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Subject: Re: Testing the reliability of forward pruning

Author: scott farrell

Date: 01:28:08 05/18/03

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On May 16, 2003 at 10:42:25, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On May 15, 2003 at 21:47:20, Jon Dart wrote:
>
>>Ernst Heinz did this by using standard test suites, for example Win at Chess, or
>>ECM (Encyclopedia of Chess Middlegames). He found that the solve rate didn't
>>really change much with forward pruning on, but the number of nodes searched for
>>a fixed ply depth decreased 20-50% (this is from the chapter on AEL pruning in
>>his book Scaleable Search in Computer Chess). He also used other testing
>>methods, including game play, as detailed in the book.
>
>
>I don't think this methodology is reasonable.
>
>For example, suppose your forward-pruning speeds you up by a factor of
>four.  Comparing same-search-depth runs means the FP version will move
>in 1/4th the time of the non-FP version.  Suppose the FP version does
>worse on three positions?  But if you run it for 4x longer, so that it
>has the same time limit as the non-FP version, the three positions are now
>"back to normal"???
>
>I think the _right_ way to test is with a fixed time limit so that a version
>that can go deeper will go deeper.  After all, that is the _purpose_ of FP
>in the first place...

maybe you can run the non-fp version, and time how long it takes to find the
solution. Rhen allow a maximum time control for the fp version equal to the
solve time - if it solves in less, success, if it doesnt solve in time =
failure.

Scott

>
>
>
>
>>
>>--Jon
>>
>>On May 15, 2003 at 18:17:09, Russell Reagan wrote:
>>
>>>I would like to know how to test whether or not a forward pruning method is
>>>reliable.
>>>
>>>I have one idea to test when and if a method is reliable, and I'd like to know
>>>if it's a good idea or not, and also what other methods might be used to test
>>>the reliability of forward pruning methods.
>>>
>>>My idea requires a collection of games, and two versions of a program. One
>>>version would have forward pruning turned off, and the other would have it
>>>turned on. You would feed each version of the program the same game, and let
>>>each do a search on the initial position to the same fixed depth. If both
>>>versions report the same move and score, and the version using forward pruning
>>>had a lower time to depth, then the forward pruning is reliable (so far). If the
>>>version using forward pruning reported different results, then the forward
>>>pruning method is not reliable for this type of position. You make the next move
>>>in the game, and repeat the search and compare the results for each position in
>>>the game. Then you repeat the process for each game.
>>>
>>>When I think about testing the reliability of null-move using this method, I
>>>think the test would do well. I would expect the test to tell us that in most
>>>positions, null-move is reliable, and I would expect it to fail for some endgame
>>>positions, and so this test would tell us that null-move was good forward
>>>pruning, but to turn it off in the endgame (or detect zugzwang, or however you
>>>choose to guard against it). I haven't had time to test this though, since I
>>>just thought of it and I'm not at home.
>>>
>>>I am basing all of this on the assumption that the strength forward pruning
>>>provides is not that it finds better moves at the same depth, but that it
>>>finishes searching a particular depth in a shorter amount of time, allowing the
>>>search to go deeper, which is where the added strength comes from. Is this
>>>correct?
>>>
>>>Comments, please...



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