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Subject: Re: Zero-width Window Null Move Search

Author: Guido Schimmels

Date: 04:05:39 06/23/98

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On June 22, 1998 at 13:35:02, Roberto Waldteufel wrote:

>
>Hi Guido,
>
>It seems I had misinterpreted Negascaout. Perhaps my misinterpretation even
>constitutes a new variant of this family of search algorithms. My metod on each
>iteration is as follows:
>
>At each node, I search the first move with window {alpha,beta):
>
>value=-Search(-beta,-alpha,depth-1)
>If value>alpha then
>   If value>=beta then
>      Search=value
>       Exit
>    End If
>    Alpha=value
>End if
>
>
>
>Then, if I did not get a beta cut-off, for each subsequent move from that node I
>do a null width search, with a research if necessary,like this
>
>value=-Search(-alpha-1,-alpha,depth-1)
>If (value>alpha) and (value   value=Search(-value,beta,depth-1)
>End if
>
>If value>alpha then
>   If value>=beta then
>      Search=value
>       Exit
>    End If
>    Alpha=value
>End if
>
>This was my interpretation (or misinterpretation) of Reinfeld's pseudo-code. To
>be more precise, I search to depth instead of depth-1 if the side to move is in
>check. Compared to classical alpha beta with infinite window, it was a great
>improvement. I'll have to look at Reinfeld's code again a bit more closely, but
>my method seems to work so well that I would need to be really convinced before
>recoding it all over again. Do you think I could improve my speed with a proper
>PVS? Maybe I waste a lot of time searching the first move to full width instead
>of with a null window.
>
>Best Wishes,
>
>Roberto

Sorry, my lazyness obviously left a totally confused Roberto :-(

What you are doing is definitely NegaScout as Reinefeld suggested it.
The code I gave was only the part where I thought PVS and NegaScout
are different. The pv itself of course will be searched with the normal
alpha/beta window.

int PVS(int alpha, int beta, int depth)

int best;

{
Getmove();MakeMove();
best = -PVS(-beta,-alpha);

while(Getmove()) {
  MakeMove()
  value = -PVS(-(alpha+1),-alpha)
  if(value > alpha && value < beta) {
    value = -PVS(-beta,-alpha);
  }
 UnMake();
 if(value > best) {
   best = value;
   if(best > alpha) {
     if(best >= beta) return(best);
     alpha = best;
  }
 }
}

 return(best);
}


int NegaScout(int alpha, int beta, int depth)
{

int best;

Getmove();
MakeMove();
best = -NegaScout(-beta,-alpha);
UnMake();

while(Getmove()) {
  MakeMove();
  value = -NegaScout(-(alpha+1),-alpha)
  if(value > alpha && value < beta && depth > 1) {
    value2 = -NegaScout(-beta,-value)
    value = max(value,value2);
  }
 UnMake();
 if(value > best) {
   best = value;
   if(best > alpha) {
     if(best >= beta) return(best);
     alpha = best;
  }
 }
}

 return(best);
}

As I explained in my original post, the difference between PVS and
NegaScout is the way they handle the research. My sources are
the Reinefeld ICCA article and Crafty. So I haven't read the original text
about PVS, I looked at  the Crafty source and Bob says he does  PVS.

- Guido -





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