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Subject: Re: Interesting Idea To Improve Crafty

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 20:15:33 05/13/00

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On May 13, 2000 at 21:12:21, blass uri wrote:

>On May 13, 2000 at 18:02:13, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On May 13, 2000 at 16:49:59, blass uri wrote:
>>
>>>On May 13, 2000 at 16:30:27, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>>I understood that the idea behind chest is that it has not to try all the ply=1
>>>>>moves to find that there is no mate in 2(it is obvious for mate in 1 when you
>>>>>need to generate only threat king moves but I understood that it is also
>>>>>possible to do it for mate in 2).
>>>>>
>>>>>Chest knows for every piece the squares that it controls so it knows the squares
>>>>>need to be controled in order to do mate.
>>>>>
>>>>>If it is obvious from the starting position of the pieces that they cannot
>>>>>control the relevant squares in 2 moves then you can discover that there is no
>>>>>mate in 2 without generating moves.
>>>>>
>>>>>Uri
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>what about zugzwang???
>>>
>>>chest proves that there is a no mate without really executing the moves and it
>>>does not do errors in zugzwang positions.
>>>
>>>I understand that it does not assume no move for the defender but assumes a
>>>simple strategy(king move if possible) and try to prove that the squares cannot
>>>be controled in 2 moves by the attacker.
>>>
>>>Uri
>>
><snipped>
>>In my case, I need to know that there is a forced mate at the current position,
>>so that the null-move won't be tried.  There are lots of zugzwang mates where
>>you have to confirm that no matter what you do you get mated, even if you are
>>not in check.  And if you do nothing, you don't get mated instantly.
>>
>>I am trying to point out that (a) the test is very expensive because it has to
>>be done so many times
>
>I agree that the test has to be done many times but many times a small number is
>not very expensive if the number is small enough.
>

Confucious say "if you multiply a big number times anything, you get a big
number." :)

I can add a single if statement and see the NPS change.  If I add it in the
right place...




>The number of times you need to do the test is exactly the number of times that
>you find that there is no threat and if the time that you need to discover that
>there is no mate in 2 is 10 times smaller than the time that you need to
>discover that there is no 3 ply threat then you can earn important information
>because you sometimes can miss mate in 2 in searching for 3 ply threats because
>of null move pruning or by the fact that the evaluation does not know that a
>position is mate.

I don't do any "threat" detection of any kind.  When I enter a new node, I try
a hash probe, followed by a null-move search to see if I can exit quickly.  I
don't do any kind of 'searching' or 'analysis' to determine if a null-move is
safe to try...




>
>I think that searching for mate in n by chest is usually clearly faster than
>searching 2n-1 plies forward by crafty.
>
>Uri


I wouldn't be surprised at all.  Finding mates is far easier if you are only
looking for them and not trying to play a real game...  But the question is
still how much does it cost.

I like the relatively simple search I am using. as simple -> bug-free.  Yes,
I wish it could do some things quicker.  It will when I take the time to get
the singular extension stuff implemented...



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