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Subject: Re: What is SEE?

Author: Bas Hamstra

Date: 00:32:07 10/05/99

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On October 04, 1999 at 14:48:41, Bert van den Akker wrote:

>On October 03, 1999 at 21:48:40, Bas Hamstra wrote:
>
>>On October 03, 1999 at 15:08:56, Bert van den Akker wrote:
>>
>>>Can sombody explain what SEE is.
>>>
>>>Bert
>>
>>Static Echange Evaluation. You try to figure out without a real search what the
>>outcome of a capture sequence to one particular square will be. Suppose a black
>>rook is attacked by a white queen and a white knight and defended by a black
>>pawn and a black bishop. Then the SEE value is determined by consequently
>>letting the lowest valued piece capture to the square the black rook is on. If a
>>color has performed a capture and has still gain < zero you stop. Just like you
>>yourself would do to evaluate a capture sequence in a chessgame.
>>
>>You can determine the exact SEE value, or just if a capture is a loser, which is
>>faster. Losing captures are skipped in the qsearch, which saves quite a lot of
>>nodes. If you not only want to do that, but sort all captures SEE wise, you have
>>to have the exact SEE score.
>>
>>Personally I doubt it is worth the effort of perfect SEE sorting, but skipping
>>losers is a win. Everybody (except Vincent Diepeveen) agrees.
>>
>>Regards,
>>Bas Hamstra.
>
>
>
>This concept looks very complicated because you must take in consideration pins,
>capturing on different squares and check moves!
>
>Maybe a normal capture quiescence search is quicker and more precise.

Let's compare

 a) doing a normal qsearch while skipping SEE losers
 b) and a full qsearch.

The full qsearch is *slightly* more accurate. However the SEE filtered qsearch
does 50% less nodes!

You must consider that the SEE procedure marks captures as losers *only* based
on captures to 1 square. That is something special, that the normal qsearch does
not do.

It is not the point SEE is faster than qsearch, or whatever. The point is a lot
of captures are thrown away. Under each of which hangs a tree...


Regards,
Bas Hamstra.










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