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Subject: Re: Why ... egtb format ...

Author: Johan de Koning

Date: 15:16:46 04/04/04

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On April 03, 2004 at 11:23:25, Marc Bourzutschky wrote:

>On April 02, 2004 at 20:17:44, Johan de Koning wrote:
>
>>On April 02, 2004 at 04:58:25, Sune Fischer wrote:
>>
>>>On April 02, 2004 at 02:13:53, Johan de Koning wrote:
>>>
>>>>But as Theron pointed out some years ago, one should avoid *any*
>>>>probe inside a search.
>>>
>>>Do you recall the argument?
>>
>>Blindly probing after captures results in lots of redundant probes.
>>Most positions are way off balance (outside [alpha,beta]) and are
>>interesting only if a 1 or 3 ply tactic exists.
>>
>>About 2 years ago Chritophe posted he was working/planning on a
>>set of rules to decide for each material config whether to probe
>>or not (depending on local depth I guess). Then he went on doing
>>Palm stuff and other, more important, improvements.
>>
>>The idea is sound I think, because 1 probe that misses the EGDB
>>cache is already awfully expensive. But on the other hand, with
>>6 men, building a set of rules (more imprtantly exceptions) will
>>be quite a daunting task.
>>
>>... Johan
>
>A set of general rules will be difficult, but it is a fact that when analyzing
>endgame studies programs that probe tablebases beyond the root perform
>significantly better, because almost by definition the probed positions will
>often be non-trivial.

That's an interesting observation.
Yet another possible paramater to tune EGDb probing, I guess (fear).

>But perhaps those of us who use comps for such analysis
>are in the minority compared to people who run engine-engine "tournaments" or
>hardware contests on the servers...

That would be a safe bet.
Particilarly since it is virtually impossible to disprove. :-)

... Johan



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