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Subject: Re: Ply Depth in relation to playing strength

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 18:56:17 09/30/99

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On September 30, 1999 at 18:11:50, Ed Schröder wrote:

>On September 30, 1999 at 12:55:40, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On September 30, 1999 at 10:17:11, Dave Gomboc wrote:
>>
>>>On September 30, 1999 at 02:43:32, Jeremiah Penery wrote:
>>>
>>>>On September 29, 1999 at 19:43:43, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On September 29, 1999 at 19:21:08, Jeremiah Penery wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Doesn't Rebel not use null-move?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Jeremiah
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>without the contraction:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>"does not Rebel not use null-move?"
>>>>>
>>>>>Damned if I know, as I can't parse that.  :)
>>>>>
>>>>>But I do get your point... :)
>>>>>
>>>>>Bob
>>>>
>>>>:)
>>>>I originally intended to write something along the lines of "I don't think Rebel
>>>>uses null-move."  I figured a question would be better, since I wasn't sure, but
>>>>I couldn't figure out how to phrase it correctly.  :P
>>>>I revise:  "I think Rebel doesn't use null-move.  True?" :))
>>>>
>>>>Jeremiah
>>>
>>>Ed has said here in the past that he doesn't use null-move.
>>>
>>>I think this was distinct from "doesn't use the null-move in the same way as
>>>e.g. Crafty does".
>>>
>>>Dave
>>
>>
>>No idea.  Hiarcs doesn't use null-move like I do, but it definitely suffers from
>>problems with the "null-move observation" being used in some way.  Ed has said
>>he does some threat extensions...  they probably use the "null move observation"
>>as well..  in some fashion...
>
>No null-move in Rebel. Rebel's evaluation function is much to slow
>for null-move. Besides of that my evaluation function provides me
>so much data I don't need null-move.
>
>I tried null-move once and it gave me a speed-loss of 25%.
>
>Ed


Two things come to mind....

(1) I don't see how null move R=2 can possibly slow you down, unless you
implemented it in a different way than we are using.  IE it only reduces the
depth on bogus branches... but doesn't incur any penalty unless you are already
doing some selective discarding of moves along the way and you suddenly can't
do this with null-move active...

(2) Crafty is pretty evaluation-heavy today... ie it is currently spending over
50% of the total search time in Evaluate() and children functions...  and that
is in spite of lazy evaluation...  yet null move speeds me up by a factor of
2 plies typically...



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