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Subject: Re: Alpha-Beta explanation on Heinz's book?

Author: Ralf Elvsén

Date: 09:33:47 10/05/00

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On October 05, 2000 at 11:48:46, Severi Salminen wrote:

>Hi!
>
>I ordered a copy of Heinz's book in the library of my home town. A few  question
>about his AB explanation:
>
>1.He says: "While fail-highs with result>=beta place lower bounds on the real
>scores of failed searches, fail-lows with result<=alpha place upper bounds on
>them."
>
>So, what bound is he meaning (maybe my english is not so good): real scores of
>failed searches? I thought that Alpha and Beta are the only bounds involved -
>they are the lower and upper bounds of real score, aren't they. Does this imply
>in negamax implementation? I know basically what fail-high (and fail-low) means,
>but didn't understand this statement.
>

Assume you are in a position with beta = (say) 100.
You search move A and get a score 150. Then you have a beta cutoff
and exit that node. But this value 150 is a lower bound on the "true"
score of that position because there might be moves you never serached
with values of 200 or whatever. So 150 is a lower limit on the "true"
value of the position.

The reasoning is basically the same for the other case (if you think
about it for a while): where did all those values <= alpha come from?

Ralf



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