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Subject: Re: Unstable aspiration search

Author: Ulrich Tuerke

Date: 06:10:31 02/11/03

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On February 10, 2003 at 16:21:23, Sune Fischer wrote:

>I'm fooling around with some root node aspiration search,
>Looks like it is a tad unstable, I wonder if that is normal.
>
>It produces different preferred moves at different plies.
>E.g. normally it prefers e4 at ply 11, but using a narrow window of 0.1 pawn it
>prefers e4 already at ply 9. Sure the hashtable is going to make a difference
>here, I realize that, but still a change on the root move is not an
>insignificant effect.
>
>The narrower the window, the more instability. Is this to be expected?

I don't think that this is unusual.
The source of these search anomalies are dependencies of the search on the
current values of alpha and beta. These could be:
lazy eval (as Robert mentioned),
null move pruning,
futility (and other) forward cuts,
extensions which are triggered by comparing current score to alpha/beta
...

Theoretically, the search is only guaranteed to be stable, if you eliminate
these dependencies. (I have decided to live with them.)

Uli


>
>the code:
>
>window = param::pawn_unit/10;
>walpha = previous_score-window;
>wbeta = previous_score+window;
>score = -b.Search(1,ONEPLY*(maxdepth-1),-wbeta,-walpha,0);
>if (score <= walpha) {
>	score = -b.Search(1,ONEPLY*(maxdepth-1),-wbeta,-alpha,0);
>	if (score >= wbeta)
>		score = -b.Search(1,ONEPLY*(maxdepth-1),-beta,-alpha,0);
>} else if (score >= wbeta) {
>	score = -b.Search(1,ONEPLY*(maxdepth-1),-beta,-walpha,0);
>	if (score <= walpha)
>		score = -b.Search(1,ONEPLY*(maxdepth-1),-beta,-alpha,0);
>}
>
>
>results of different window widths:
>
>window=pawn_unit:
>
>1	-1	0	1		1.a3
>1	14	1	5		1.d3
>1	23	1	14		1.d4
>1	105	1	21		1.Nc3
>2	-103	1	52		1.Nc3 Nf3
>2	0	2	96		1.Nf3 Nf6
>3	103	2	280		1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3
>4	-23	2	507		1.Nf3 Nc3
>4	23	3	1535		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3
>5	23	3	1711		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3
>6	0	4	2781		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.e4 e5
>7	16	5	7890		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 d5 4.Bf4
>8	6	6	14544		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.e4 d5 4.e5 Ng4
>9	15	33	197084		1.Nc3 d5 2.Nf3 Nc6
>10	8	66	439047		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.e4 e5 3.Nf3 Nc6
>11	12	234	1641245		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 d5 4.e3 Bf5 5.Bd3 Bxd3 6.Qxd3
>11	15	597	4247723		1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6
>12	12	992	7037705		1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 exd4
>13	14	2475	17533424	1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Nd4 5.O-O Bc5 6.Nxe5 Nxb5
>7.Nxb5 Nxe4
>14	14	3768	26153111	1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Nd4 5.O-O Bc5 6.Nxe5 Nxb5
>7.Nxb5 Nxe4
>
>window=pawn_unit/10:
>
>1	-1	0	1		1.a3
>1	14	1	5		1.d3
>1	23	1	14		1.d4
>1	105	1	21		1.Nc3
>2	-103	2	52		1.Nc3 Nf3
>2	0	2	96		1.Nf3 Nf6
>3	103	2	272		1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3
>4	-23	2	489		1.Nf3 Nc3
>4	23	3	1517		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3
>5	23	3	1693		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3
>6	-16	4	3765		1.Nc3 Nf3
>6	16	4	4367		1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3
>7	16	5	8324		1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3
>8	6	7	15958		1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.e4 d5 4.e5 Ng4 5.Nxe4
>9	15	21	112696		1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.d4 Nc6 4.Bf4 Bf5 5.e3
>9	17	41	249717		1.e4 Nc6 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 d5 4.exd5 Nxd5 5.Bd3
>10	8	110	729380		1.e4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.Nc3
>11	15	392	2758226		1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.Nc3 Bd6 6.O-O
>12	12	740	5225754		1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Bd6 5.O-O a6 6.Bxc6 dxc6
>13	14	2689	19137433	1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3
>14	14	3521	25053272	1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3
>
>window=pawn_unit/100: (pawn_unit=1000)
>
>
>1	-1	0	1		1.a3
>1	14	0	5		1.d3
>1	23	0	14		1.d4
>1	105	1	21		1.Nc3
>2	-206	1	49		1.Nc3 Nf3
>2	0	1	93		1.Nf3 Nf6
>3	103	1	271		1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3
>4	-23	2	553		1.Nf3 Nc3
>4	23	2	1629		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3
>5	23	2	1803		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3
>6	-16	3	3382		1.Nc3 Nf3
>6	16	4	3829		1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3
>7	16	4	7702		1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3
>8	-15	7	26519		1.Nf3 Nc3
>8	-11	10	37593		1.a3 Nf6 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 d5 4.d4 Bf5 5.Nxe4
>8	17	15	76685		1.e4 Nf6 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3
>9	17	31	185188		1.e4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6
>10	-24	86	596412		1.e4 exd5
>10	0	106	742042		1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.Bf4 Bf5 5.Nb5 Rc8 6.Nxe5
>10	8	161	1149018		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.e4 e5 3.Nf3 Nc6
>11	12	347	2482318		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 d5 4.e3 Bf5 5.Bd3 Bxd3 6.Qxd3
>11	15	658	4712297		1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6
>12	-14	1006	7183908		1.e4 Nc3
>12	14	1222	8702636		1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.e4 e5
>13	14	1970	14002541	1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.e4 e5
>14	14	3647	25603089	1.Nc3 Nf6 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.e4 e5



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