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Subject: Re: Branching factor, make me confuse more that ever.

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 12:33:48 04/03/00

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On April 03, 2000 at 00:06:03, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>On April 01, 2000 at 13:38:00, leonid wrote:
>
>>Hello!
>>
>>Maybe you could take me out of my endless confusion about "branching factor".
>>Confusion come from the way that you can compare two different games. Would like
>>your help in finding useful numbers about this factor.
>
>You are taking a totally different approach to computer chess than everybody
>else in the world.
>
>You are driving a boat when everybody else is driving a car.
>
>This is fine, but the problem is that you are insisting on comparing your boat
>to everybody's car. You're trying to equate sail size to wheel diameter. It's
>possible, but it couldn't be more useless.
>
>Your program does not do quiescence searches, it does not do extensions, it
>probably doesn't do iterative deepening, etc. Comparing your program to other
>programs which DO have these features is not productive.
>
>Until you decide to add these features, you should simply concentrate on
>improving your program and not worry about what other people are doing.
>
>If you have to know, here's how you can compute your branching factor: count how
>many moves you search at each node. Divide by the number of nodes.
>
>-Tom


That's not 'branching factor'.  that is "effective branching factor".  Because
at many nodes you search 1 branch, but there are obviously many more moves there
that _could_ be searched...

this has been a source of confusion almost forever...



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