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Subject: Re: about in_check()

Author: Sune Fischer

Date: 01:48:58 06/15/03

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On June 14, 2003 at 23:57:41, Russell Reagan wrote:

>On June 14, 2003 at 19:34:12, Magoo wrote:
>
>>"Maybe it is possible not to check for check at all and just check if a capture
>>removes the king one ply later."
>>
>>Yes this is possible, but as i discoverd its really slow, in the early stages of
>>my program i did just what you say. The thing is if you are going to do a search
>>to depth D, you are really doing a search to depth D+1, which is much much
>>slower than doing a search to depth D and calling in_check() after each move.
>
>I think if you use the "capture the king" method of detecting illegal moves, you
>have to sort the move list first, and put "captures of the king" at the very
>top. Then if your program moves a piece that was pinned (exposing the king,
>illegal), the very first next move you will search will be the capture of the
>king. So you only visit one extra node, not one extra ply. If you don't sort the
>illegal moves to the top of your legal move list, then you will do a LOT of
>searching before you find the illegal move, and your program will probably be
>slow.

Actually you don't need to make any of the moves or even sort the list to see if
the king is captured. You can start by scanning the movelist for a king capture.
The problem is that you generated moves in a illegal position (because your last
move was illegal), and that is just pure no good for nothing overhead.

-S.



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