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Subject: Re: How to handle EGTB stalemates

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 12:47:05 03/02/03

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On March 02, 2003 at 12:15:19, Tom Likens wrote:

>
>I ran across an interesting bug the other day that I thought I'd share
>and also get some advice on.  I hash the scores and moves that I get
>from the tablebases during a search.  For a normal draw (i.e. a non-
>stalemate draw) I simply store any move that maintains the draw in both
>the hash table and the principal variation.
>
>The problem I ran into is that when a stalemate is encountered, there is
>no move to store.  This has the potential to corrupt the hash table.
>Unfortunately, since the tablebase only returns a 0 for a draw, there is
>no easy way to differentiate between the two types of draws.  I'm curious
>how other people handle this problem.  I can think of a couple of
>solutions, but none that are completely satisfactory.
>
>1. Whenever a draw is returned from the tablebase verify that it is
>   or is not a stalemate.  If it is a stalemate, skip the storage step.
>   This is accurate and works, but it's slow.


I don't understand the problem.  You advance to ply N+1 after making a move
at ply N.  You do a repetition check.  If it returns "true" you have no move
to store, just a score although I don't store at this position since the
rep test is done first and there's no point.  But, then you probe the egtb
tables, and if you get a hit, there is no best move either at this ply.  You
just store the score, a best=0, and back up to the previous ply where there
_is_ a best move...

Maybe you are doing something different???



>
>2. If a draw score is returned, check if the side with the right to move
>   has only a lone king.  If yes, then also skip the storage of the move.
>   This is faster, but it is not completely accurate since it could miss
>   a variety of stalemate positions.
>
>I'm probably missing something trivial so any thoughts and/or comments
>would be welcome.
>
>regards,
>--tom



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