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Subject: Re: programming questions

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 06:57:43 08/24/99

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On August 24, 1999 at 05:39:54, Inmann Werner wrote:

>Hello all!
>
>I am again trying to tune my program, and came to some questions.
>
>1)
>What to do with fail lows and hashing.
>Put them in for move ordering? I think no.
>
>Put them in for hash hits?
>I do, but I am not sure, it is good.
>If I get a hash with fail low flag I check, if it is again a fail low and only
>then I use it.
>That makes a cuttoff for easy, not disturbing?
>But in positions, i get differences, if I use fail low hash hits. Not much,
>but...?
>
>What do you think about doing best?
>
>
>2)
>It disturbed me, that in some not clear positions the search often switches, and
>that only for 1 point better (1/100 pawn) which is not real relevant, but costs
>much time cause of the research.
>So I thought about making the eval result not so perfekt (score=(score/2)*2).
>Now it switches not so often, but in "normal" positions needs more nodes (less
>cutoffs?).
>
>Is this idea dumb or worth thinking about it.
>Makes a small evaluation, where much values of different positions give the same
>value the search slow?
>
>Werner



I don't quite understand, but you have only three cases to handle:

1.  When you complete a ply, and the score you found was > alpha and < beta,
you store the score, and EXACT.  If you later get a 'hit' and find this
position, assuming the depth is sufficient, you just return value without
doing any more searching at all.

2.  When you get a fail-high at a node, you store the value you got (which was
>= beta) along with a flag LOWER (to note that this is a lower bound on the
score, that it might actually be higher than this).  When you get a hit on this
type of entry, you only need to verify that your current beta value is < the
bound stored in the table, and if so, you return the table value without
searching further.

3.  When you get a fail-ow at a node, you store the value (alpha or less)
and a flag UPPER (this is the best you can do, the worst score possible could
be even lower).  When you get a hash hit, and your current alpha value is > the
table bound, you just return the table bound with no further searching.

That's all there is to it...



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