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Subject: Re: Branching factor, etc

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 02:22:18 08/31/02

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On August 30, 2002 at 23:00:30, Andreas Herrmann wrote:

>On August 30, 2002 at 21:03:25, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On August 30, 2002 at 17:24:34, Andreas Herrmann wrote:
>>
>>>On August 30, 2002 at 14:33:08, Omid David wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 30, 2002 at 14:27:53, Andreas Herrmann wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On August 30, 2002 at 09:56:21, Omid David wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On August 29, 2002 at 23:03:43, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On August 29, 2002 at 22:50:53, Brian Richardson wrote:
>>>>>>>[snip]
>>>>>>>>Is move sorting turned off in Yace, GLC and Gnu for the depth = 6 searchs?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Pretty irrelevant since all of them show a branching factor between 2 and 3 for
>>>>>>>the opening position.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>The program described by the OP had a branching factor of 6-8, IIRC.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>IOW, something is clearly amiss.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I wonder how often the OP finds the requested position in the hash table.
>>>>>>>Usually, hash table alone would be enough to prevent a branch factor that
>>>>>>>terrible.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>How do you calculate branching factor here?
>>>>>
>>>>>A branching factor of 3 means that each node has in the average 3 child nodes
>>>>>(This is the description i have found on an internet page). So the formula must
>>>>>be:
>>>>>
>>>>>bf = ( Nodes [ply n] - nodes [ply n-1] ) / nodes [ply n-1]
>>>>>
>>>>>Excample:
>>>>>Whole nodes until ply 5 = 4000 and whole nodes until ply 6 = 20000.
>>>>>Then you got a branching factor of
>>>>>bf [ply 6] = ( 20000 - 4000 ) / 4000 = 4.0
>>>>>
>>>>>have a nice day
>>>>>Andreas
>>>>
>>>>I know this :-)
>>>>
>>>>But there is the odd/even issue, so the b-factor can change drastically while
>>>>moving from an odd ply to an even ply, and vice versa.
>>>
>>>I think the best is to calculate an average branching factor from all plys.
>>>
>>>bf[avg] = ( bf[2] + bf[3] + bf[4] ... + bf[n] ) / (n - 1)
>>>
>>>Andreas
>>
>>It is better to use
>>( bf[2] * bf[3] * bf[4] ... * bf[n] )^(1/(n-1))
>>
>>Uri
>
>Hi Uri,
>
>have you found an official description of the calculation of the branching
>factor in search trees? Because i don't know how to calculate the branching
>factor correct. My formulas i have created only based on the description
>"A branching factor of 3 means that each node has in the average 3 child nodes"
>that i have found on an internet page.

My formula is based on common sense and not on a link in the internet.
I want the branching factor to tell me which program is faster in getting
deeper.

If I use your formula I can get misleading information because it is better to
have a branching factor of 2 at even plies and 4 in odd plies and not 3 in all
plies and your formula suggest that it is the same.

Uri



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