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Subject: Initial Position Search Nodes

Author: Steve Maughan

Date: 03:09:53 10/09/00


Having managed to add all the normal stuff to my chess program (hash, SEE
sorting, null move, killers, internal iterative deepening etc) I am a little
disappointed with the depths it is reaching.  At first I thought it must be poor
move ordering but I've checked that and it seems OK (I do Hash Move, Good
Captures, Killer1, Killer2, History, Bad Captures).  I decided to see how long
it took to complete it's nineth ply search from the initial position.  Here are
the results along with those of other programs (450 MHz P2):

MyProgram 31 secs 6,486,200 nodes
Ikarus 15 secs 888,000 nodes
HIARCS 18 secs 677,000 nodes
Faile 50 secs 3,500,000 nodes
Crafty 17.11 8 secs 800,000 nodes
Goliath Light 0 secs 31,000!!!!
Nimzo 7.32 13 secs 3,260,000

A couple of points.  Firstly, how on earth can Goliath search 9 ply so quickly
and using so few nodes?  I can't beleive that Goliath is the most selective.

Secondly, it would seem that Ikarus' nodes / sec are much lower than indicated
when calculated using nodes visited divided by time!

Finally, for my program what am I doing wrong?  Am I missing something?  What
other forms of selectivity are coming into play here?  I'm just doing a vanilla
Alpha / Beta but it's taking me ages (6 million nodes) to complete 9 ply.
Perhaps Bob could shed some light on Crafty's impressive 8 secs and only 800 kn.
 Could it be my poor evaluation funtion which is only a primitive piece-square
table?

All help appreciated!

Regards,

Steve Maughan



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