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Subject: Re: about in_check()

Author: Bo Persson

Date: 06:06:50 06/15/03

Go up one level in this thread


On June 15, 2003 at 04:48:58, Sune Fischer wrote:

>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.

And if you already have a MVV/LVA routine, it will pop up there automatically if
you just score it higher than PxQ.


>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.

Except if it is faster than *always* verifiying the legality first. :-)

The extra move generation (captures only?) will happen just sometimes, the
legality check will be needed for every move. Which is fastest?

>
>-S.



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