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Subject: Re: Root Position

Author: Dieter Buerssner

Date: 08:22:14 01/05/01

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On January 05, 2001 at 10:23:26, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:

[fail high and then fail low for the same move, and the other way around]
>Since this happens a lot in my program, I spent some time tracking down
>what were the minimal conditions:
>
>- aspiration window (no fail high/low otherwise)
>- null move
>- hash table used for move ordering (not for scores, not even on exact matches)
>
>Now it still isn't making sense to me...how can you produce a different
>_score_ anywhere in the tree by just altering move ordering??
>
>Anybody who knows an explanation here? 'You _must_ have a bug' is acceptable
>too.

I think, this can still happen, when you use pruning techniques, that
depend on the window. On such technique is null move. Perhaps with
beta 1.0 the null move will fail high. With 1.1 it won't fail high anymore.
You would no assume, that later in the "normal" search, you get a score >= 1.0.
But this might not be the case, because actually the null move refutation
would have been wrong for 1.0 allready (perhaps because of some slight
Zugzwang).

The window, with which a position is searched, can depend on the sorting
of the moves (not only at the root).

Also, when extensions depend on the window, such artifacts can arise.

Regards,
Dieter




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