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Subject: Re: qsearch questions

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 19:45:16 12/03/02

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On December 03, 2002 at 18:59:20, Jon Dart wrote:

>On December 03, 2002 at 17:16:58, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>
>>the idea is to do anything you can to exclude moves.  Because below each move
>>you search, you grow a tree, and that is expensive.  If alpha is 0.00, and
>>the current material score is -15.0, then capturing a pawn is not going to
>>help, and avoiding that capture avoids the tree below it.
>
>I've noticed that Crafty uses the material value as a basis for calculating
>futilty. In other words, if material + SEE gain + safety margin < alpha, you cut
>the move (I do something similar at present).
>
>What Mike is suggesting is to use the total position eval, which is also
>something I've experimented with. So: if eval + capture + SEE gain + safety
>margin < alpha, you cut. If you have large positional scores, this is possibly
>safer (the "safety margin" in Crafty is only 1 pawn).

If you follow the logic carefully, this is also what crafty is doing.  At
the top of Quiesce() I grab the positional (stand-pat) score, and if this is
> alpha, then I set alpha to that value.  All the pruning is then based off
of this positional (material+positional returned by Evaluate()) score plus the
capture gain, plus a fudge as removing a piece could increase the score but
probably not by a lot...


>
>--Jon



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