Author: Tord Romstad
Date: 08:01:56 10/16/03
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On October 16, 2003 at 10:29:25, Ross Boyd wrote: >Hi Tord, >After adding EGTB support to TRACE her rating improvement was barely measurable. >I think it was 6 elo after at least 200 games. >And she is definitely an engine that lacks endgame knowledge. :-) I added tablebase support in Gothmog last week, but haven't tested the improvement yet. >Often I see TRACE swindle a draw in R+PvR endgames and sometimes she swindles a >RvB endgame for a win. In games against Phalanx (my favorite sparring partner), Gothmog often gives away a half point in advantageous rook endings by allowing Phalanx to simplify to a Philidor-type position. Phalanx apparently knows that these positions are drawn, but Gothmog still thinks it has good winning chances. I think this happens often enough that adding tablebase support should give a small, but measurable improvement. Of course, it would be much better to actually implement knowledge about the third-rank defence in my evaluation function. I will probably do so some time in the future. >But accessing the egtbs is very slow so frequently she loses because her >NPS is severely hampered.. Huh? I haven't noticed any slowdown at all. When do you probe? I probe in all positions where the last move was a capture, and the remaining depth is at least 5 plies. Perhaps I simply have a much faster hard disk than you, or perhaps my NPS is so slow to begin with that the disk access doesn't matter much. >Uri is right when he says the game is usually over before the egtbs can come to >the rescue. Usually, but not always. >So, the main benefit for TRACE has been knowing well in advance that she will be >checkmated in 47 moves with best play... :-) Yes, that is the most noticable "improvement", here too. :-) Tord
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