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Subject: Re: Should an engine using SEE beat another not using it?

Author: Tony Werten

Date: 13:43:05 01/27/01

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On January 27, 2001 at 16:34:53, Carlos del Cacho wrote:

>On January 27, 2001 at 14:30:18, Severi Salminen wrote:
>
>>Hi!
>>
>>I made a few test games between a version of my engine using SEE and another
>>using just MVV sorting. I played only a few (24) games and time control was
>>5min/G and in 8 games 1min/G. The result was 12-12! Is this possible, normal, or
>>do I have a bug? I would have guessed that the SEE version had beat the hell out
>>of the other but that never happened. It seems that SEE slows things down a lot
>>and the net result seems to be that it searches equally deep compared to the
>>other version. Has anyone here measured the true benefit of using SEE? Could you
>>show me positions in which SEE makes a big difference or could you run self-test
>>games between two versions of your program? Are there positions where SEE hurts
>>searching? I really like to know if SEE is worth it? I have a relatively slow
>>computer (300Mhz Celeron, Crafty running at 80KNPS) so could time control and
>>overall speed have influence on this?
>>
>>Any comments are welcome!
>>
>>Severi
>
>Just a quick test. Two runs on WAC 5 sec/problem:
>
>   - SEE pruning in Quiescent Search: 270
>   - without it: 246
>
>So it is definitely a win for my program (Pepito).
>
>The only difference between these builds was commenting out these lines:
>
>    val = SEE(pos_stack->jug);
>    if (val < 0)
>      continue;
>
>    val += MARGEN_QUIES + pos_eval;
>
>    if (val <= alpha)
>      continue;
>
>But you should note that I try not to call the SEE function whenever possible.
>If I can get a cut with pos_eval + mat_gain I give up this capture. Another
>question is if SEE is profitable in normal search. I also it there but kicking
>it out would be a bit more difficult so I haven't tried yet :-). At the same
>time captures are generated I assign them their MVV/LVA scores. Then I try
>captures with positive scores and when this gets below zero I call SEE for
>remaining moves. Losing ones are searched after all non captures. I'm not really
>sure about the gains here so I'll give it a try...

I'm a correct in assuming you don't do checks in qsearch and your MAX_EVAL < 2
pawns ? Because in that case SEE is definitly a win ( maybe also if you do some
checks and max_eval is a bit bigger than 2 pawns )

Tony

>
>Greets,
>Carlos



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