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Subject: Re: Tom Kerrigan

Author: Brian Richardson

Date: 07:40:28 06/01/00

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On June 01, 2000 at 09:17:59, Bas Hamstra wrote:

>On May 31, 2000 at 19:24:37, Brian Richardson wrote:
>
>>On May 31, 2000 at 18:02:42, Bas Hamstra wrote:
>>
>>I did some quick tests with Tinker (of course, the search "ecosystem" of each
>>program will be very different).  Normally, Tinker probes the hash table, then
>>does the hash move (if any), then killers, then generates moves, and so on.
>
>I hope you DO captures before killers? Doing that, killers should be a big win.
>But note that if you already do history, that the extra gain of killers is far
>less, because both try to achieve the same.

No, I don't generate any moves (captures or non-caps) until after killers (or
the hash move) are tried.  However, I don't use killers (or hash move) in
q-search, just full-width.
>
>>For the following, one history table for both sides is always used.  Tested on
>>five positions (opening, two from WAC, one from Fine and one BT2630):
>>1) Turning hash moves off--usually 2x slower, up to 10x slower, one test 5%
>>faster.
>>2) Turning killers off (keeping 2 moves)--very mixed results: same, or up to 30%
>>faster or up to 10x slower (Fine16)
>
>This 10x slower is counter intuitive to me. If you don't use history sorting
>killers should be a big win. If you do, it is a small win overall.

It was a big surprise to me too.  The tests above were all with history.
>
>>3) Turning off both--better than no killers, but worse than no hash move.
>>
>>To my surprise, Tinker's WAC 300 score went UP with no killers.  Again, this is with history (disabling history slows everything down A LOT).  I may try some
>>self-play tests with and without killers.
>>
>>Brian Richardson
>
>Maybe you could also include: a) History and no killers

This was test 2 above

>and b) Killers and no history?

No history is MUCH slower.

>I suspect that if you already use 2 killers the gain of adding history
>is small. And since killers are cheaper I don't use history sorting...
>
>
>Regards,
>Bas.

What I'm starting to see is that history is better than killers.  The history
overhead is very small, since it is part of the move ordering score along with
MVV/LVA anyway.

Some early self-play tests showed killers better at time 2 1 and no killers
better at 5 0.  Will run some more tests tonight.

Brian



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