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Subject: Re: Bonus points for side to move in qsearch?

Author: James Swafford

Date: 08:57:10 01/06/01

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On January 06, 2001 at 10:45:05, Leen Ammeraal wrote:

>In qsearch, when no more captures are possible,
>I return the material score, including the
>position evaluation. Should this include
>some extra points for the side that is to move
>rather than ignoring this aspect?
>After all, although there is no time to evaluate
>any further moves, it is likely that the position
>will be improved by the side that is to move.
>I could not detect any improvement of my program
>when I tried. What is usual in this regard?
>If a bonus for the side to move is reasonable,
>how many centipawns should this be?
>Leen Ammeraal

I've heard of programs that do this - award a bonus for being
on move.  Side to move is, afterall, a part of the position,
so I guess it's logical to factor that in, but I have no idea
how valuable that is.

It seems to me that what really matters isn't the fact that
you can move next, but how much damage you can do with that
move.  Giving some arbitrary value for being on move will
not adequately "cover" how much "damage" you can do on the
next move, it just assumes you can somehow improve your
position.

Knowledge like "how many pieces am I attacking?" and "how many
of my pieces are being attacked?" seems much more valuable.
And pretty expensive to obtain...

--
James






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