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Subject: Re: Adaptive Null Move Pruning

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 19:21:05 09/25/00

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On September 25, 2000 at 16:12:34, Peter McKenzie wrote:

>On September 25, 2000 at 13:47:03, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On September 25, 2000 at 11:41:18, David Rasmussen wrote:
>>
>>>Am I the only one who
>>>
>>>a) thinks that the kind of null move pruning that is done in Hyatt's Crafty is
>>>the reverse of what Ernst Heinz concludes in his paper about ANMP
>>
>>
>>I hope not.  IE here is my code for that:
>>
>>    null_depth=(depth > 6*INCPLY) ? 4*INCPLY : 3*INCPLY;
>>
>>Which says if the remaining depth is more than 6 plies, use R=3, while
>>if the remaining depth is <= 6 plies, use R=2.
>>
>>The "6" is pretty arbitrary.  I ran a lot of tests before choosing this
>>number.  Ernst found the same number totally independently of me, although I
>>think we did use some "common tests" (ie WAC, etc) without knowing what the
>>other was doing.
>
>Since I bought Ernst's book recently (only took 2 weeks to be delivered to New
>Zealand) I've been thinking about implementing adaptive nullmove pruning.
>
>I noticed that Ernst uses a cutover of 8 (instead of 6) in the late endgame
>(where both sides have 2 or less pieces).  Do you do this in crafty?
>
>>

no.  I taper null-move off as pieces come off in an endgame, so that (for
example) null-move is only tried near the tips (but not near the root to avoid
some zug problems) when one side has only one piece of some kind.





>>
>>
>>>
>>>b) experiences better performance (less nodes, less time etc.) with Hyatt's
>>>scheme than with Ernst's scheme.
>>>
>>>I.E. When I do
>>>	if (depth>6)
>>>		R=2;
>>>	else
>>>		R=3;
>>>I get the best results.
>>>Why?
>>
>>
>>What is depth for you?  Current ply?  Or plies remaining?  For me it is
>>plies remaining before dropping into q-search, which means I am doing the
>>same thing as Ernst, basically.  Your code is the exact opposite of what we
>>are doing, assuming 'depth' means plies remaining and not depth from root of
>>the tree.



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