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

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 20:57:00 09/02/02

Go up one level in this thread


On September 02, 2002 at 19:54:20, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

>On September 02, 2002 at 02:19:08, Ricardo Gibert wrote:
>
>without hashtable you can put mtd in the toilet.


Not if 99.99999% of the time you only need one search...





>
>>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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