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Subject: Re: Problem with TT

Author: Tom Likens

Date: 19:39:35 07/11/03

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On July 11, 2003 at 18:06:56, Ricardo Gibert wrote:

>On July 11, 2003 at 17:50:21, Ricardo Gibert wrote:
>
>>On July 11, 2003 at 17:23:10, Tom Likens wrote:
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>>I probably haven't solved your problem but of course these things
>>>are insidious.  Also I could easily be misinterpreting some of
>>>your code, if so I apologize.
>>>
>>>Some general advice, you probably should convert to 64-bit hash
>>>keys to reduce the chance of collisions.
>>
>>
>>Actually, every program should allow this to be configurable. For instance, an
>>8-bit hash can be useful in debugging and a 32-bit hash is something interesting
>>and not known for certain to be a bad idea.

This is a valid point. It's intriguing that even though a 32-bit hash
key *will* result in collisions, the real question is wheter those
collisions will actually propagate back up the tree and cause the
program to select an inferior move.

>Just want to add that a 256-bit hash key can be useful for debugging too. By
>contrasting 64-bit with 256-bit, one might conclude that the quality of the
>random numbers is wanting.

I'm not sure I follow this.  I'm guessing (without actually testing it)
that the difference in the number of collisions between a 64-bit hash
key and a 256-bit hash key would be vanishingly small for the typical
search trees that modern programs explore.  Is there some other advantage
of a 256-bit hash key over a 64-bit key that I'm missing?

regards,
--tom



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