Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Easy moves

Author: Ulrich Tuerke

Date: 15:12:34 04/20/01

Go up one level in this thread


On April 20, 2001 at 15:34:01, Scott Gasch wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I'm trying to come up with a good algorithm for detecting "easy" moves.  The
>goal is of course to make obvious recaptures faster.
>
>The obvious definition of an easy move is one where the score of the PV move at
>a certain depth is delta better than all the other moves at the root position.
>I use PVS, though, and because of the minimal window search on moves 2..N I
>don't come up with exact scores for some moves.

In order to get exact values instead of bounds, I perform a pure minmax search
in the 1st iteration. In later iterations, I'll also look to these values in
order to determine if there is a single reasonable reply. Several other
conditions must be fulfilled in addition to make the easy-move criterion true.
You really have to be careful. Years ago, my prog had lost a few important games
because of too aggressive easy-move handling.

Uli

>
>So I am looking for other definitions... right now I am experimenting with: if
>the first move searched never changed from plys 1-7 and it recaptures on the
>opponent's last move it is "easy".  This scares me a little, though... obviously
>this is not the sort of thing you want to get wrong.  Has anyone come up with a
>clever definition that doesn't involve extra searching?
>
>Thanks,
>Scott



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.