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Subject: Re: Hashing

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 19:03:43 04/04/03

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On April 04, 2003 at 16:11:48, Dieter Buerssner wrote:

>On April 04, 2003 at 15:06:37, Russell Reagan wrote:
>
>>As far as an example, try this:
>>
>> rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq e3 0 1
>>
>>The en passant square is e3.
>
>Only for the FEN Standard, the ep square must be e3 here. A very doubious rule
>(I think it is wrong) in that Standard. For the search of an engine (for example
>for hashing), there is no need to set/hash the ep square, when the pawn cannot
>be captured. And then your problem is gone ... One might still argue, that in
>the few real ep-cases, hash could even help when you ignore ep. Perhaps - I
>don't think, it don't think you could gain much.
>
>BTW. Setting the ep target and hashing it always yields in bugs in one typical
>method of repetition detection (comparing with previous hash signatures): When
>the position is on the board the second time, you won't see it ... Not hashing
>ep target could yield in similar bugs. Setting ep target only when a ep capture
>is possible will solve those problems. However, one subtle problem could remain:
>it seems that the pawn can be captured ep, but it really cant't be captured
>because the capturing pawn is pinned to the king. This might be rather expensive
>to detect in the inner loops of the search.
>
>Regards,
>Dieter

It's also possible that the pawn is not pinned, but capturing en-passant is
illegal:  White Kh5, Pf5; Black Ra5, Pg7.  1...g5, now White's f-pawn is not
pinned, but 2. fxg6 is illegal.

Junior at least used to not hash e.p. status.  I saw a big (like -3 or -4)
fail-low once because of that.

Dave



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