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Subject: Re: eval short-circut

Author: Pat King

Date: 08:31:57 11/30/01

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On November 29, 2001 at 21:11:32, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On November 29, 2001 at 19:51:35, David Hanley wrote:
[snip]
>>leaf i can just adjust it at each capture/promotion.  That seems to work pretty
>>well, and i figured that an average on one op per inside node would be a lot
>>cheaper than 64 per leaf.
>>
>>I realized later that many leaves will be reached with material balances far
>>outside alpha & beta.  So, my thinking was to write code much like the
>>following:
>>
>>if ( material < ( alpha - (2*pawn)))
>>  return alpha - 1;
>>if ( material > ( beta + (2*pawn)))
>>  return beta + 1;
>>
[snip]
>
>
>It is a rudimentary approach to lazy eval, plus quiescence futility pruning...
>
>It definitely is sound, but watch the "window" as you improve your eval. The
>window will have to widen.

Since the PV score will include the entire eval, I reasoned that it was not
terribly important to fully evaluate non-PV branches, and that therefore the
window could be quite narrow. Even if the positional score might nudge a given
node into the A-B window, it should not affect the PV (assuming you've got the
right PV). I squeezed my window down to a 1/4 pawn without apparent ill effect.
Admittedly, my eval isn't terribly sophisticated yet, but it sure varies more
than 1/4 pawn. Is there some kind of test that can detect "too small" other than
test positions, actual play?



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