Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Extensions & quiescence

Author: Nobuhiro Yoshimura

Date: 15:25:51 10/26/98

Go up one level in this thread


On October 26, 1998 at 09:34:33, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On October 26, 1998 at 01:36:59, Nobuhiro Yoshimura wrote:
>
>>On October 25, 1998 at 19:34:32, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On October 25, 1998 at 18:58:12, Nobuhiro Yoshimura wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 22, 1998 at 23:20:10, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On October 22, 1998 at 23:04:31, Peter McKenzie wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On October 22, 1998 at 21:38:29, Fawna Bergstrom wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Well everyone has their opinions on this kind of question--here are a few of
>>>>>>>mine.  Let's go back to basics:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Level I:  You search full-width to a fixed depth (alpha-beta, iterative
>>>>>>>deepening, etc. are all assumed, of course.)  Here your evaluator includes both
>>>>>>>material and positional factors.  Move ordering is critical.  First expand
>>>>>>>"killer" moves, "interesting" moves and moves that yield a higher evaluation.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Level II:  If you like you can then search beyond that looking at "interesting"
>>>>>>>moves such as captures, threats, checks, etc.  Don't bother with threats unless
>>>>>>>the threatened piece is hanging and/or more valuable than the threatening piece.
>>>>>>> You should limit the depth of this second phase or you can skip it altogether
>>>>>>>and go straight to level III--it's your call.  In level II the evaluator >adjusts
>>>>>>>for material only.  Personally I wouldn't waste too many plies on Level II.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I'm not 100% sure what you mean here, but if you start returning scores from the
>>>>>> quiescence search that don't take into account changes in evaluation due to
>>>>>>captures effecting pawn structure, and these scores can find their way into your
>>>>>>PV, then you're likely to get killed positionally.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>there are things interesting to try here.  IE if you only look at winning
>>>>>captures, you can probably get away with a positional eval at the leaf node
>>>>>that starts the qsearch, and then pass this value along to be modified as
>>>>>pieces are captured.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>May I ask a simple question ?   I am a Japanese-Chess programmer so that
>>>>I donot much about the chess programming.   In the following postion:
>>>>  0) In the q-search node
>>>>  1) WTM
>>>>  2) a white in danger
>>>>
>>>>Questions:
>>>>  1) Do you generate esacaping moves for the white peice ?
>>>>  2) Do you assume that a white piece can esacpe in the stand pat eval?
>>>>  3) Is it better to make a "PASS" move ( without depth deductions)
>>>>     to check whether the black can really gain profit by capturing it?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Nobuhiro
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>I don't, no.  I don't trust the q-search to do this sort of stuff.  I only hope
>>>I have extended enough already to avoid this problem.
>>>
>>>(2) yes as my eval doesn't consider pieces that are trapped/hung/etc except for
>>>some special cases like a bishop at h2 with a pawn at g3 trapping it...
>>>
>>>(3) did this in the 1970's and it worked ok... ie "pass" then see what happens,
>>>and *then* try to find a move that prevents that from happening...
>>>
>>>Don't do it today because of the extreme depths we see nowadays...
>>
>>In a position like:
>>  0) in q-search node
>>  1) WTM
>>  2) white queen in danger
>>  3) a black pawn in danger
>>
>>In such postion, do you only generate a capturing a black pawn?
>>If so, the postion will be evaluted as a very bad position( losing queen).
>>Are you saying that if we search deep enough, we donot get
>>a bad side effect eventhough  such position might occurs during the search?
>
>I'm only saying that after looking at all the games I have studied carefully,
>I haven't seen a single game that was decided by some sort of failure in the
>q-search.  Maybe because I didn't search quite deeply enough, or because I
>mis-evaluated something...  but not because the q-search broke...
>
>but in the above case, I would simply not capture the black pawn.  I would
>first call Evaluate() to produce the stand-pat score, then try the capture.
>At the next ply my opponent captures my queen and returns that score.  I
>decide that doing nothing is better than grabbing the pawn and losing my
>queen, the idea being that instead of grabbing the pawn I can save the
>queen.  Which doesn't seem to cause problems except in rare cases where a
>piece is really trapped and it doesn't realize this...

Thank you!  I understand now.



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.