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Subject: Re: The number of nodes of critical trees?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 10:13:09 11/01/00

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On November 01, 2000 at 12:22:31, Ernst A. Heinz wrote:

>> On November 01, 2000 at 00:17:29, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>I should add that the quoted within 30% of optimal seems wrong.  I recall
>>Hans Berliner doing a test like this and I believe he quoted 100%.  IE the
>>searched tree was about twice as big as the optimal tree, which is _still_
>>very good since we can't possibly have perfect move ordering.
>
>I am sorry to say so, Bob, but you are _dead wrong_ here.
>
>Ebeling and Berliner always mentioned 40% overhead for HITECH
>as compared to the critical tree in their publications. See
>page 102 in "Computers, Chess, and Cognition" for example.
>
>Tony Marsland provides a nice comparison of the various search
>and move-ordering enhancements with respect to the critical
>tree in Figure 8 of "Computer Chess and Search" published in
>the "Encyclopedia of AI (2nd ed.)". There we see 20% to 30%
>overhead at depths of 2 to 6 plies for the combination of all
>those enhancements (including PVS, best hashed move, and
>history heuristic).
>
>Last but not least, Rainer Feldmann mentions the 20% to 30%
>overhead in his Ph.D. thesis about the sequential version of
>ZUGZWANG.
>
>I am really surprised that you do not seem to remember these
>numbers because I am sure that you know the publications I
>refer to above.
>
>=Ernst=


Sorry... You are correct and my memory did fail.  I think the 2x came from
an older paper by Tony where he defined "strongly ordered game tree" as a
tree where the best move is searched first 90% of the time or more.  If
you do the math, that is a factor of 2 in nodes.  My percentage seems to hover
around 92% or higher, which would pull it down a bit.  And I think it also
matters a great deal whether we talk about a game, or a _position_.  A position
is harder.  In a game, hash information carries across searches to assist in
move ordering.  In a position, you start off blind.

I believe the 2x figure came from positions, but I don't have time to dig up
the paper to check it.



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