ? ?    <----- Black responses at depth=4
>         \ |/
>          ?    ?    <---- white responses to black responses
>           \  /
>7   5   3    ?  ?     <--- some responses for black
> \   |  /    \ /
>     3        ?     <--- some choices for white
>      \      /
>       \    /
>          ?       <--- current position
>
>
>In this case do we not look at the remaining black responses at depth =4
>beceuse the best white move branch at depth=1 is a 3?
>
>I have found some pseudo-code on the net.  I will get that a closer look.
>
>Thanks,
>
>John Coffey

Take a look at the following links:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~verhelst/chess/ - click on "Chess Tree Search"

http://www.npac.syr.edu/copywrite/pcw/node341.html
   - click on "Sequential Computer Chess"

http://www.maths.nott.ac.uk/personal/anw/G13GT1/compch.html

Best Regards,
Chris Carson



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