Author: Gian-Carlo Pascutto
Date: 12:50:43 06/18/00
Hi all In the discussion of the 'Scalable Search Test' thread with Ed Schroeder I mentioned that MTD(n,f) has the nice property of making a fail-high pretty constant over time. I.e. the search does not blow up as it does in a normal PVS searcher. Unfortunately it seems that this does not help when moving up a ply...it even seems that the results of the MTD'ers are quite terrible. The following though occured to me, if MTD allows you to take small steps in the score plane, what about using fractional ply increments to take smaller steps in the depth plane? Many of the best programs have now switched to fractional extensions. Thus, fractional search depth must make sense. Iterative deepening is one of the most important improvements to AB search. Thus, it makes sense too. Still, the programs use whole ply's in their iterative deepening search. Why? It would make perfect sense to step in smaller increments too. I feel this can even give improvements in tactical situations, where the fractional extensions are triggered. I'm interested if someone has ever done or tested this before. Did it work? What were the results? If you happen to have a program which uses fractional extensions, please try it, and let us know how it works out. -- GCP
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