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Subject: Re: computer programs cannot see a very simple draw in a pawn ending

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 09:39:03 06/23/98

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On June 23, 1998 at 03:58:26, Ulrich Tuerke wrote:

>I'm afraid this can imply some problems for the search. Assume
>that you have flagged a position as a "draw" in your transposition
>table because the 50 move rule had applied. If this position is later
>reached at a lower depth via a transposition, then the hash table
>would return a "draw". But may be, it really isn't because at lower
>depth the search might be still below the 50 move threshold ?
>This could result in real foolish moves returned from the t-table.
>IMHO, similar remarks hold for the draw by repetition case.
>
>I think that I had once detected problems through storing these
>kinds of positions in the hash table. Now, I don't store them.
>
>Did I get somehing wrong ?

No, but you didn't get everything right, either.

Draw scores don't just affect one node, they can propagate up the tree, and they
can cause other nodes to have a different value, without that value necessarily
being the draw score.

So as long as you have a transposition table that doesn't take into account the
path used to get to a node, there will always be problems.

And taking into account the path used to get to a node defeats the purpose of a
transposition table.

So if you don't store 50-move and rep draws at the point you encounter them,
maybe this will make things work better, but you can't say, "whew, it is perfect
now", either.

bruce



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