Author: Tom King
Date: 13:33:33 08/08/01
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On August 07, 2001 at 16:03:34, Bruce Moreland wrote: >I've often heard people state that null move with R=3 is better than with R=2, >but I have never ever ever gotten a test result that indicates this. > >I've tried everything. I've tried it throughout the tree, I've tried it near >the root, and I've tried it near the tips. > >My measurement standard is ECM positions solved, which *always* goes down. > >What are other people doing that I'm not doing, or are people testing in some >other way, if so is their way better or worse? > >I would test Crafty both ways (it's currently doing R=3 some places), but my >machines will be busy until after the WMCCC. > >bruce Hi Bruce, I'm "doing a DarkThought" with this - ie R=2 near the tips, R=3 near the root. It made very little difference to test suites, IIRC, but didn't seem to make things worse. I've been using the mixture of R=2 and R=3 for two years. I made the change just after the WCCC at Paderborn, after a discussion with Bob on this forum. Looking back at my notes, the R=2/3 mix improved times on on 18 of the BT2450 problems, and gave worse times on 6. For LCT-2, the R=2/3 mix improved times on 14 of the problems, and worsened times on 4 of the problems. The improvements were pretty small, and this is a small sample. Self play showed no improvements in strength, but I liked the extra bit of depth, so I kept it. So back then it was a slight win, at least for Francesca. However, since loading up the eval with wacky stuff to create the M.A.D versions of Francesca, I haven't revisited the R=2 vs R=3 stuff. Probably should do - if I had time! I suspect there are some other tricks to be found, which relate to this. Many commercial programs seems to search through the plies at an extraordinary speed, these days. And of course, they wallop poor Francesca, who has never been too hot with tactics! ** Good luck at the upcoming WMCCC. When is the date for it? ** Rgds, Tom
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