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Subject: Re: Nullmove crap

Author: Rolf Tueschen

Date: 05:17:16 12/19/02

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On December 18, 2002 at 22:36:27, Russell Reagan wrote:

>On December 18, 2002 at 21:16:53, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>
>>You get into trouble when you are safe for the moment, but the computer has a
>>longer term threat that you can't escape.  The short depth null-move search
>>won't detect the threat.
>
>In this case, I have to ask, will an extra two plies be able to detect that long
>term threat? If it's a long term threat, I wouldn't think it would matter
>whether you subtract two (or three) plies from the normal full width search.
>
>If the extra R plies would not be sufficient to find the long term threat, then
>what you describe isn't really a weakness of null-move, since that long term
>threat wouldn't have been found in the full width search anyway. Therefore
>null-move isn't the guilty party that introduced that weakness.

You found a good argument but it won't help. My main point is NOT to give
nullmove pruning any blame. I was arguing against the sweet dreaming belief of
M. Feist like programmers who are really believing that with nullmove they could
prevent the super GM to find a key. This is bull. Because exactly of your point.
It's not only nullmove but in the last instance the lack of depth. This is true.
The point of my argument was that with nullmove you give the super GM an extra
choice to make. He can analyse exactly the hole in your nullmove. Actually it's
also both. He will always work wirth your insufficient depth.

Again, the main point of my warning was gainst the sweet dreams. And Bruce gave
me full support when saying that since he stopped nothing new did happen. He
spoke of a wall. (..... THE WHO)

Rolf Tueschen


>
>If R extra ply would be sufficient to detect that "long term" threat, it seems
>like smartly used extentions or qsearch be sufficient to find it, since it would
>most likely be tactical in nature.
>
>Russell



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