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Subject: Re: Fail-soft with PVS?

Author: Will Singleton

Date: 15:59:52 03/09/99

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On March 09, 1999 at 16:34:09, Dan Homan wrote:

>On March 09, 1999 at 16:26:39, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>
>>
>>On March 09, 1999 at 16:17:24, Dan Homan wrote:
>>
>>>On March 09, 1999 at 14:34:49, Will Singleton wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Using PVS, I can't seem to demonstrate a clear benefit to using a small window
>>>>around the root score, as opposed to +-mate.
>>>>
>>>>Using a window of, for example, one-third pawn, if a move fails-high or low, it
>>>>takes fewer nodes to ascertain the move that caused the change, because you
>>>>don't have to find the real score right away.  But then you've got to resolve
>>>>the new score, and that will take more nodes since you've got to re-search with
>>>>the relaxed window.
>>>>
>>>>And if, after a fail-high or low, you attempt to delay score resolution until
>>>>the next ply (to avoid the re-search at the same ply), it seems you might have
>>>>the problem of finding a worse move after the fail at the same ply, since you
>>>>don't know the real score yet.  This would result in even more nodes being used.
>>>>
>>>>So I don't see much benefit, unless I'm doing something wrong (likely).  On a
>>>>normal search, without any fails, I see either more or less nodes (between
>>>>windowing and +-mate), depending on the position.  But not really much change.
>>>>
>>>>Any comment would be apppreciated.
>>>>
>>>>Will
>>>
>>>I've gone back and forth on this issue myself.  My testing seems to show
>>>that a small window (+,- 1/4 pawn) is slightly (a couple of percent)
>>>faster when measured over a large number of problems than (+,- mate),
>>>but the coding is a bit more complicated.
>>>
>>>I think I'll test this again....
>>>
>>> - Dan
>>
>>I ran with a +- 32767 window for months and didn't notice.
>>
>>bruce
>
>I was thinking some more about this and the only place I can see a major
>improvement from using a window is on positions where you will
>fail high and change the move you will play...  With the window,
>you can decide to play this move before you know how much better
>it is, sometimes it takes quite a while (x2 the time) to resolve
>the higher score...

> - Dan

I agree with that, but if you don't allow your time to expire until resolving a
move (when time is available), then it shouldn't be an issue.

Will



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