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Subject: Re: Fractional Iterative Deepening search

Author: Oliver Roese

Date: 23:17:48 06/18/00

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On June 18, 2000 at 21:43:30, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>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.
>
>:)

Could you shortly give an idea, why this approach could be beneficial?!
Lots of extensions indicate lots of stuff happening.
Searching is designed to overcome tactical barriers. Why then
_reduce_ the search depth?

Thank you
Oliver Roese



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