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Subject: Re: null-move

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 20:26:23 08/27/04

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On August 27, 2004 at 11:17:35, J. Wesley Cleveland wrote:

>On August 26, 2004 at 21:00:10, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On August 26, 2004 at 14:09:06, Bert van den Bosch wrote:
>>
>>>On August 26, 2004 at 11:33:48, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 25, 2004 at 17:37:59, Bert van den Bosch wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>First of all, I hope the forum will continue in some way!
>>>>>
>>>>>Before it is gone, I have a question.
>>>>>
>>>>>I wanted to check my null move so I tested if the null move would create a
>>>>>cutoff, and after that I did the normal stuff. So if you have a cutoff with null
>>>>>moving you are almost sure you will also get a cutoff with the normal proces,
>>>>>except for zugzwangs of course. But this wasn't happening all the time when I
>>>>>tested it, and usually the values involved from what I got back from nullmove
>>>>>and from the normal process were just a few centipawns in difference. Could this
>>>>>be because of search instabillity? If it isn't a bug in my program I had the
>>>>>idea to search nullmove with beta-MARGIN in order for the value returned by null
>>>>>move to bridge the few centipawns gap. And taking MARGIN the few centipawns. But
>>>>>I'm not sure if that is correct. Can someone shine a light on this?
>>>>>
>>>>>Thanks, greetings Bert
>>>>
>>>>This isn't what null-move is about.  It will fail high in positions where a
>>>>normal search won't, but that doesn't make it wrong.  The point is that if your
>>>>opponent can move twice in a row and you fail high after "passing" then your
>>>>position is very good and it is safe to avoid searching to the normal depth to
>>>>see if it is even better.
>>>>
>>>>As a general rule, if null-move fails high, a normal search should also fail
>>>>high, of course, as that is the point in that the null-move search is easier to
>>>>do since it searches to a reduced depth.  But there is nothing to say that if
>>>>the null-move search fails high that the regular search will not, that is part
>>>>of the risk you take, since null-move is not 100% accurate.  Reduce the depth
>>>>and you obviously will miss some tactical shots that the deeper depth would not
>>>>miss.
>>>>
>>>>If you want an "error-free" pruning algorithm, good luck.  Logic says no such
>>>>thing exists. :)
>>>
>>>alphabeta :)
>>
>>
>>OK.
>>
>>If you want an error-free _forward-pruning_ algorithm, good luck.  Logic says no
>>such thing exists.  :)
>
>EGTBs ;)

That's not forward pruning. :)  Those probes access a perfect tree search all
the way to the mate position.  Otherwise hash tables would be in the same
category..




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