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Subject: Re: Why is Crafty so fast?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 18:52:10 11/26/97

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On November 26, 1997 at 15:54:48, Tom Likens wrote:

>
>How about "because Bob's a damn good programmer!!" :)
>
>Bob, you've gotta' love messages like this.  So much more satisfying
>then
>why did Crafty X.XX lose to Mega-Chess 1E6 on such-and-such a date.
>
>To really address the question, from my perusal of Crafty's source code,
>it seems to do an excellent job of move ordering and intelligent move
>extensions.  Both key components of a fast program.
>
>--Tom Likens

while it's move ordering is not bad, it is not particularly exciting.
The
stuff I do here is the same stuff I did in Cray Blitz for many years.
That
part of the search is well-known...

Part of the speed has been the direct result of bitmap development.
When I
started, I knew nothing about it.  I made a promise to myself that I was
going
to stick with them for at *least* 3 years, to give myself a chance to
become
familiar with them, and get into the mode of "thinking bitmaps."  It is
now
natural, thankfully, and they offer a lot.  They *really* offer a lot
when it
comes to 64 bit architectures, because they are designed to work on such
machines efficiently...

but you are right, it is more fun talking about why it is fast, or why
it
does (or doesn't) find a particular move, rather than why it loses to or
beats program "X".  IE I'd suspect someone is going to want to know how
Rebel 9 lost to Rebel 7 in this last tournament going on.  The answer is
simply "stuff happens."  One game is interesting, but not informative.





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