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Subject: Re: Measuring closeness to a minimal tree

Author: Vincent Diepeveen

Date: 14:12:16 04/09/03

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On April 08, 2003 at 12:02:09, Sune Fischer wrote:

>On April 08, 2003 at 07:30:24, Bo Persson wrote:
>>
>>One of the things Aske Plaat discusses is that the "minimal tree" isn't the
>>minimum! With hashing it is possible to get a search tree that is actually
>>smaller than the alpha-beta theoretical limit.
>>
>>If you search with variable depth, a non-uniform branching factor, hashing, and
>>null-moves, etc, reaching 1.21x the minimal tree MIGHT not be good enough, when
>>it in fact COULD be possible to reach maybe 0.8x the "minimal tree". We don't
>>know. That is a problem!
>
>I agree, but when talking about minimal tree in the classic sense I (and I
>understand that this the common way) think of it as the best-case alpha-beta.
>As I understood the question, hashing was also to be ignored.
>
>Hashing is an addition to the move ordering that can be "disabled" (just like
>extensions and pruning), so you can measure move ordering relative to the
>"minimal tree".
>Hashing complicates matters "infinitely" here. :)

hashing makes in diep the move ordering 1% better in fact (the positions which
do not give a cutoff of course, they are disregarded in that measurement).

In theory 1% better is not 1 ply deeper if you go do some math. But in fact 1%
better move ordering means about 1 ply deeper search i found out by practical
research. So clearly nullmove and transpositions play a major role.

>-S.
>>Bo Persson
>>bop2@telia.com



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