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Subject: Re: Mr. Iacovoni's idea: How to program it.

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 06:59:15 08/28/98

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On August 27, 1998 at 21:54:31, Jeff Anderson wrote:

>I think Mr. Iacovoni's idea has some merit.  Here is a possible way I think it
>could be done.  Please excuse me if I use incorrect terms, I am pretty new to
>this computer chess stuff.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>There would be two chess engines.  One would be an extremely fast and tactical
>engine, the other would be a 'positional' engine as Mr. Iacovoni has suggested.
>The positional engine would search and generate scores for the different moves
>and such.  Simultaneously the fast or tactical engine would be performing the
>same sort search.
>
>At the end of each programs search, if the tactical engine has found a forced
>mate or decisive win in material, or that the program's move is forced, that
>move will be played.  If not then the program will see if the positional
>engine's top move is a blunder according to the fast tactical engine.  If it is
>not a blunder then this move will be played.  If it is a blunder than the
>program will check to see if the fast tactical engine thinks the positional
>engines second best move is a blunder.  If it is not then that will be played,
>and if it is a blunder the third best move is checked and so on.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------



I hate to throw a damper on this, but it won't work, period.  The first reason
is that if the tactical engine rejects the positional engine's best move, the
positional engine won't have a "second-best" move to try, because alpha/beta
doesn't produce that.  To obtain it, you have to do a full re-search, but with
the rejected best move eliminated from consideration.

To make this work, you take a *huge* performance hit, and will play far worse
than if you do what we are doing now...




>
>My idea is so simple I think even  I could program it if I had the two engines
>that would produce scores for each legal move.  This could be done other ways
>too.  For example you could have one engine that searched with extreme
>selectivity, then you could have a brute-force engine that would make certain
>that the selective engine did not overlook anything simple.
>
>Jeff



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