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Subject: Re: Aborting a search

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 20:46:49 03/17/03

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On March 17, 2003 at 21:54:36, Nathan Thom wrote:

>Im having troubles trying to figure out what to do with my search results when a
>timeout occurs. eg I could have searched 10 plies fully, and am part way through
>the 11th ply when time runs out.
>
>The simplest thing to do is ditch all results from the last incomplete search
>and just go with what you had after 10 plies. But this seems a big waste.
>
>Thoughts?


This is easy to handle after you think about it.  When a time-out occurs,
return a _special_ value that is outside the -MATE, +MATE range so you
can tell it is not a real score.  When you get that score backed up, just
do an immediate return all the way back to the root.

Now, if you have successfully searched the first root move at depth=11, the
result should have already been backed up to the root with a good score.  That
can be used.  If you have not yet backed up a score for the first root move at
depth=11, you just return an indicator that says "no move found, timeout
occurred".

If you did search the first move, but time out on a later move, you justs take
the score for any move that was backed up to the root prior to the time-out...

The only danger is aborting the search and backing up a partial-search score to
the root and using that...  it will kill you..



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