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Subject: Re: Question: How does your program allocate time?

Author: Peter Fendrich

Date: 09:36:36 09/04/00

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On September 04, 2000 at 02:21:31, Steffen Jakob wrote:

>On September 04, 2000 at 00:37:36, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On September 03, 2000 at 23:06:57, stuart taylor wrote:
>>
>>>On September 03, 2000 at 22:44:16, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On September 03, 2000 at 22:36:41, William Bryant wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I/m working on my time allocation to improve my program's play.
>>>>>
>>>>>Given a time increment of Game/Unit_Time (or Game/Unit_Time + Increment per
>>>>>move),  how do you allocate the Unit_Time among individual searches?
>>>>>
>>>>>At present I'm doing the following.
>>>>>
>>>>>1. In the opening, (when out of book), I'm allocating 1/64th of the time left
>>>>>for a search (time_left>>6).
>>>>>
>>>>>2. When past move 16, I change this to 1/32nd of the time left (time_left>>5).
>>>>>
>>>>>3. If I fail low at the root, I will allocate up to an additional 5x the initial
>>>>>time to resolve the fail low.  It may take less, but this is the limit.
>>>>>
>>>>>Any thoughts, comments, suggestions or discussion would be appreciated.
>>>>>
>>>>>William
>>>>>wbryant@ix.netcom.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I use a simple apporach for "level X Y" games on ICC.  My target time is
>>>>always X/25+Y (x=time left on clock, y=increment).
>>>
>>>Hiarcs 7.00 (at any rate. 7.01 is the same, and I think 7.32 is too). allocates
>>>very intelligently when losing, I think. The more the evaluation drops, the more
>>>it searches deeper. Until it is just too much time. But when winning, it is too
>>>confident. It doesn't use most of its clock time. It can sometimes even fail
>>>high prematurely, and only on next move, fail low.
>>>S.Taylor
>>
>>
>>Crafty has always done that, as does most programs nowadays.  IE if the score
>>drops significantly, it won't move in the normal target time limit, but will
>>continue to search longer to try to solve the problem it has just seen...
>
>I don't only search longer when the score drops but also if the score gets
>BETTER a lot. I do this to avoid falling into traps. I implemented this feature
>long time ago after a game Hossa vs Diep where Diep gave away two rooks for a
>mate attack. Hossa was very happy to grab all the material and realized too late
>that he was in big trouble.
>
>The idea behind extending the time when the score jumps high is that you win
>anyway if this score is correct and that you might escape if it was a trap. IMHO
>this is a good feature especially for slow searchers like Hossa which get
>outsearched very often.
>
>Another trick I do: if the score is between 0.7 and 2.8 I search longer. Here is
>the idea that these are often positions where a winning shot can be found if you
>search deep enough. Again this is especially good for slow searchers.
>
>Best wishes,
>Steffen.

Does that mean that you always allocate more time???
Just kidding ;)

But seriously, don't you have to search very fast in all other cases in order to
earn enough extra time to allocate in these cases?
//Peter



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