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Subject: Re: Lower bound of mate in n in the hash table

Author: J. Wesley Cleveland

Date: 21:28:05 07/28/02

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On July 28, 2002 at 13:02:01, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On July 27, 2002 at 15:06:23, J. Wesley Cleveland wrote:
>
>>On July 25, 2002 at 20:13:45, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On July 25, 2002 at 19:24:06, J. Wesley Cleveland wrote:
>>>
>>>>I see that crafty does not store lower bounds of MATE-n in the hash table,
>>>>rather changes them to MATE-300. Bob wrote that he had search instabilities
>>>>before he did this. Normally, this does not matter, but I think it makes crafty
>>>>considerably slower in finding mates, as it only gets cutoffs on exact scores.
>>>>Do other people have experience in this ?
>>>
>>>
>>>Note that all this does is slightly decrease search efficiency.  I do store
>>>_exact_ mate scores as they should be stored.  I store "bounds" that are based
>>>on MATE as MATE-300.  The penalty is _very_ small unless you have a position
>>>where almost everything leads to a forced mate of some sort...
>>
>>The place where I notice it is in engame analysis with EGTBs, where after a long
>>time the PV is scored as Mate in 38 or so, and then it takes a *very* long time
>>to prove the other root moves are worse.
>>
>>A related question:
>>If the score in the hash table is MATE-300 and this would cause a cutoff,
>>shouldn't you cut off even if the draft is not deep enough ?
>
>
>I could but I don't.  That would prevent finding a _shorter_ mate the next
>iteration.

But wouldn't you only care about a shorter mate if the _value_ would not cause a
cutoff ?



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