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Subject: Re: developing Junior (and other pro programs)

Author: Vincent Diepeveen

Date: 16:54:20 09/02/02

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On September 02, 2002 at 02:19:08, Ricardo Gibert wrote:

without hashtable you can put mtd in the toilet.

>On September 01, 2002 at 13:41:19, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
>
>>On September 01, 2002 at 13:28:20, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On September 01, 2002 at 03:20:20, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 31, 2002 at 23:54:31, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Interesting question.  Deep Blue essentially used it in the chess hardware,
>>>>>which means the last software ply was a sort of mtd(f) search.
>>>>
>>>>Except that it was missing the 'm' in mtd(f), which made it horribly
>>>>inefficient.
>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>GCP
>>>
>>>
>>>I don't agree.  They simply had a piece of hardware that could search a
>>>null-window tree, and nothing else.  Which is all a single search in a single
>>>iteration of mtd(f) can do.  The software provided the "m" at the point where
>>>the software handed things off to the hardware...
>>
>>Nonsense. The point of MTD is to use a hashtable to prevent wasted work when
>>researching the tree and trying to converge on a value. The Deep Blue chess
>>chips did *not* have hashtables. This makes them horribly inefficient, as anyone
>>that has actually used or uses MTD will tell you.
>
>This isn't clear. Remember the hardware is not searching near the root. It is
>only searching near the leaves. The vast majority of the time, all you may want
>to show near the leaves is if all the "relevant" positions in the subtree are
>greater or less than a certain bound. For this mtd(f) would fit the bill just
>fine despite the absence of a hash table as long as a research does not need to
>be performed. Whether or not it is really inefficient depends on how it is used.
>However, you are right that "mtd(f)" is something of a misnomer as the "m" is
>missing as you have noted.
>
>>
>>The fact that the software part of their search had hashtables has *nothing* to
>>do with this.
>>
>>--
>>GCP



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