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Subject: Re: Pondering ("think on opponent's time")

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 20:51:13 11/10/02

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On November 10, 2002 at 22:41:06, Russell Reagan wrote:

>On November 10, 2002 at 21:29:43, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>This means that 1/2 of the time, you will
>>predict correctly and when your opponent moves, you have an instant response
>>ready.
>
>Have you ever seen instances where one engine dominated another by always
>pondering the correct move? I wonder how valuable this would be. For example one
>example of why this might not be THAT effective, if you are essentially able to
>search for twice as long (meaning you have double time odds), that's only worth
>one extra ply if you're effective branching factor is 2, right? So most of the
>time you won't even get an extra ply, and at the depths reached at tournament
>depths, an extra ply might not even be decisive IF you were able to reach it.
>So, how valuable is guessing the opponents move in practical play?
>
>Russell


This is pretty common.  What typically happens is that program A goes out of
book first and does a normal search.  Program B is doing nothing.  A makes a
move and starts pondering the right move.  B starts searching.  Every time B
makes a move, A has been pondering the right thing and makes an instant
move.  But it is rare to predict 100%.  So eventually A predicts the wrong
move, B makes a move and now A has to think, while B ponders the right move.

This kind of swing happens repeatedly during a game...



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