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Subject: Re: selective 7 pieces+ endgame positions storage question

Author: Scott Gasch

Date: 11:08:28 06/14/01

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On June 14, 2001 at 13:15:29, Itay Ben-Dan wrote:

>hello
>
>i'm a university student starting a chess endgames project,
>and i'd like to request info about the following idea:
>
>suppose i have smart filter that classifies positions
>as interesting to evaluate, e.g. in terms of bad-computer-eval
>positions etc.. and i store this (big) selective set of
>positions with the best move to play in each one, and e.g.
>with an eval (but not complete solution like tablebases because
>of time/storage constraints) that was taken at high depths offline,
>and allow a chess engine to use these positions in a similar way to
>using endgame tablebases - to improve the engine's strength..

I'm not sure how the affect of this would be different than present day
"interior node recognizers" or having special case code in your eval except for
requiring a *lot* more space.

>the main problem i see with this idea is that when the engine
>actually reaches to a position i stored, after the opponent
>makes his move, there is no info about how to proceed...

If you do not probe this gigantic database at the root search but rather only in
the 2nd..Nth ply you will get a PV with one move on it.  Next time its your turn
simply search again.

>also, if anyone knows about an idea similar to what i described
>the is focused on endgames, i'd be interested to know..

See Ernst's DarkThought website and his paper about fast interior node
recognizers.

>any comments about this ideas and ways to solve the problems
>that arise from it (from theoretical point of view, not
>implementation etc) - would be appreciated....

I don't think you realize what kind of storage we're talking about here.  Its on
the order of terrabytes to do anything useful with 7 piece tables (maybe more)
unless your filter is very selective.  What is the rationale behind storing on
disk rather than adding new code to eval or writing recognizers?  On disk
requires a ton of space and a very slow probe process.  While new code in eval
just costs you an extra conditional in every node.  And done right interior node
recognizers are fast also.

Scott



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