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Subject: Re: ETC

Author: Tony Werten

Date: 02:41:24 12/04/02

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On December 03, 2002 at 15:40:09, Frank Phillips wrote:

>I have failed miserably to implement ETC.
>
>My broad understanding is that you try for a transposition table cutoff for each
>move (successor position) at a node before recursing the search from that node.
>In my implementation the search tree is reduced, but Searcher plays noticeably
>weaker in real games, despite its performance on test suites not deteriorating -
>in fact improving slightly.  Below is my pseudo code.  Any help appreciated.
>
>Frank
>
>for (each move)
>{
>	// MakeMove
>	// Check for Draws.
>	// Extensions for this move.
>	tdepth=depth-1+extension;
>	hit=HashRetrieve(pboard,tdepth-1,&tscore,&flag);
>	// UnMakeMove
>	if (hit)
>	{
>		tscore=-tscore;
>		if (tscore>=beta && (flag==upper_bound || flag==exact_value))
>			return (tscore);

I think this should be : if (tscore>=-alfa) ...

You're using current beta, but you want beta for the next move ( wich is -alfa )


>		if (tscore<=alpha && (flag==lower_bound || flag==exact_value)
>			return (alpha);

As Murray poited out, this cutoff is wrong. It just means there's _a_ bad move.

But since alpha should have been -beta, you actually makeup for the previous
mistake, only you do it at the wrong flag (lower_bound) sometimes. When there is
an exact flag, the 2 wrongs make 1 right :)

Tony

>		}
>	}
>
>The basic idea is that upper_bound for the successor is the same as lower_bound
>for parent etc.
>And I would call the successor with depth=depth-1+extensions, therefore should
>probe the hash table with that depth.
>exact_value == score is equal to stored value.
>lower_bound == score is at least stored value.
>upper_bound == score is at most stored value.



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