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Subject: Re: qsearch questions

Author: Bas Hamstra

Date: 14:53:23 12/04/02

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On December 04, 2002 at 12:36:44, Jon Dart wrote:

>On December 04, 2002 at 03:43:09, Bas Hamstra wrote:
>
>>It is not the same IMO. I think Jon means this: suppose Eval is below alpha.
>>Then in Crafty you calculate Delta=Alpha-Mat-Margin. However more accurate might
>>be Delta=Eval-Margin. IE you prune based on Eval rather than material.
>>I tried this, and the result is it will throw out less captures while I see no
>>noticable improvement in accurracy.
>
>Yes, this is what I meant. Note that if you do an early exit from the scoring
>function (lazy eval) then you need to adjust that if using this technique. E.g.
>if you stop when you know the score is below alpha, that's wrong now, because
>the amount the score is below alpha matters (cutting off early if you are above
>beta is not a problem).
>
>--Jon

I must confess I never have realized this, I will try it again, it might matter.
But at the moment (actually the last years) I don't do futility at all, only
straight SEE<0 pruning. IMO futility in the qsearch is only a (small) win if you
have a Crafty-like mini-qsearch, otherwise it is useless. I does not combine
well with a qsearch in which you do not evaluate a position when InCheck. At
least according to my experience. I take the small penalty of leaving it to the
lazy eval in the next ply, which is much more accurate.

Bas.











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