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Subject: Re: Fractional Iterative Deepening search

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 18:43:30 06/18/00

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On June 18, 2000 at 16:45:26, J. Wesley Cleveland wrote:

>On June 18, 2000 at 16:05:01, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On June 18, 2000 at 15:50:43, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>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
>>
>>
>>I tried this a good while back, but never really liked what I was getting.  It
>>is certainly worth trying...  if you use fractional extensions.  If you don't,
>>it won't do a thing.
>
>I had an idea about this. If you kept track of how many extensions you did in
>the search, if you had an unusually high number of extensions the iteration
>before, you could search the next iteration to a lesser depth, e.g.
>next_depth = last_depth + k*(nodes/(nodes+extensions))
>where k is equal to or somewhat greater than 1.


Now your task is to test that.  Sounds at least worth some testing.

:)



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