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Subject: Re: Question to Guido or Guy

Author: GuyHaworth

Date: 17:27:01 05/02/03

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To clarify slightly, in the 'forward pass' method, the program looks at every
position to see if it can set a depth or improve the possibly-interim depth
already assigned.

Actually, there is a good efficiency finesse here.  If the 'interim' depth on
cycle N is N or less, this cannot be improved if the metric is DTC or DTM.


In both the forward- and retro- algorithms, when the metric is DTC, cycle N
propagates losses in N-1 to wins in N.  Because of this neat property that all
depths set in cycle N are 'N', the bitvector approach - holding the status of a
position in one bit, e.g. 'position needs depth setting to N' - can be used.

In both the forward- and retro- algorithms, when the metric is DTM, _if_ you
choose to delay propagating losses in N-1 until cycle N, the same bitvector
approach works.

If you choose to propagate losses in (DTM) N-1 as early as possible, maybe even
in cycle 1, then the bitvector approach cannot be used - and it uses either 8 or
16 times as much RAM.


The Wu-Beal algorithm was first used on (Western) chess endgames by John Tamplin
in 2001.  He also combined the algorithm with Nalimov-indexing to create
Nalimov-compatible DTC EGTs.


Guido seems to have cut some good code to do EGT-generation.  I must confess to
being a theorist onlooker and not a hands-on programmer.


- guy






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