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Subject: Re: Verified Null-Move Pruning, ICGA 25(3)

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 16:11:10 11/20/02

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On November 20, 2002 at 17:45:02, Omid David Tabibi wrote:

>On November 20, 2002 at 17:39:26, Martin Giepmans wrote:
>
>>On November 20, 2002 at 16:19:29, Omid David Tabibi wrote:
>>
>>>On November 20, 2002 at 16:04:50, Martin Giepmans wrote:
>>>
>>>>On November 20, 2002 at 11:43:10, Omid David Tabibi wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>            ICGA Journal, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 153-161, September 2003
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>                          Verified Null-Move Pruning
>>>>>
>>>>>                    Omid David Tabibi and Nathan S. Netanyahu
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>                                   Abstract
>>>>>
>>>>>In this article we review standard null-move pruning and introduce our extended
>>>>>version of it, which we call verified null-move pruning. In verified null-move
>>>>>pruning, whenever the shallow null-move search indicates a fail-high, instead of
>>>>>cutting off the search from the current node, the search is continued with
>>>>>reduced depth.
>>>>>
>>>>>Our experiments with verified null-move pruning show that on average, it
>>>>>constructs a smaller search tree with greater tactical strength in comparison to
>>>>>standard null-move pruning. Moreover, unlike standard null-move pruning, which
>>>>>fails badly in zugzwang positions, verified null-move pruning manages to detect
>>>>>most zugzwangs and in such cases conducts a re-search to obtain the correct
>>>>>result. In addition, verified null-move pruning is very easy to implement, and
>>>>>any standard null-move pruning program can use verified null-move pruning by
>>>>>modifying only a few lines of code.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>pdf:  http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/~davoudo/pubs/vrfd_null.pdf
>>>>>zipped pdf:  http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/~davoudo/pubs/vrfd_null.pdf.zip
>>>>>gzipped postscript:  http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/~davoudo/pubs/vrfd_null.ps.gz
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>If I'm not mistaken this is the well known "verification search" with
>>>>one modification: no verification in the verification search.
>>>>Am I right?
>>>>
>>>
>>>The classical verification search as introduced by Plenkner comes to detect
>>>zugzwangs. Verifeid null-move pruning as presented in the paper, constructs a
>>>smaller search tree with greater tactical strength in middle games (in addition
>>>to detecting zugzwangs).
>>>
>>>
>>>>Another question:
>>>>your results in table 5 seem convincing, but what about table 4?
>>>>Are these results statistically significant? (my guess is no ..)
>>>>
>>>
>>>For a good estimate of the growth of the search tree as we go deeper, see Table
>>>3 and Figure 4 (which present ECM test positions searched to a depth of 11
>>>plies).
>>>The WCS test positions were mainly used for testing the tactical strength
>>>(results in Table 5). Table 4 was provided just for the sake of completeness.
>>>
>>>
>>>>Martin
>>
>>I see that I reduced the numbers of the tables (R=1 ;))
>>What I wanted to write is that table 6 is convincing while table 5 is IMO not.
>>
>>Combining table 4 and 5 my impression is that - from a time perspective -
>>R=3 might be better than verified R=2.
>
>(you mean verified R = 3, don't you?!)
>
>Even though standard R = 3 constructs a smaller search tree, the problem with
>it, is that it is too risky. Except DIEP which uses a fixed R = 3, I don't know
>of any program that uses that value due to its high risk.

Latest not public Movei is using a fixed R=3(except endgames) but I do not claim
that it is better than combination of R=3 and R=2 but only that it seems
clealrly better than R=2.

I prefered to test other things and until today I did not compare R=3 with a
combination of R=3 and R=2.


Uri



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