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Subject: Re: Why dont engines support the egtb format that Chessmaster uses?

Author: Mridul Muralidharan

Date: 12:13:42 04/02/04

Go up one level in this thread


On April 02, 2004 at 13:16:24, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

>On April 01, 2004 at 21:15:43, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>On April 01, 2004 at 20:40:58, Eugene Nalimov wrote:
>>
>>>On April 01, 2004 at 19:05:09, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>
>>>>On April 01, 2004 at 18:38:59, Sune Fischer wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On April 01, 2004 at 18:29:27, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On April 01, 2004 at 17:59:38, Eugene Nalimov wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On April 01, 2004 at 15:16:34, Marc Bourzutschky wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>The Chessmaster format is indeed better
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>What does it mean "better"? :-)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>It stores less information, thus compresses better.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I have an idea that I think would be helpful if you should be so kind as to
>>>>>>perform it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Write a scanner that reads your wonderful EGTB files and spits out a two bit
>>>>>>state only for each position (won/lost/drawn/broke) to create bitbase files.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The reason I suggest it is that a bazillion programmers won't have to reinvent
>>>>>>the wheel.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I suggest the use of the bitbase files early in the search (completely pulled
>>>>>>into ram) and then EGTB at the leaves if the bitbase indicates it is worthwhile.
>>>>>
>>>>>You must mean it the opposite way, bitbases at the leaves and EGTBs a near root?
>>>>>
>>>>>I think it would be better to use bitbases in the entire search and only use
>>>>>full EGTBs when the position is at the root.
>>>>>
>>>>>Or, if you want the search to eventually return mate scores, probe EGTBs when
>>>>>bitbases say it is won and beta>=mate_bound or bitbases says it lost and
>>>>>alpha<=-mate_bound.
>>>>>Perhaps probing directly into EGTBs when window allows it would be faster,
>>>>>matter of tuning of course.
>>>>
>>>>I guess I had not thought about it carefully enough.  I imagined using bitbases
>>>>to get a won/lost/drawn opinion (at all nodes).  But unless you know the exact
>>>>value of the leaves, I don't see how you can choose the best move.
>>>>
>>>>I imagined something like this:
>>>>If the best evaluation is drawn or lost, who cares.  Do whatever move is among
>>>>the suggested list.
>>>>If the best evaluation is won, then:
>>>>Examine the bottom leaves that are won and perk the correct values back up.
>>>>
>>>>How will we otherwise find the true value?  I am afraid I don't understand how
>>>>it can work.
>>>
>>>In my "TODO" list. But let me finish 6-men TBs first...
>>>
>>>Simple way is to keep both w/d/l and full tables. You need to probe full table
>>>only when position is OTB. Otherwise you probe w/d/l table. W/d/l tables are
>>>smaller, and relevan ones can be always loaded to RAM, so you can probe them
>>>everywhere in the search, including Q-search.
>>>
>>>Probing of the full TBs can be much slower than it is now, probably ~1 sec
>>>should be fine. In theory that allows to use better decompression algorithm.
>>>
>>>And you don't need 2 bits per position. 1.6 bits are enough (5 positions per
>>>byte).
>>
>>How about an interface to your EGTB system that takes a standard EPD string as
>>input?
>
>The problem is that everyone must first post onto CCC to get permission to use
>his code. Email he never answers until there is a posting onto CCC. Only from 1
>american author i know he got directly permission at his first email. The others
>after half a year or so post onto CCC and only then get an answer.
>
>So your only problem is not the EPD, but the legal permission for each user to
>use that program, even if it is put at a commercial cdrom.
>
>As shipping an email will not get answerred. I have not heard a single european
>programmer so far who got permission by email within 6 months.
>
>>That way, it would be really simple for people to interface to it that have not
>>already done so.  Just about every chess program has a "convert board position
>>to EPD" function of some kind.


I got a very quick reply from both Dr. Hyatt (1 day) and Eugene (< 1 week).
Even Andrew Kadatch was very quick to grant me permission (Eugene forwarded to
him - i think he responded within same day after Eugene forwarded the mail).

So maybe you know of atleast one person who did not wait for 6 months and who
did not have to retry multiple times :)

Mridul



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